Tower of Awesome

 

There have been many great days on this trip, with many "that was the best day evers", but this one was "the best day ever as voted by 4 out of 4.

 

• Tower of London
• Married to Jewels (Jooles).
• Charlie did not bit my finger (although the wallet is much emptier).

 

 

 

Started the day (as you do) in Homage to the great ye olde English lolly shop (Hi Ellen). Stopped in, purchased a bit of fudge and some other sugary goodness, kids touched almost everything then left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Tower

• History - The Normans...
• Yeoman tour
• Beefeaters?
• Crown Jewels
• Torture room!

 

 

 

 

 

The Normans

• William 1 - The Conqueror.
• William 2 - Second son of The Conqueror
• Henry 1 - Third son of The Conqueror
• Stephen

 

That's it for the Normans - Plantagenets on the way.

 

 

The Conqueror

Built originally by WIlliam 1, the Tower of London was originally a fort with significant strategic significance both in terms of its position (cant take London while the fort stood) and for its size and physical characteristics. It was massive and stone in contrast to the wooden small English houses of the time and made a pretty simple statement to the people of England i.e. William and the Normans were very powerful so don't mess with them or they would get cross.

Not going to write about how William won the crown at the Batlle of Hastings, suffice to say that it was a lucky victory but one arrow in the eye of Harold as dusk was approaching and William takes England. Poor old Harold - had been King for less than a year. Just before leaving for our trip I watched an episode of Battlefield Britain - a DVD I got as a present of which one episode was on Harold and that battle - very cool graphics.

William was originally just called WIlliam (until after Hastings, when he conquered and got to add his adjective), although some referred to him as William the Bastard - his dad the Duke of Normandy before him, was not married to his mistress (by definition) William's mum.

William was faced with a convoluted English system of shires and layers of hierarchy that seems to culturally permeate even still. Hard to get taxes when you don't know who is who and what they own so he organized a mage-census in 1085 which, when complete, listed everyone and everything they owned by shire and then by town. This ordered recored was supposed to be valid until the end of days (ie doomsday) and became known as the Domesday Book.

Well sort of. It was actually much more complex then all of that, but even history needs easy sound bites to teach kids at school. the Domesday book was actually two separate books - "Little Domesday", which was the bigger, more detailed survey and "Great Domesday" which was the little one! Probably, they started wtih Little Domesday but found it was all so damned hard that they went to an easier model. Bizarrely from the sound bite point of view, the books did not include London (practically because it was already so complex). Also, even though the information was collected first in a geographical way, it was then listed by hierarchy ie for each county (or sometimes by each large town), things the king owned were listed first, then the church (Archbishops) then the local bishops then the aristocrats down to the peasants. Boring - enough.

William had 9 children. When he died he left Normandy to his eldest son (it was more important) and England to his second son who became William II (and was probably killed by a younger brother's agent in a "hunting accident"). Not surprisingly the eldest two brothers were both a bit peeved by daddy's parting gifts and fought quite a bit (as in the big battle kind of fought). The continuation of a long history of fighting between France and England.

Also interestingly, it is said (at least in the Horrible Histories song) that William I was so fat, that on death, his body burst when it was kinda dropped from the cart (hearse of the day) on the way to the burial.

 

 

Back to the Tower

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Yeoman Guard Tour

These run every 30 mins for an hour at a time and are classic English oration. Given by one of the gaurds at the Tower, the tour is part history lesson and part entertainment. There were about 200 people who were on the tour so to get to near the front was at times a challenge - Drew was up to it though.

 

 

She has 2 cameras!

 

 

 

Where the yeoman Guard went, Drew went.

 

 

 

Yeoman audio tour - link to the audio of the tour. Not the last 10 mins as it was in the Chapel of the tower and they ask you not to record or use cameras.

 

 

 

Torture room of the Tower

Have been waiting a long time to get this one in....

 

 

 

 

 

ahhhhhhhh

 

Although there was, and is, still no State sponsored torture, a la Guantanamo, this room in the Tower is where the torture that didn't happen, happened.

In context, this period of history was all before the USA or Australia were even countries (1500s to 1700s) and the Royal perpetrators are well gone but it makes a good display.

Personal faves of mine include the Scavengers Daughter and of course......the Rack .

Scavenger's Daughter involves the prisoner's body being folded into three, with the shins up against the thigs and the thighs against the stomach. The tortuerer then forces the ends of two iron bows together and locks the prisoner inside, almost crushing their body with " a hellish compression".

 

 

Scavenger's Daughter - the opposite of "The Rack"

 

 

 

The rack was ergonomically set up for ease of torturer use. There were three wooden rollers with the central roller controlled by a turning lever. The rollers had ratchet teeth so once turned, it would lock in place. Ropes ran from that roller to the roller at the head and foot of the rack to make them turn in opposite directions. If it were modern times, the torturer could be on their phone and still be torturing - sorta like the immigration guy at Dubai when we arrived a couple of months ago.

 

 

The Rack

 

 

 

Manacles

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally should torture fail, or should it succeed, the prisoner got to take a little kneel down as per this video from the gift shop at the tower.

 

Cast (in order of appearance)

Tudor Queen: Zoe A.M. Dembo

Prisoner's voice: Winston Magnum Berkswell (Stage Name)

 

 

 

 

 

Note that you can't see he feet - shoes off as all good street urchins should be

 

 

 

 

 

Memories

 

 

The pub Ree worked at as job #2 when she lived in London

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jamie

We had a lovley meal treat at one of Jamie Oliver's restaurants which was also in Covent Garden, a few minutes away from the theatre. YOu can't reserve a table and when we goth there they were full but we promised we would be in an out in 45 minutes so got to use a table that was reserved for eight. Reserved you say, but you cant do that? Ahhh the paradoxes of life.

The service was impeccable, tables minimalist but just right and the food delicious - i believe my three cheese fried polenta chips were the highlight, Drew thought the Spaghetti sauce was the best ever, Ree thought she was given the king of the Salmon and Zozo's massive chop was her favourite (all about perspective I guess).

 

 

 

 

NOt easy to go the toothy smile with a mouth full of Three cheese fried polenta chips - mmmm

 

 

 

Entrance to Jamie's restaurant. Note a kid who CANNOT keep still

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charlie

We were so lucky to get tickets to this show.

Ree received an email one night when we were in Paris from the people we had purchased our Matilda tickets from. The show had just gone into the preview season ie brand new and tickets for the last of those shows were on sale - and selling fast.

We jumped right in. The show is directed by Sam Mendes (won his first academy award with his directorial debut in American Beauty) and has a stellar theatrical cast. Also, love a good musical and the more kids in it the better so not much of a decision really.

 

 

 

Note last remnants of obligatory theatre Rolo packet

 

 

 

The show was at the Theatre Royal at Drury lane which was built in 1660ish. The theatre has been competely refurbished - they took off 9 layers of paint and "hideous wallpaper" and have redone the original staircases, entry, stalls, the whole shebang. The backstage and set management have been modernized and Charlie is one of the first shows to utilize the new technology.

 

 

 

Walking from Covent Garden

 

 

 

It was Soooooooooooo good.

We all came out buzzing with big grins on out faces. Loved the pizzaz and the stage and the changes to the story which made things better than the original. The story may not as good as Matilda which we go to see tomorrow, but the set and direction are going to take a lot of beating. Brilliant use of multimedia to create a massive factory and the Oompa Loompas just stole the show.

 

 

 

As an end to this post on the "Tower of Awesome" , I leave you, should you wish, with a video of "Axis of Awesome" which I think is quite funny but not nearly as awesome as the Tower.

 

So enough.