When there is nothing to do on Sunday, I can always head across Hyde Park to the Speaker’s Corner. Many of the speakers are repeat performers, they come with their stepladder every week, just like other people go fishing. The listeners are usually no more than a hundred or two and I doubt that many are regulars.
(Click on the picture to see it full size, use a back button to return to this spot.) It becomes quickly obvious that it helps to have a gimmick to attract an audience. Israeli flag is a solid draw, strange costume helps as well. Even though this time, the largest crowd of people was around a rather non-descript speaker. He, however, had the ability to needle his audience and had an entertaining streak. Did you know that Bin Laden is living in London? Yes, apparently he drives a double decker bus.

On the other hand there are a lot of things to do on Sundays. Last week I decided to go and have a look at Winchester. The weather has been quite reasonable recently, dry and not too cold. However, as I headed out in the morning rain and drizzle got upper hand. Rather than going back to bed and thinking of an alternate activity I decided to gamble on the weather to develop more along the drizzle lines than rainy lines and I went on to Paddington.

Winchester is of course famous for its cathedral. Winchester used to be the capital of England during the time of the Saxon kingdoms. The cathedral (or its predecessor) dates from those times. The present building was started by the Normans and it is spectacular. Winchester also has King Arthur’s table, but since it was made in the 12th century, it is just an old fake. The militia who was doing a pike and musket demonstration was really recruiting new members. The floor tiles (from the cathedral) are also very old.

Back in London, I had the opportunity to go and see the “kinoautomat” an interactive Czech movie presented 40 years ago at the Montreal World Exhibition, where it turned out to be quite popular. At the time we heard about it in Prague but I never got a chance to see it. The British premiere, 40 years later, was an opportunity not to be missed. The film was quite clever and entertaining and surprisingly the cinema was full. I almost did not get it, but for a girl who was standing by the ticket office trying to sell a ticket she did not need. Big surprise was that most of the people in the theater were Czech, I never realized there were so many in London. There must be lot of them but they are well camouflaged. The other day I had to go and get a haircut (I let my hear grow a little to help with temperature control during the cold winter days). It turned out that the girl who cut my hair was Slovak. I often go to the same Starbucks store on Piccadilly, and since I often come at the same time and always have the same thing, the staff knows me and have my order ready before I come to the counter. I found out today, after almost a year, that they are Czech too. That brings to mind the memorable statement from Svejk: “Let’s be Czech, I am also Czech, but nobody needs to know about it.”

You have probably never heard of Ely. Well, until last week neither had I. But I kept reading about its famous cathedral and decided to go and have a look for myself. Ely lies north of Cambridge. It is a tiny town with an absolutely huge cathedral. Originally it was a monastery built on a little island in the middle of a large swamp. When the Normans invaded England, it was the last area where the Saxons were able to fight back, mainly due to the impassability of the swamp. When the Normans finally conquered it they tore down the church and decided to show off by building a massive cathedral. It is truly impressive and the cool, misty overcast day created a very good atmosphere and kept most tourists away.

The unique feature of the cathedral is the central tower. The original one collapsed and when it was rebuilt it ended up with a large wooden dome. The good thing is that it is possible to go up to the tower, look down into the cathedral and also take a walk on the roof and get a birds eye view of Ely. The cathedral and the monastery survived the reformation rather well, except that all the stained glass windows were smashed, statues destroyed and even the small carvings of saints had at least their heads knocked off.

Just wandering through I came across a grave stone of dean Tyndall, who apparently was an heir to the Czech throne but decided he did not want it. Will have to look him up on the internet. History might have turned out differently if Bohemia had had a protestant king at that point in time.