I have very little knowledge about trees and flowers, but I quite liked this one at Brompton Cemetery. I obviously didn’t know what the tree was without assistance, but the cemetery had helpfully included a sign mentioning what it was.
The Latin name is Arbutus unedo and the fruit of this tree is apparently edible, although I didn’t try. Wikipedia notes that it’s often used in jams and I don’t disbelieve them on this occasion.
And the tree, quite a handsome addition to the cemetery.
This grave at Brompton Cemetery commemorates the life of Alfred John Weston. He was born in 1896 and he joined the Royal Fusiliers and was a private in the First Battalion. Alfred died on 2 February 1915 at the age of 19, being buried on 6 February 1915. His address was given as St Mark’s College Hospital, Chelsea, which was being used as the Second London General Hospital.
There’s no next of kin mentioned on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission web-site, but if I’ve got the right person, at the 1911 census Alfred lived at 53, The Broadway, Ealing, along with his parents Edward Bradley and Elizabeth Bradley, although I’m unsure why the surname differs. His father, a naval pensioner, was thirteen years older than his mother, so I can only assume he remarried.
And there another story ends, the usual places don’t mention what happen to him and his service records aren’t available. Unfortunately, 60% of these service records from the First World War were lost during air raids in the Second World War, so I assume that’s what has happened here. Alfred has also been given a new gravestone recently, although I don’t know the back story to that.
Hopefully one day I’ll find out more about Alfred, it’s sad that a 19-year old died from his injuries likely incurred on a foreign battlefield and there’s little known about him. At least his body was buried in a local cemetery though, something which many families didn’t get.
I had read some reviews of the National Army Museum that their relatively recent expensive (nearly £24 million) refurbishment had dumbed down the museum and removed many of the interesting displays. So, I had made myself pre-annoyed at the museum before I had even visited. That’s the starting point of this expedition….
The welcome at the museum was though friendly and the staff were helpful. Although, without jumping ahead, the only negative was a staff member merrily criticising a customer who had complained as someone who probably wrote in green ink. He proceeded to loudly say how he was proud to ignore the complaint to other staff members, which didn’t exactly give a great impression to visitors. I suspect he could have waited until no other visitors could hear before starting off on his rant. I don’t know what the complaint was, I think I would have liked to though, nothing beats some exciting drama like that (other than chicken bakes).
The displays in the museum were bright, clearly displayed and there were numerous interactive elements. However, the interactive elements hadn’t negatively impacted on the experience and there were plenty to read, see and do. The museum is incidentally free of charge, although pre-booking is required at the moment.
Most of the displays were uncluttered, although I didn’t like how the museum has changed the display of Napoleon’s horse from a dignified display case to shoved in with a load of other items. But, there are bigger things to worry about than a dead horse.
I know that some visitors didn’t like this sort of approach, but I think that the museum is right in that war shouldn’t be glorified. That doesn’t detract from the bravery of the armed forces, but I imagine that most soldiers would rather they didn’t get involved in war zones and having to kill other people. So, questioning whether people could be a soldier seems a sensible approach, it can’t be that easy.
Some interesting statistics.
I’ve written separately about some individual exhibits, not least:
Child’s Shoe from Siege of Cawnpore
Earl of Uxbridge Loses his Leg
Captain Sir Tom Moore Painting
There’s enough here for a visit to last at least two hours, with a cafe on-site for those who want that. Some displays really aren’t entirely suitable for children, but I suppose they can be ushered by quickly. There are elements that should engage children though, particularly the display where visitors can take part in a drill with some sergeant major (or whatever he is) shouting from a video screen.
The museum was founded in 1961 and it’s in a brutalist designed building next to the Royal Hospital at Chelsea. The rebuilding and redesign was substantial, shutting the museum between 2014 and 2017, when it was reopened by HM Queen Elizabeth II.
So, I left not being annoyed, which is always a bonus, as the museum seems quite thoughtfully laid out. It wasn’t particularly busy, so it all felt safe and secure given the current challenging environment. And as for those reviews which said that it apologised for war, I’m not entirely sure that it did, it was more just trying to make people think about what war meant and I’m not sure that’s the same.
More agonies of war at the National Army Museum, this is the shrapnel that severed Serjeant Major Andrew Stockton’s arm in 2006. The museum helpfully note that “pieces of his uniform are still stuck to the distorted metal”. Stockton gave Channel 4’s Alternative Christmas Message a few years ago where he talked about his experiences of being in the military and losing his arm. Not nice, but a reminder of what war is about.
In danger of repeating myself, but I’ll take that risk, this was my third visit to the Ibis at Earl’s Court. A short walk from West Brompton underground station, it’s a huge hotel which is running significantly under occupancy by the looks of it. The receptionist remembered me, although I imagine that there aren’t that many guests to have to recall at the moment. And I probably made some faux pas that made me memorable.
The welcome drink of Leffe, once again, which is something a little different to what is offered by other Ibis hotels. I accept it’s not the most exotic drink that they could have, but it brings some slight excitement to proceedings. Although it wasn’t as good as the drink at the Craft Beer Co at Old Street that I’d had shortly before, but I digress.
Room number 1010 on the tenth floor, which was next door to room 1009 that I had last week (I don’t expect anyone to care about that, but it interests me, which is case again that I need to get out more). This is something that the hotel isn’t doing brilliantly on, which is keeping guests at least slightly apart. If the hotel is near empty, it probably makes sense to put gaps between occupied rooms, not particularly for health reasons, but for noise reasons.
