Greenwich

I was in London. (I know, it’s not particularly unusual.) I had a bit of spare time and it was a beautiful day, so I decided to visit Greenwich.

The sky was blue with puffy white clouds when I descended into the voluminous Bank Street Underground Station. The country had just installed a new government: a coalition between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties. It was unusual for the UK. The Conservatives are ‘Euro-skeptic’ and the Liberal Democrats want to move closer to Europe.

The election was inconclusive. (As Bill Clinton pointed out after the 2000 election in the USA: “The people have spoken: now we just have to figure out what they said.”) The Conservatives elected five times as many MPs (Members of Parliament) as the Liberal Democrats, but they didn’t have a majority – so compromise was necessary. In fact, the UK seems to be moving closer to the Continent which almost always has elections that are inconclusive.
There was heavy theatre as the Liberals, philosophically closer to the Labor Party, considered forming a ‘coalition of the losers’ – even though together they didn’t have a majority. In the end, however, arithmetic won. It will be interesting to see if this actually works.

In any case, I wandered through the long tunnels in Bank Street Station and (eventually) found the DLR to Greenwich. When I arrived, it was raining – heavily. The shuttle to the observatory was not to be found and the Cutty Sark was hidden. (It was being repaired after a fire.) I purchased a cheap umbrella and started walking – discovering along the way that the umbrella was too cheap.

(In fairness, I admit that even an expensive umbrella would have provided little shelter from rain that was descending to terra firma in a fast, but for the most part, horizontal stream. It was windy. I gave up and returned to The City.

I was disgorged from the Bank Street Station into sunny weather: blue skies and puffy white clouds. I considered going back to the office – for about a nanosecond.

The photo is from Greenwich and was located in The Martin Family Archives.