Living in London

Today is a bank holiday in the U.K. What are bank holidays? See answer here

The British are disturbed that they have so many fewer holidays, and days off from work, when compared to the rest of Europe (a comparison they are loathe to make on any other topic by the way). They have actually taken a poll about what would be some good dates for additional public holidays.

"We work the longest hours, and have the fewest public holidays. It’s about time we caught up with the rest of Europe in the holiday stakes. So we asked the Great British Public which one it should be, and this is what nearly 20,000 of you told us: Results

"Commenting on the poll results, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “In the past, bosses have wildly exaggerated the costs of introducing more bank holidays, but our calculations suggest that the UK can well afford to bring in extra days. If we all were able to take a few extra days off work, rather than losing out, employers would benefit from less-stressed, more contented, productive staff."

Today we took a tour of London’s East End. This is the area that was originally to the east of the old Roman Londonium, where the winds would blow the smells from the tannery, the crematorium, and others away from the old city. It has strong parallels to the New York’s Lower East Side, including the City (London’s Wall Street), a rich Jewish history (here bookended by large communities of Huguenots and Muslims), and interesting markets and street history.

Londonium was surrounded by a wall, built originially by the Romans and added to over the years. Here is a picture of the last remaining piece of the wall with Sean, our tour guide.

-HrH and LmG

This weekend is Carnival in the Notting Hill area of London. To kick things off, Carnival organizers hold a Percussion Panorama north of Notting Hill. We went there Saturday evening and took these photos. It’s an amazing operation. Each “orchestra” with many, many steel drums and pans, is set up on a flat bad truck. When it is an orchestra’s turn to compete, the truck – rolling with the weight of drums, people, and all their accoutrements – pulls in front of the judge’s stand to play. The truck is absolutely hopping up and down with the energy emanating from the players. They appear to all be high school kids. Quite impressive.

Click to see the photos

On another note, this Carnival has some weird crowd and racial undertones, and the crowd can apparently get quite rowdy and unpredictable. You will see in the photos that many shopkeepers board up their storefronts and close for the weekend. This allows the graffiti artists many new blank canvases on which to work. It was interesting walking around seeing the neighborhood preparations, but we decided that the Percussion Panorama was enough for us.

-HrH and LmG