Sunday August 1st
Today no one got up too early. Hamish had offered to show us around the brand new £6.5 million band room on the base, so we met him at the gate and he signed us all in at 10am. Words really can’t describe it. You have to see it to believe it. Everything has been thought of and it has been future proofed. Let’s hope the current Defence review doesn’t result in the demise of the band because it will be one huge white elephant if that happens. Mind you after the stunning display of public duties yesterday that is not likely.
The main room where Hamish’s band rehearses is also a complete recording studio all wired for sound. There are practice rooms with double doors so they are pretty much sound proof, storage rooms, computer rooms and great changing and storage facilities complete with plenty of showers.
We then caught the tube into London with Joyce and she went on to catch her train back to Cheshire. We went into Oxford St to briefly look at the shops. I must have completely managed to shed my tourist image as I had people stopping and asking me directions. We then went around to St Paul’s Cathedral for 3.15 Evensong and a free organ recital at 4.45. It was lovely just sitting in the great building and resting and listening to wonderful music.
Friday saw the launch of the “Boris Bikes” around London. There are docking stations in central places where you can grab a bike use it then and return them. You need to be a registered user and once you have signed up you get an electronic key. The access fee is £1 a day, £5 a week or £45 a year plus £3 for the key. The first half hour is free, and then there are hire charges of up to £6 for two hours. Registered users will be charged monthly and casual users after returning the bike. It is almost a free way to cycle as registered users annual subscription is 12p a day and as long as you never cycle for more than 30 mins it is free. You can’t lock a bike to lamppost, and if you have trouble redocking you get an extra 15mins to ride it to the next docking station. All the bikes are plastered with Barclays bank advertising that have sponsored the scheme to the tune of £25 million. The bikes are not state of the art and are slower to ride than one you might buy yourself. They have been made deliberately unattractive to deter theft; a problem they have had in other countries where the scheme has already been trialled. It is all part of the transport for London network and has the iconic London transport logo on them in blue. Casual users such as tourists will be able to use the bikes by the end of the month. On Friday the day of the launch, 4,700 bikes were in place in 315 docking stations at 6am, falling short of the promised 6,000 in 400 docking stations. Boris Johnson said, “Everyone must realise these bikes belong to everybody- this is a partially a Communist experiment.”
Interestingly, you do not have to wear a cycle helmet anywhere in England when cycling. This is quite amazing in a society obsessed with health and safety. At a National Trust property last week there was a sign on a cobbled path that said, Caution, this surface is uneven. Another place had a sign over the hot water tap: Caution, very hot water. Surely riding a bike around London in between double decker buses and London taxis is far more dangerous than walking along a path at a cottage or washing ones hands in rest room.
In the evening we walked over to Hamish's room to get some free broadband and catch up with mail and blog. We also planned the trip to France for Wednesday and where we would meet up.
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