Parliament, Photos and Paris

 

 I thought I'd upload a few photos of what I've been up to lately. I've been pretty busy but mostly nothing interesting, just insurers, banks, dealing with theft, car, things not working, blah blah, all come at once in one horrible flood. So you'll be glad not to have to read about it!  

However, there have been some nice times, so here are some random pictures of the last month or so. 

The photo below was taken from the terrace at the House of Commons.  K works in Parliament a few days a week and we had lunch with her there the other day.  Parliament is in recess - on holiday - so we didn't see anyone famous but it seemed surprisingly busy inside those hallowed walls - mainly, I think, setting up for conferences.  

 T. has worked a lot on the sound reinforcement in both Commons and Lords (it's thanks to him and his mates that the MPs and onlookers can hear everything that's said so clearly.)  So he knows the building quite well, but I have only been inside a couple of times before. Photography's not allowed in most places, but you can take pictures on the terrace.  Only river views are allowed, which is a pity because the building has just been cleaned, restored and re-gilded and it is the most wonderful sight soaring above and flashing its golden details in the sun.  

You must also not show any of the users of the terrace in your picture.  But I broke that rule by including the two gulls you can see below.  They are enormous and very much users of the terrace - their work is to keep tabs on the plates of chips which diners bring outside. You needed to be vigilant to keep them at bay.      

It was lovely weather with  warm bright sun and fluffy clouds in the sky, and, with the river running past, we loved chatting with K and eating what I must say was not a very good school-dinner type lunch.  And it was, I'll admit, an added bonus not seeing any  politicians!  

Yesterday an old friend, a psychologist, visited from America and we went to see the Freud Museum in Hampstead. This is the house where Sigmund Freud came to escape the Nazi persecution of the Jews in the 1930s.  It was extremely interesting, and although Freud only lived for another year or two after arriving, his daughter Anna continued to live in the house for the rest of her life, and worked hard on her practice there, which involved much pioneering work with children.   

The Nazis demanded a large "tax" to allow Freud to ship his personal possessions to London, but this was paid by a wellwisher, and so his fine collection of antiquities and many personal items are also in the house. Anna kept his study exactly the same as it had been during his lifetime.  This is the famous sofa, with Freud's chair behind it out of the patient's sightline. Although he was ill, he did see a few patients in London.   Apparently he let his patients talk up to ten hours uninterrupted, but Freud did not take notes, he merely listened with great concentration. What a memory he must have had.  

He would, while listening, let his eyes rove over the antiquities,which he felt told him a lot about how the human mind worked.  Here are some of the things he would look at, and there were many more outside camera range. 

One of the unexpected curiosities of the museum was an autobiography of Marilyn Monroe,who was interested in Freud's ideas and actually visited Anna Freud at the house while filming in London in 1956. 

We also finally got around to visiting the newish photography gallery at the V & A museum. The picture selection changes from time to time, but I was pleased to see some originals by Cartier-Bresson, my very favourite photographer of all. The picture of the little boys below would be wonderful even if their running forms and hoop were all that there was. But look closer, and see the elaborate hearse in the background.  Suddenly the photo contrasts the heedless joy of youth with the end of everything, all seen in bright sunshine and shadow.  

The gallery also had a display of autochromes, (early colour photos) dating from before 1920.   The autochrome photographic process was slow and over-elaborate, so eventually failed, as explained on this Wikipedia page.   But the autochromes that have survived are exciting, because they have an immediacy that computer-colorized photos cannot have. A good autochrome can show you what was really there, which can at times be startling and unexpected to our modern eyes. Peoples' clothes are often far brighter than I expected them to be, and this gives a much more modern and "normal" look to many of the group pictures.  Some autochromes, such as those of the beautiful Christina, taken over a 100 years ago, would be exceptionally lovely even if taken today.  

Here is another link displaying autochromes from a collection on the outskirts of Paris, and a little bit about the very interesting owner of the collection, banker Albert Kahn. He was a thoughtful and cultured man, and his personal interests included internationalism and garden design.  His house and garden still exist to the west of the city, in Boulogne-Billancourt, and you can visit. I wished I had known about him only 10 days ago, because we were in Paris then. 

Still, we hope to return, despite quite a few glitches in our Parisian trip, so I hope to visit Kahn's house then.  And I will write about our most recent Parisian escapades in my next post. 

So..... à bientôt!