This is a new addition to proceedings, a selection of soaps. Normally these are in dispensers, and they still are in this room, but this was extra and I didn’t have this on my last two visits. Perhaps it’s a welcome gift to reward me for my loyalty, I’ll pretend that to myself. As I’ve drivelled on about before, this is a clean hotel and although it probably needs a little refurbishment, it’s all organised and the staff are suitably helpful. The cleaner was so chatty I struggled to get away, but I appreciated the positive attitude at the hotel.
Given the Government’s announcement about a potential lockdown, well, the Daily Mail’s announcement about a potential lockdown, it might be a while before I’m back at this hotel….
The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….
Money Droppers
This is defined by Grose as “cheats who drop money, which they pretend to find just before some country lad; and by way of giving him a share of their good luck, entice him into a public house, where they and their confederates cheat or rob him of what money he has about him”. This form of confidence trick continues to this day, although I’m not sure that the cheats limit themselves to country lads. The phrase was in use between the mid seventeenth and early twentieth centuries, also sometimes referred to as “gold droppers”.
This sculpture is located where Holland Road and Warwick Road meet and was installed here in 2014. Designed by Simon Hitchens, it’s called ‘Glorious Beauty’ and rather than me explain it, I thought I’d use the information on the artist’s web-site:
“Glorious Beauty is a playful arrangement of natural forms in an urban environment. A man made celebration of nature’s beauty that echoes a piece of the natural world and represents innovation, technology and a fast changing world. The solidity of a large glacial boulder sitting in the urban world has a reassuring permanence to it. Seemingly weightless, balanced on the top of the boulder is a mirrored copy of its form in stainless steel. Simon digitally scanned the boulder and flipped its form to create a mirror image which reflects the size and intricate detail of the original. Standing almost as tall as a double decker bus, its presence is captivating. The surface of Glorious Beauty gives the impression of an endless state of flux, due to the ever-changing distorted reflections in it as people pass by.”
It’s fair to say that there’s more detail there than I would have given. For what it’s worth, I liked it, this country seems to be in an endless state of flux, so perhaps we should plonk this at Whitehall instead. Anyway, I digress. The artist’s focus in general is regarding “how we comprehend the geological and human worlds” and how they work together, an interesting concept.
This plaque marks the site of where Beatrix Potter lived in West Brompton, from when she was born in 1866 until she was married in 1913. The house, at 2 Bolton Gardens, was unfortunately destroyed during bombings in the Second World War. What is perhaps most intriguing is that Potter lived just a short distance from Brompton Cemetery and graves have been discovered there with the same names as some characters from Peter Rabbit. These include names such as Nutkins, McGregor and Jeremiah Fisher, so it’s entirely possible that she named the characters in her books after graves which she had seen.
I muttered and moaned a couple of weeks ago about how the Hard Rock Cafe wasn’t offering a promotion to sole diners. In these times when it’s nice to welcome single diners to restaurants, whether they’re key workers, lonely, unable to go with friends due to tier restrictions, it seems unclear why all group sizes were entitled to 50% off food unless they went alone.
To be fair, I had contacted the Hard Rock Cafe in question and queried it, but they hadn’t replied. But, Hard Rock themselves looked into this for me when they saw my post, and after investigation clarified that this was an initiative and decision led by TripAdvisor’s The Fork and their “Back to the Restaurant”. The Fork’s customer service team denied this, saying that all restaurants as part of their latest campaign decided to exclude sole diners.
This seemed unlikely, so I’ve contacted some of the restaurants and they’ve all replied saying they were never told of this restriction. I was also invited by these restaurants to get the 50% off if dining alone, although that wasn’t quite the point. It has also transpired that Booking.com’s OpenTable has nearly all of the same restaurants and they have included sole diners.
So, this initiative to block sole diners as part of their “Back to the Restaurant” was that of TripAdvisor and The Fork alone. It doesn’t much matter, but I think it’s be more honest of The Fork to admit that it was them that blocked sole diners getting discounts than trying to say it was the restaurants. For The Fork to mess about the reputations of restaurants at this time seems brave.
This is the next outlet of the Craft Beer Co that I’m working around, which seemed to me to have a frontage that didn’t shout out classy crafty beer. It’s in an on-trend area, well sort of, near to Old Street and WhatPub note has previously been called the Canvas Bar, Nelson’s Retreat, Gluepot and the Murphy Tavern. It seems a challenging location to make work, but I suspect the Craft Beer Co can make something of this.
The interior of the bar is minimalistic, retro and also very slightly exciting with those beer pumps. In the past, the left-hand side has been a kitchen area, but it’s all been opened out now.
A sweet little niche area at one end of the pub. The staff member was friendly, welcoming and knowledgeable, with the environment being comfortable and relaxed. I can’t say that there were many other customers, although a few more trickled in as the early Friday evening progressed. They don’t do food themselves here, but they can order pizzas in and I think that’s a decent compromise.
But, this is why I visited, for the beer choice. The glass looks quite empty here, but this is a third of the 8th Anniversary Pecan Cookie Stout from Westbrook Brewing Co, with my previous beer from them at the Beer Merchants being spectacular. This one, which was slightly cheaper, was again beautiful, with a richness of flavour and competing tastes from the pecan and vanilla. OK, I’m getting over-excited again, but this really deserved to be called decadent, smooth, full in flavour and soothing. My friends Gordon, Steve and Bev will mock these words, so I hope they don’t read them, but what do they know about beer……
So, another way above average pub and I’m delighted to see that it’s in the 2021 Good Beer Guide. Indeed, with one exception, every single pub in the chain is in the guide, so I’m delighted that CAMRA has recognised just how good these pubs are. They have a large number of bottles and cans here, but the main selection is so well thought out that I haven’t needed to go looking into that option.
