Ice skating at the Museum of Natural Science and the Tower of London

It was unseasonably cold in the UK last week and though a shock after Oz and SE Asia, that meant I could skate with my kid. There's a rink in front of the Natural history museum, so that's where we went.

Cold but great fun.

After about 40 minutes of going round and round, we decamped to the Tower of London.
Its an open air museum in the middle of the city and its foundations date to the Roman settlement in England. Besides being the depository of the Crown Jewels, successive kings have used it as a means to control the Thames (and thereby London) as well as repository for traitors, pretenders to the throne and wives incapable of bearing sons.

The last Famous prisoner to be held in the Tower was Herman Hess, who stayed there for a couple of days after parachuting into the UK during WWII.

The "Tower" of London is actually a series of Towers, walls and fortified keeps constructed, extended and rebuilt over 500 years or so. Its infamy stems from the famous be-headings (most notably former Queens), but executions within its wall were few in number. Only the most distinguished felon was afforded such a relatively private demise. Most condemned were publicly paraded from the Tower to be jeered and pelted with rotten vegetables by the ravenous mob and finally executed at Tower Hill.

The chop of an axe or a sword, though an unpleasant way to be separated from your head was preferable to the usual fate of the condemned.

All did not always go as planned however:

"Death by beheading with the use of the axe could be a terrifying
prospect. The executioners often took several blows before the head was finally
severed. If the executioner' axe was sharp and his aim was true, beheading was
quick and relatively painless. If the instrument was blunt, the axeman
inexperienced or careless, then the execution might take several strokes to
sever the head. This was certainly the case in the execution by beheading of the
brave Countess of Salisbury who was struck eleven times with the axe before she
died."

Being hung, drawn and quartered on Tower Hill for the amusement of the slavering unwashed was the final indignity suffered by those of less than royal blood.

London Bridge (the original of which was transported brick by brick to a resort somewhere in Texas) hosted the severed heads mounted on pikes of those executed outside of the Towers walls.

The heads served as a warning for all those entering London, flesh stripped away by birds, unseeing eye sockets, whistling in the wind.

I'm getting a bit carried away but I wonder if the folks in Texas know the stones of the original have such a grizzly past?

On to more cheerful things:

The picture below, courtesy of my daughter, is of the famous "Ravens of the Tower".

Legend has it that failing to keep ravens the walls will result in the White Tower crumbling and tragedy to befall England.

"In deference to the ancient legend and the decree of King Charles II at least
six ravens are provided with Raven's Lodgings at the Tower of London. A Yeoman
Warder, or Beefeater, has the specific role of Ravenmaster at the Tower and
takes care of their feeding and well being. Ravens can be quite vicious birds
and they only respond to the Ravenmaster. The Ravenmaster builds this
relationship with the ravens as he takes the fledglings into his home and hand
rears them over a period of about six weeks. Ravens live up to an average of 25
years, but have been known to reach the age of 45 years. To prevent the birds
from flying away one of their wings is clipped by the Ravenmaster. This does not hurt or harm the raven in any way. Clipping their wing unbalances their flight ensuring that they don't stray too far from the Tower. Ravens are members of the crow family, Corvus, and are eaters of carrion and live mainly on dead flesh. The Raven's lodgings are located next to the Wakefield Tower and are kept at the Tower of London at the expense of the British government."

They look like common crows to me.

Just another couple of skivers living off benefit I say.

I've learned that 10 year olds take great delight in the macabre. Jess insisted on a picture at the site of most executions within the Tower.

Prisoners within the Tower passed their time much like prisoners do today: scratching graffiti on the walls. The most obvious difference being that 400 years ago they did it in Latin.

That's it for today. Since my last post I've been in Australia and the UK as you can see .

My time in Melbourne didn't lend itself to posting anything so this stuff brings us up to date.

Sadly the recent crazy weather got in the way of seeing Jess on my last weekend in the UK though I hope to catch her before Christmas.

Today (Wednesday) I'm heading for a quick 24 hrs in Chicago then its back to Ann Arbor.

I'll be back in Europe around the 20th.

Its cold.

But that's to be expected.

Its winter

Stop whining.

Love to all

T