24 hours in London

Is not enough time to do much, you might think. You'd be wrong. Without a sense of rushing, which always marks the death of any real pleasure, my wife and I were able to accomplish quite a lot in one whole day.
On Friday afternoon we visited the Tower of London. Neither of us had been there since our childhoods, yet somehow nothing had changed, except our attitudes. I last visited the site in 1958, when I was just seven years old. I can remember my disappointment at seeing Traitor's Gate (It's just a gate, right? so what?) but also my wonder at the Crown Jewels, scarcely diminished even now: the massive 523 carat Cullinan"1" diamond topping the Sceptre; the various crowns  dripping with precious stones flashing the colours of the rainbow in every direction. What passed me by last time was the knowledge that most of the regalia were created for Charles II, presumably so he could make a really big splash following the republic set up after his father was beheaded, only to collapse so quickly following the death of its figurehead, Oliver Cromwell.
After marvelling one more time at the famous "White Tower", already extant for 600 years when Charles II ascended to the throne, we made our way west in the gathering gloom to attend a concert given by the Endellion string quartet at the Wigmore Hall. Featuring works by Haydn, Janacek and Schubert, one was instantly aware of being in the presence of one the world's greatest string ensembles. During the first movement of the Schubert I became so utterly transfixed I almost forgot to breathe.


The following day my wife and I parted ways, she to attend a music therapy conference, while I visited the Wallace Collection to see "Dance to the Music of Time" by Nicolas Poussin, one of the most important pictures ever painted. The exact meaning of the image is still unclear three hundred years after its creation, but the magical spell it casts remains undiminished. I had a busy schedule, but there was still enough time to luxuriate in the erotic magnificence of the Wallace's collection of works of Jean-Honore Fragonard and Francois Boucher- pornography for the upper classes, as they have been called.
Next to the Natural History Museum, to see the famous Emperor penguin egg brought back from the Antarctic after it been collected by Cherry-Garrard, Bowers and Wilson on  the now celebrated "Worst Journey in the World" across three hundred miles of ice desert in the black heart of an Antarctic winter.
Finally back to the Royal Academy to see the Allen Jones exhibition. Jones was one of the founders of English "Pop Art" in the early 60s, creating life-sized mannequins of gorgeous women in revealing poses as his comment on contemporary sexuality. The "sculptures" retain their power to arrest the attention even after a generation living under the sexual revolution, and for me still radiate an enormous erotic power. Wow!
Finally, via an uncrowded underground system, which by the way you can now pay for simply by passing your debit card over a sensor (capitalism can be extremely innovative in finding ways to lighten your pocket) I was on time to meet my wife at Paddington to make our way home (undelayed fortunately) courtesy of Great Western Trains. Now that's how to do 24 hours in London!