A day out in London

On Wednesday, I had a day out in London. Such excursions are always a somewhat mixed experience because whilst I enjoy the things I visit, I find London a fairly miserable palce to travel around and the people less than friendly. This was actually my second London visit in two weeks, having attended my sister's graduation in the Albert Hall last week.

My aims for the day were two-fold. Firstly, I needed a minor repair to my Howarth oboe (I play an S20), which meant leaving it at their shop in Chiltern Street and then collecting it in the afternoon. Secondly, I wanted to research the medicinal/cosmetic uses of a particular fern species. I was pleased to gain access to two important libraries - the Lindley library (Royal Horticultural Society) in Vincent Square and the Botany Library at the Natural History Museum. This was time well spent and I returned with 7 A4 sides of notes. Both libraries were welcoming and friendly (not a universal experience, as visitors to some of Oxford's libraries will know only too well) and I was pleased to be given access to material that otherwise would be difficult for me to read. One of the things I most miss about Oxford is not having ready access to good library facilities; to adapt Kenneth Graham - there's simply nothing half so much worth doing as simply reading around in libraries.

Getting around proved easy in the morning, but difficult in the afternoon, mainly because the police had elected to shut park lane (N) for no obvious reason. I ended up walking from Hyde Park corner to Howarth (near Marylbone) and then back to Waterloo. Fortunately this did take me down Charing Cross Road and I was able to buy some sheet music from Foyles.

I really don't know how people can stand to commute into London every day.

Giant molecules

I recently reviewed Walter Gratzer's book Giant Molecules - from Nylon to nanotubes (OUP, 2009) for Education in Chemistry.

You can read the review here.