Shortest day

[shewhomust]

It is the winter solstice and we are in London, to celebrate it with the singing of carols.

We arrived on Thursday, in time for the Islington Folk Club Christmas party, which is a jolly affair, with music and sandwiches and fun amd games. The game in question is Pass the Parcel, and there are forfeits, one of which ended up with the whole company singing Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll to the tune of Adeste Fideles.

On Friday durham_rambler and I went to the William Morris exhibition at the Portrait Gallery, which was not quite what I had expected, but made more sense (I had wondered why it was at the NPG, because I had not realised how many portraits it included). Interesting, but I could have done with more depth. Afterwards we walked down to the river and along the South Bank, but that's a picture post in its own right. But one picture from Trafalgar Square:

Watch on YouTube

London has come over all ecumenical, and in addition to the Norwegian Christmas tree, there is a giant menorah and a blue cockerel. Feel free to devise your own rituals involving these three items and as many pigeons as you please.

Comments

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

...Which cult exactly worships the blue cuckoo? Or cockerel? I seem to forget. But with the inhabitants of those isles singing Sex & Drugs & Rock&Roll (& oh, my post-postying-editing...) to fiddle tunes, I need not be surprised, I suppose. Though I was at hearing Morris was into portrait painting, thinking he was more for wallflowers and stuff.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

The cult of the cockerel? I defer to you, reident in the land of the coq gallois - perhaps it's something Mithraic?

There was one painting by Morris, and a self-portrait sketch. Plus a couple of portraits of him (the G.F. Watts painting and a sweet little photograph). Otherwise, portraits of associated people. Yes, I found it a little unfocused.

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

M. Cro Magnon, little known expert on both Mithra Cult and Coq (though I suspect him of an au vin) Gaulois stuffing, is currently demolishing ancient houses -to then rebuild them the proper Gauloise way- in his native Dordogne but I promise to ask when (if indeed) he returns! There is an old lady there, someone's or another's grandmother, no doubt, who I fear will feed him so well I am getting worried whether he will return in time to cook me another bird in brine or whine *sigh*.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

i hope your cockerel has come home to roost in time for tonight's réveillon...

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

YAAAAY! Happy Solstice to you and durham_rambler! We welcome the light. Oboy do we ever.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

*waves*

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

So there is the blue cockerel, a menorah, a Christmas tree and, right nearby, several entrances to Narnia.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Entrances to Narnia? There must be some Dawn Treader seascapes in the National Gallery, I suppose...

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of the lamp post.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

D'oh!

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

I love doing this to you - you see this kind of post all the time and so it becomes invisible.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

LJ has decided that my photos are videos, which I have chosen not to display, so I wasn't actually looking at the picture. Plus I was looking at the comments, not the post itself. But I had deliberately composed the picture to include the lamp, as a sort of counter-balance.

The lamp post that does always remind me of the Lantern Waste is the one at the end of the path down to Prebends Bridge - ah, I see that I am not the only one (http://seymourjacklin.co.uk/2010/12/02/nailing-fantasy-to-the-real-world/).

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

Yes, that one too!