The Professor's Wife: The National Portrait Gallery and Chinatown

Spoiler Alert: I used a picture from the National Portrait Gallery page and now cannot delete the brown rectangle left behind. I have tried everything I can think of short of apologizing to the museum. I cannot remove the brown rectangle which moves around the page and covers other information. Instead of deleting the entire blog entry, I have chosen to accept my punishment for not giving credit to the page. Good luck navigating around the brown blot.

Walking through Hyde Park. Hyde Park Corner has many memorials, including one for

Canada which we have not seen.

Memorial topped with howitzer

Artist Charles Sergeant Jagger

The Captain

When we visited the artillery memorial for WW I yesterday we did not look at the other two sides which depict the fallen soldier cover by his "great coat" and shell carrier.

This link indicates that although the memorial was made in 1925 with the dead soldier covered with his coat, it was not until 1949 that the other figures were added in recognition of the sacrifices made by those who served in World War II.

Veterans of the first war were very critical of the work done by Jagger. They felt that the memorial glorified war and should have emphasized peace. Today I am grateful for this memorial that reminds of the brutality of war.

The Driver

Wellington Arch

During the Battle of Britain or the Blitz, so many young men flew on missions to protect their nation

and never came back. Great courage or foolhardiness? But they kept the German forces

from British soil

Speaking of them Winston Churchill said, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

"Never was so much by so many was a wartime speech made by the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on 20 August 1940. The name stems from the specific line in the speech, Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few, referring to the ongoing efforts of the Royal Air Force crews who were at the time fighting the Battle of Britain, the pivotal air battle with the German Luftwaffe with Britain expecting an invasion.

The memorial was dedicated in 2012 by Elizabeth II at the time of her jubilee

The Royal Air Force Bomber Command Memorial is a memorial in Green Park, London, commemorating the crews of RAF Bomber Command who embarked on missions during the Second World War.^[1] The memorial, located on Piccadilly near Hyde Park Corner, was built to mark the sacrifice of 55,573 aircrew from Britain, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Poland and other countries of the Commonwealth,^[2] as well as civilians of all nations killed during raids.^[3]

Queen Elizabeth II unveiled the memorial on 28 June 2012, the year of her Diamond Jubilee.^[4]

Household Cavalry

just riding down the road.

Maybe you can see the gates of Buckingham Palace at the end of the trees if you

look really hard.

Piccadilly Circus

The Shaftesbury Memorial honors a philanthropist with Anteros, the god of unselfish love.

If you can put up with the multitude of popping up advertisements, a fun article to read is about the

11 secrets that are little known about the Shaftesbury fountain.

I am sure it will not be a surprise to anyone that I thought of Will and Lily when I saw these beautiful horses. The statue is one of the first made using aluminum which allowed the artist to

pose a horse on one leg. Now that I have said that I cannot find where I read the information.

While trying to find out information about these horses, I came across a great site with

pictures and info about a lot of London sites. 11 Secret walks I didn't see anything about the rearing

horses on Piccadilly but I found information about a lot of spots all over the city.

This picture is for my granddaughters who love to create things with Legos. It is just

off Piccadilly circus.

When I was little I could not understand why this big city had several circuses. I wonder now if my

parents just didn't know that circus was the roman term for a circle.

Shakespeare with "spitting" fountain in Leicester Square.

Shakespeare with ticket booth in the background

While I was at the museum the professor wander around looking for a Chinese food buffet

and snapped a few shots of theatres. The Mousetrap written by Agatha Christie has become a tourist experience after all

of the years that it has been playing in London

Chinatown

We took this picture because of the street sign. My family lived in a tiny house in a

small town called Lisle, Ontario for about 3 or 4 years.

French fries at the Chinese buffet.

Across from the Lego store is an M & M store.

The sign says it is the sweetest store in London.

That is a blue M & M driving the London bus.

Today we got on bus 23 going towards Westbourne Park. The correct direction. It is fun

to ride the bus and watch the city go by instead of zipping underground on the tube.

National Portrait gallery

I did not have a camera with me but I saw no one taking any pictures even without flashes they might be more strict than other museums. You will be surprised to learn that this portrait gallery looks a lot like other ones I have visited. I wasn't thinking and spent too much time looking at the Tudors when I should have been looking at portraits (painted and photographed) from the 19th and 20th century.