Incidentally, kudos to British Airways: on the flight home, I absent-mindedly left in the overhead rack two Japanese paper lampshades I had purchased at Spitalfields. The following morning I called the airline in Boston. A human voice responded, the lampshades were there in baggage, and safely delivered to me the next day.
London has come a long way since the Romans first invaded it in 80 B.C. What has survived over many centuries is the history and tradition of an island that was invaded by the Romans, at times locked horns with the Continent, in time became an Empire, and lost it. But Britain still remains both a power and an extraordinary display of many cultures. And it’s a leader in chic new fashions.
Back to pop culture: the tales of Princess Diane as related by her butler Burrell, continue to be a focus of attention of ladies at tea and other parlour speakers. What a reverse fairy tale for a princess! But London has always been chock-full, as they say, of tales of rich and poor, of queens and yellow submarines. It’s a lovely town.
