London

I had to go into London to renew my Australian passport, so I took the opportunity to visit some attractions: the Bank of England Museum and the Guildhall Art Gallery. more

While Camilla was doing a choir conducting course, Helen and I went to a fantastic Ashurbanipal exhibition at the British Museum. For a while I was afraid she was going to insist on reading every word on every board and caption. Eventually she got tired and let me read them to her instead, but we were there until the exhibition closed and she must have read almost half the text in it.

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

even in hunting scenes, Ashurbanipal is depicted with a stylus in his belt; he was proud of being able to read and write Akkadian and Sumerian

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On Saturday I went on a tour of the Waltham Forest "mini-Holland" project, organised by CyclOx and hosted by the WF branch of London Cycling Campaign (thanks Paul and Dan!). We caught a mini-bus into London, then used Urbo dockless hire bikes to do a 14km loop around the borough, looking at what they've done and are doing. more

We ended up going to two Olympic events, the archery and the table-tennis. more

Last week Camilla and I went into London with two of her colleagues, to listen to Hans Rosling deliver the 2011 Pumphandle talk of the John Snow Society, "Epidemiology for the Bottom Billion - where there is not even a pump handle to remove!". more

On Saturday our friends Val and Paul took us to see Alan Bennett's The Habit of Art, at the National Theatre in London. more

In my first trip outside Oxford since I arrived here eight weeks ago, I went into London on Thursday with my sister Jenny. more