This afternoon, after consuming some fish curry, and working on my article for The Wanderer, I went off to the Imprrial War Museum. Very well designed and interesting.
Then into the centro… What do Londoners call the center … er um … centre of towne?
I am presently enjoying a pint.
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “Voyager 2 launched on 20 August 1977, from Cape Canaveral. Voyager 1 launched from Cape Canaveral on 5 September 1977.…”
on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “Now this is very interesting. Not just looking up at some small dots of light overhead!”
on ROME 24/4– Day 34 (-7): The burial place of… PLATO?!?: “The final resting place of Plato puts me in mind of a memorable excerpt I once read about Aristotle in…”
on ROME 24/4– Day 34 (-7): The burial place of… PLATO?!?: “Someone pointed out the St. George’s Day Google Doodle with its background account to me – with one of the…”
on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: ““George Farmer, aka Candace Owen’s husband. He is a revert” If I’m reading the interview correctly, first a convert, then…”
on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “Not to detract from anything Imrahill said, but well, the papally-attested infallible ordinary magisterium about a catholic truth, not the…”
on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “Understatement of the year: they don’t make them like that anymore!”
on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “What happened to Voyager 2? And what sort of “science” data will Voyager 1 soon be able to resume transmitting?…”
on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “Not too shabby for a 77’ model.”
on ROME 24/4– Day 34 (-7): The burial place of… PLATO?!?: “My baptismal anniversary. I’m mostly Scottish/Irish Catholic, birthed and educated by the Mercy Sisters during the height of the Troubles.…”
on ROME 24/4– Day 35 (-6): adventures in symmetry: “Father, it was perfect symmetry for two people. One cup handle facing one way and the other the other way.” on ROME 24/4– Day 35 (-6): adventures in symmetry: “From a reader: “What are in the frames between the vestments?” Those are the priest’s vesting prayers. I’ll show more…”
on WDTPRS: 4th Sunday of Easter (Novus Ordo) – Mighty humble Shepherd, humble mighty flock: “Fr Z you are an inspiration in your knowledge about and love for the things of God and the church.…” on ROME 24/4– Day 32 (-9): Happy Birthday Rome!: “Holy cow that pasta. I wish we had smell-o-vision and taste-o-vision.”
on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “The German grind continues. It is in their nature.”
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since Sat., 25 Nov. 2006:
“. . . I went off to the Imprrial War Museum.”
Here I am just laughing, picturing militant cats because of your typo.
Fr Z.,
Ring me when you can, I don’t have number.
Fr Z.,
Ring me when you can, I don’t have your number.
Ah Father a pint of Bombardier, “Drink of England”! My favourite and a source of much amusement at university once. A few of us were having a quiet drink when we sent one of our friends to the bar to order the next round. We somehow convinced her that it was a French beer and thus best pronounced in a French accent. Needless to say there was much laughing all round.
All the very best for the remainder of the trip Father, looking forward to pictures from the blognic!
Someday I hope to visit that museum, before tourists are required either to make Shahada or pay pro-rated Jizyat as a condition of entry to the UC (United Caliphate).
The new Falklands exhibition in the museum is particularly worth a visit.
The Cabinet War Rooms are fascinating, if you’re interested in WWII history and Churchilliana.
I did my admissions interviews at Oxford with a splitting headache, after drinking Bombardier the evening before. I got in anyway, and it provided me with ample warning as to the condition that the College Bar kept its beers in, so perhaps it was all for the best. Still, two pints of anything shouldn’t have that effect, and I’ve never felt like trying it again…
Fr. Z,
I just met a priest in Lourdes from England who reads your blog. He is a young 38 years old and prayed a most reverent Mass. His name is Fr. Jan Nowotnik and he is half English and half Polish. He is a parish priest at St. Augustine of Canterbury , Meir and St. Mary, Cresswell. He wanted me to email you and let you know that there are young priests on fire for the Latin Mass in England!
Blessings, Lori
“The centre” or just “into town”, I supppose. (We definitely don’t say “downtown” in the way that some Americans do, anyway)
Bombardier….not my favourite to be honest (not least as the brewery that makes it closed down the 2nd last big brewery in London just a couple of years ago, Young’s…) – they had some great adverts on the tube a few years ago…in a kind of aggressively patriotic fashion
Strange thing: there’s a Belarusian war memorial outside that museum (the building of which used to be a lunatic asylum – not the original, but a subsequent incarnation of Bedlam/Bethlehem Hospital).
I’m glad you’re making the most of our wonderful capital, though, Father (I’m really not sure about this going “south of the river” thing, mind, imperial war museum having been relocated there from South Kensington an age ago or not): I’d recommend the London Pride, the Chiswick Bitter, and the ESB…
Is it possible to be homesick for a place in which you’ve never lived?
I had the pleasure of visiting London several times a few years ago for work and was captivated by it.
Did you visit old St. George’s Cathedral across the street from the museum, Father? It was destroyed by bombers in WWII and never rebuilt to its pre-war French Gothic grandeur, but it’s worth visiting all the same.
http://www.southwark-rc-cathedral.org.uk/cathedral/index.htm
Interesting question. There’s greater London and central London, and you were definitely in central London. “Downtown” can really only apply when the town, like London, is multicentric. Anywhere else and it would just be “into town” or “the centre of town.” My guess is that it originated in re New York, where the central business district, at least early on, before Manhattan became truly multicentric, was literally located “down,” or south. Wikipedia bears this out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown Philly, which got big before and then concurrent with NYC, has a “center city,” not a “downtown.”
The central business (law and finance) district in London is “the City,” the Square Mile inside London’s medieval borders. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London Manhattan and San Francisco are the two American cities known as “the City.”
I think you were in Whitehall. Part of the City of Westminster, but not “Westminster,” which refers to the area around Parliament and the Abbey. Did you go into the City after? If one was outside central London and then ventured into central London, one could either say “I went to [name of neighborhood].” or, if one visited more than one neighborhood, “I went to central London.” If one was in the country outside greater London, and old school, one could say, “I went to town.”
Here’s an interesting discussion on whether one “comes up” or “goes down” to London. http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=236330
Forgive the pompous twittery. I haven’t been to London in five years and I miss it. One does, doesn’t one?
Boko’s right. Of course, the English would prefer to use ‘currently’, rather than ‘presently’, which still retains the meaning that it did in the US in Melville’s time – a meaning conveyed nowadays in the States by the use of the word ‘momentarily’. I remember being told on an American airline that the ‘plane would be in the air momentarily’ which I found very scary indeed.
I’d recommend the Soames museum for sheer fun.
Don’t forget that one always goes “UP to town” when one goes to London, no matter how far north one lives.
Except, however, if you go one of the ancient universities, in which case you go UP to Oxford or Cambridge from London, if that’s where you happen to be living. And you stay there until you graduate, unless you’re SENT DOWN for doing something reprehensible.
So, that’s clear then? You always go UP to the TOWN, never DOWNTOWN or DOWN to the CITY (which is but a small part of the TOWN), unless you go UP to OXFORD or CAMBRIDGE, whence you may or may not be SENT DOWN.
Not confusing in any way whatsoever.
They most certainly do, LBS. Goodness only knows how we expect non-British visitors to understand passenger announcement gems such as “The next down train will be fast to Twyford” or “Up passengers please be aware of delays due to ducks on the down line at Dorney Reach.”
Snigger : Remember the famous Dr Spooner sketch? “You have tasted three whole worms and you will leave by the next town drain.”