Originally I'd planned to hit the British Library and hole up to write as well as draw. But then today turned out to be beautifully sunny, so I thought I'd head down Embankment way and find somewhere I could write outside. Once there, I trekked down the river to Big Ben and turned right into Parliament square. Here I ran into the statue of Winston Churchill which had reminded me, during my last visit to England, that some people have a different perspective on history than those who were taught it in the Canadian school system.
Now, that is a pretty nice statue - no doubt. But I remember when I was first looking for it, two and a half years ago, that I basically expected something more akin to Queen Victoria's own monument (pictures of which come later!) and that perhaps it would have neon rims. This is because of the incredible focus on the events of World War Two that I remember from grade through high school, which basically made a pantheon out of the world leaders of that time. To this day I can still tell you more about World War Two than Canada's confederation, Louis Royale and the war of 1812 combined. So when I first saw this, comparatively, humble statue I was stopped right in my tracks. I remember sitting down in the square and thinking over why on earth there were assorted kings and other military leaders (such as good old Nelson) that had monuments which dwarfed Winston's.
Thus a small layer of ethnocentrism was peeled away as I realized that though Winston certainly did his share for England, he didn't conquer great swathes of Asia, reform the church, drive out the French, beat Napoleon at Waterloo, create the house of commons or any number of other huge events in the history of a nation so..soooo much older than good ol' Canada. To be fair though, Winston does get his own museum. But I would like to point out that prior to my seeing his statue for the first time, I had just seen the statue of the man who invented Sunday school and it was about the same size!
Besides, there's even some American guy with a larger monument!
From here you can also see and explore Westminster Abby - so I did, if only a little.
I rather liked the Dean's courtyard, though I'm not sure this picture does it justice. The grass is taped off to keep the public from grinding the grass to death under their feet - no major crimes have happened here in a few centuries.
I also checked out the gift shop and amongst the largely standard fare I found some really neat marble tile fridge magnets with pictures of central London on them. They really appealed to that part of me which enjoys seeing the present looking back from a far future, post-apocalyptic stance.
After this I headed on over to St. James Park - I'll post about that later today, a man can only sit in front of a computer so much on a sunny Saturday!
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