London & Bristol

Scurried down to London for Kylie's birthday party on a Friday night.
Met up with the lovely MJ and the lovely Paul and headed to Clapham for a bit of the usual shenanigans, spurred on by cachaça warm-up rounds at MJs:

Here's the birthday girl:

Home via Chicken Cottage (Clapham Brick Lane curry for me):

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Up bright and early the following morning, had the remainder of the curry for breakfast and hit the road. We diverged at Victoria: MJ south to Brighton and I west to Bristol - twas a teary farewell I assure thee.

No sooner than i'd finished the Review section of the Guardian, i arrived at Bristol Temple Meads, then bussed into town. After some confusion related in part to Tim's unfamiliarity with his adopted home city and in bigger part to my general incompetence regarding public transport, maps, directions and instructions, we were eventually united. Joyfully so.

Had a look around the waterfront and the Arnolfini, a contemporary art space on the docks.

Up the hill to the City Museum & Art Gallery

There was a touring exhibition on from the National Gallery entitled Passion for Paint. Tim was really impressed at my correct identification of a painting as a Rubens,

though the works of Ian Davenport

and Raqib Shaw were more to his taste.

The permanent collection featured a lot of Victorian stuff as well as a fair bit of earlier Dutch & Italian work, results of Bristol's relatively early prosperity as compared with other British cities like Liverpool, Cardiff and Manchester.

Arted out, we passed by the Royal West of England Academy and continued toward Tim's house,

then headed out to see the Clifton Suspension Bridge, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel at the ripe old age of 23.

Reflecting on our own engineering achievements by that age, predicting crack-growth in pieces of ceramic and computer modelling of car suspensions seem a touch unheroic. Reminded ourselves reassuringly that engineering was easier back then cos they didn't have to waste time with computers and safety guidelines and stuff.

Back to Tim's for a fine Thai prawn & pineapple curry, courtesy of him, washed down with a couple of cold ones. While intentions to go out on the town had been voiced, our discussions on the aerospace industry, declinology, the Byzantine empire, the burgeoning breakcore and dubstep scenes, how utterly unbearable the weather is in England, the inevitable complications associated with romantically-related activities, production of electronic music, Brunel and the Great Eastern, formalising and codifying of language, quantum mechanical explanations in neuroscience and so-on-and-so-forth, lasted sufficiently long, to the tune of 10 beers each, that, at at their conclusion, it was deemed time to go to bed.
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Woke up next to a boa constrictor the next morning,

It, along with python, is the pet of Tim's housemate, and was thankfully still contained in its terrarium. Went out to get some brekky. Walked through the University of Bristol,

admiring the grandeur of their physics department - even grander than UWA's which mind you is the tallest building on the campus and a fine example of concrete nouveau.

Had a lookee at the Red Lodge, which i'm told is where Queen Elizabeth used to stay when she visited Bristol. It was built in 16c and has been variously renovated and modified since.

The south-facing, walled garden exemplifies a re-creation of an Elizabethan-style knot garden with herbaceous borders, circa 1630.

The house had been used for charitable purposes in the Victorian era,

which provoked us to reflect on how many young girls we ourselves had rescued from sin and misery, and brought back to the paths of holiness. Not many.

Walked south, around the town centre,

and crossed the river,

on our way to the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum.

A fine display of the historical, political, economic and cultural aspects of Britain's hegemony over most of the world. Still as post-colonial reverse migrants, these issues are close to home.
One of the rooms, allegedly the work of the great Brunel, was somewhat less inspiring than the Clifton Suspension Bridge.Had a few pints at The Reckless Engineer, apparently yet another celebratory allusion to Brunel, Bristol's favourite (adopted, he was born in Portsmouth) son,
then bade Tim, Bristol's second favourite adopted son, farewell,

and at 6:15 began the mission home, which finally ended at about 12:45, coinciding nicely with my sobering up. The monotony of transit was ameliorated by further reflections on the British empire theme courtesy of Niall Ferguson's fine book "Empire". Top trip.