May 20, 2026

Dateline: London, England

The Northwest Marine climate system that I grew up with has been in full evidence today. It’s cloudy and a lovely temperature. The sun comes out and it gets too hot and off comes the extra layer. It clouds up again. It spits rain for ten minutes. Maybe the climate is one of the reasons I love this city so much. Well that and affordable theater tickets. And an international ambiance. And two thousand years of sustained history. And every other block bringing some cultural allusion or other to mind.

After a light breakfast, I met David Pohler at Buckingham Palace in time for the Changing of the Guard… which wasn’t. Apparently they weren’t feeling it today or something so only a dozen horse guards wandered down the boulevard and that was it. I still quoted my A A Milne “They’re changing guards at Buckingham Palace. Christopher Robin went down with Alice. Alice is marrying one of the guards. ‘A soldier’s life is terribly hard’ says Alice. As we wandered down to Victoria Station in search of a pub, we were treated to a file of elderly Korean ladies in red hats playing ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ on some sort of electric kazoos marching for Jesus. It almost made up for the canceled changing of the guard, not quite.

Fortified with a pint, our next stop was the King’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace where David had scored us tickets to a special exhibit of Elizabeth II’s wardrobe over her nearly century of life. Everything from her christening gown to her wedding dress to her coronation dress to decades of evening dresses for diplomatic affairs to the matching bright colored dress/coat/hat ensembles she favored in later years. It was very impressive seeing how her fashions and sense of style changed over the years and being able to look closely at the details of the embroidery and beading. The various news photos of her wearing them over the years sent me back on a Cooks Tour of my memories of her from boyhood on. I think I first became aware of her from my maternal grandparents, who always remained British citizens and staunch monarchists. They would bring me magazines on the doings of the Royals when they came to visit.

Then a walk up the Mall and through Trafalgar Square with some West End window shopping and a late lunch/early dinner at Dishoom Covent Garden which has become one of my favorite restaurants and I try to eat at least one meal there per London trip. David then went off to do things with his other half while I went back to the hotel and took a brief nap before setting out for the theatre. My choice this evening was the long running Witness for the Prosecution which I had heard good things about but had not yet seen. It’s immersively staged in an opulent, but no longer used court room at London County Hall, just across the Thames from the Houses of Parliament and next door to the London Eye. The audience sits in the spectator’s seats and there’s a three quarter thrust stage built from the judge’s bench which is large enough to be a good playing area and where they can easily set up and take down the non-courtroom scenes. One goes for the experience, and the Agatha Christie mystery (which I have known the solution to since I first read the short story when I was about twelve), not for brilliant acting. The cast were perfectly serviceable but none gave a performance that I would call exceptional. The sound and light team deserve kudos however as I could hear every word in a space not designed for performance acoustics and the lights helped us define where we were at all times and helped with mood and suspense. Afterwards, a walk back towards Westminster to admire the city at night and then back to the hotel. Tomorrow is the last full London day. I have a lot of things planned. And so, to bed.