Lord Mayor's Parade!

(Photos: K-9 troops; fancy carriage in front of St . Paul's; horsies! ; the St. Paul's ceremony thing; slides at the Tate Modern; assorted fireworks things)

Right. Well this happened a long time ago and i cannot remember it quite so well...so yes we'll see how it goes:

Saturday morning ( 11 November 2006) we awoke early to go line up along the street by St. Paul's in order to watch the Lord Mayor's Parade. My friend Antonia agreed to go with me, since for some reason a lot of people don't seem to be so interested in these sorts of cultural, historical things. I am.

This year the Lord Mayors Parade happened to occur on armistice day, so people who wore red poppies in remembrance all week were invited to toss them in the trafalgar square fountains. I feel this would have been quite lovely. Too bad i did not get a chance to walk by it...

The parade itself occurs every year with the purpose of welcoming the new lord mayor, who is, surprisningly elected every year. I believe the qualifications for being lord mayor are : rich, old, important, lots of experience in the guildhall or things like that. Well you have to be rich and old-ish, i know that much. So yes, we got to the very crowded St. Paul's tube station at about 10:20 and found a nice spot along the barrier facing St. Paul's Cathedral, next to two british men and a family with two british kids. After some consideration, i decided to buy a Union Jack flag that was being sold by various venders, only to see a man selling the English flag two minutes later. Argh. Oh well, the union jack is still cool. I waved it and i enjoyed myself. Antonia bought a "snake" or "worm" which was pretty much a spotted piece of fuzzy cloth with eyes a tongue on the end of a bouncy plastic stick. She had fun waving it about like the small children next to us. I was proud, but i also laughed at her.

The parade was set to start at 11:02, after a two minute moment of silence for the veterans. The way they began and ended this ritual was with an air show. That's what it was called at least. It was actually a pretty inspirational moment, for as three military planes flew overhead the crows, silence grew among the streets of london. The engines died down in the distance and no noise could be heard except the leaves of the autmn trees. 2 minutes late, two military choppers flew over, ending the silence. It was pretty awesome overall.

It took about another 15 minutes before the parade reached us, and it was about 2 hours before it was done, i think. The parade was so wonderfully British, it made me very happy. There were fancy costumes and uniforms everywhere. I think there was upwards of 200 horses, as well. Well trained horses. They were not afraid of manholes or of pavement that changes to a different color. Not that our mules aren't wonderful, i am just merely pointing out the greatness of these horses. Many carriages were actually pulled by two horses with one man astride a horse, leading them both, and no driver. It looked difficult but i really have no idea what that sort of thing entails. Marching bands were all over the place and there were bagpipers in kilts, everything you could have wanted in a parade. And since we are in England, it would not be right unless there were crazy costumes and uniforms for everyone from the 12 big company guilds and political leaders and other important people.

My possible favorite moments of the parade:

An elderly ish man walks by in fancy dress and carrying a pole and says in a lovely British accent : " Oh don't worry, we're fine, we've only done ten miles so far..."

The military men carrying large rifles complete with frightening bayonets pass by and one nods and says " good moooorrning" whilst walking with the gun pointed towards us. I found the juxtaposition of that quite amusing.

There were also two schnauzers in the parade. I miss my schnauzer.

Then of course there was the man of the hour, the lord mayor himself, who not only wore funny clothes and a big wig, but got to ride in a snazzy golden carriage pulled by lovely horses. He leaned out and waved to our side and all the Brits were excited. I was excited too. I will be calling myself a Brit soon hopefully.

After the procession had past the point we were standing at, we ran around the corner past the small funfair of ferris wheels, rides, and cotton candy , i n order to watch the quick ceremony that took place in front of St. Paul's. I videotaped this using my friend's great camera and my unusual height. It was here, in this fateful place and time, that i lost my glove. I think that is the saddest thing in the world. Seeing one lonely glove on the street makes me want to cry. My heart goes out to you thinsulate glove, i hope you make a poor one handed person very happy someday.

After this, he goes on to the Royal Courts of Justice, but we did not watch that for that is much longer and more involved. Instead we continued on with our day and went to the Tate Modern, which is actually an old power plant converted to house all sorts of modern art. I don't know how much news this had made outside the UK, but perhaps you have heard of the big slides at the Tate? Carsten Hoeller installed these huge winding slides not too long ago, there is one that goes from every floor down to the bottom level and it is a huge hit. I haven't actually gone on them because you need to get tickets in advance, though they are free. I am going to try to do it before i leave...that's some fun modern art there. Most of the art there did not impress me, for i am not a big fan of modern art, surprise surprise. We saw some of those silly solid colored canvases and i rolled my eyes and walked on. However, there were two exhibits i really liked. First was a series of seven chalkboard panels upon which a nautical story was depicted using chalk . This was by Tacita Dean and entitled "The Roaring Forties: Seven Boards in Seven Days." It sounds simple, but it was quite innovative and well done. The other exhibit i stared at for longer than i should have was a series of many flags in plexiglass boxes created with mulitcoloured sand. All were interconnected by small tubes and when you looked at it, some of the sand had run together into other boxes, distorting the flags a bit. When i looked closer to find out how it was done, i discovered, to my slight disgust that the artist ( whose name i cannot find) set a bunch of ants loose and let them walk throughout the flags ,creating the desired effect. Luckily the ants were gone by this point and all that was left was good old insect free fun.

After we tired of the museum (and saw pretty much all of it except for the things that cost money), we went outside to try to figure out our dinner situation. Seeing as we are both cheap we wound up splitting a sandwich at the National Theatre Cafe because it was the last thing we came across and we got desperate. It was food. We then wasted some time in the National Theatre bookstore until it was closer to the time when we wanted to venture back into the windy cold weather in order to get a good spot along the Thames for the fireworks that were in honor of the parade.

Antonia decided she wanted to sit on a bench, but i like to watch them being shot off from the boat so i stood behind some people by the rail of the river. I was still holding my British flag at this time, and as i tried to fit it into my bag, i apparently poked this woman in the bum for a fairly considerable amount of time. It took me a few seconds to realize this and then i quickly recoiled and apologized profusely. I turned to look at my friend who mouther " did you just poke her?!" and i nodded sheepishly. She proceeded to laugh at me for a few minutes until she got it out of her system. It was quite amusing. No one is as awkward as me.

The fireworks were quite good, not as good as Ally Pally, but lovely nonetheless. It was quite awesome to see them shot off from the boat itself, though it seemed less than safe. I thought for a minute the boat had set fire , but no worries, it was just large flames lighting the fireworks. They were lovely.

On the way home we passed the London Eye, quite nice looking all lit up at night, though i have not gone on it, and continued on to Waterloo Station. We got off the tube at Baker Street and walked..next door.. to the Metropolitan Pub. We randomly met up with two of our friends and ate with them, i had a yummy pie. Then its back to the school to do assorted things i can't remember. The end.