Yesterday, I spent some time with several Georges and a William, Gustav Holst, Virginia Woolf, Kitchener and Winston Churchill. Oh, and Edith Cavell.
As some of you may have guessed, I'm talking about the National Portrait Gallery.
Before going there, I spent some time in Foyle's famed bookstore on Charing Cross Road, buying books on Iraq, Islam and terror for a good friend who's going on assignment to Baghdad. I also bought myself the first of Simon Schama's three-volume history of Britain (a good read so far).
Then, with two bags of books weighing me down, I walked down Charing Cross Road to the (relatively) newly pedestrianized north side of Trafalgar Square. After briefly admiring it -- and taking some pictures of two fellow Americans-in-London in Hinckley, Ill., T-shirts -- I headed for the gallery. I really like this place. It's a great way to learn British history through some of its most celebrated leaders, artists, poets, explorers and writers.
Edith Cavell -- shot by the Germans occupying Brussels during World War I after she helped Allied troops escape from a military hospital there -- has a monument just outside the Portrait Gallery. It was recently cleaned up, and the gallery had a small but nice exhibit dedicated to her.
The gallery also is putting on its annual BP Portrait Competition, which features portraits of mostly ordinary people. Some are conventional, many are anything but.
Later, I went to my favourite cafe near Trafalgar: the Cafe in the Crypt, which is in the crypt of St. Martin's in the Fields. I had coffee and a scone, but I strongly recommend their lunch deal, a bowl of soup and pudding (dessert) for a very reasonable charge.
