London, St. Valentine's Day, 1915

VirginiaWoolf




February 14, 1915



    We both went up toLondon this afternoon; L[eonard] to the Library, and I to ramble around theWest End, picking up clothes.  I am really in rags.  It is veryamusing.  With age too one’s less afraid of the superb shop women. These great shops are like fairies’ palaces now.  I swept about inDebenham’s and Marshall’s and so on, buying as I thought, with great discretion. The shop women are often very charming in spite of their serpentine coils ofblack hair.  Then I had tea, and rambled down to Charing Cross in thedark, making up phrases and incidents to write about.  Which is, I expect,the way one gets killed.  I bought a ten and elevenpenny blue dress, inwhich I sit at the moment.


             -- Virginia Woolf

FlightSub-lieutenant Reginald Warneford, RNAS, at Hendon in February 1915. 




   
     Reginald Warneford was the first pilot to destroy a Zeppelin inthe air when he brought down LZ.37 on 7 June 1915, during the second month ofthe Zeppelin bombardment of London. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.Warneford died in France on June 17, 1915 when his aircraft crashed.

Piccadilly Circus, 1915 

First Zeppelin to bomb London, May 1915

Theinterior of a restaurant at 76-77 Aldgate High Street showing the effects ofthe major Zeppelin raid on the night of 13 -14 October 1915.

Embankment Gardens, June 1915

London's"Theatreland" in the West End -- 1915 -- published during Zeppelinbombardments. Designed by MacDonald Gill (brother of celebrated Arts &Crafts movement artist and paraphiliac Eric Gill), the map is a lightheartedand colorful effort interspersed with topical jokes and anecdotes.



NOTE: This post began as a simple St. Valentine's Dayblog.  I thought it would be interesting to reprint Virginia Woolf's itinerary and some of her thoughts from ninety-sevenyears ago today.  

But my photo researchquickly took me somewhere else -- to other London 1915 venues (the war, which killed so many mothers' sons, poor and rich, was half-a-year old bymid-February) -- and it seemed appropriate to give a slightly broaderpicture given the mess we're still in today.  (Meet The New Boss, Same AsThe Old Boss, etc., etc.)  

It's so difficult asan American to imagine what it must havebeen like to anticipate and endure serial aerialbombardment.  New Yorkers (I am one)experienced 9-11, but even that corurscating, choking horror quickly became a "one-day event" for many people.  

HappySt. Valentine's Day!  I mean it.



MusicLinks:


ThePretty Things -- This Balloon Burning (from S.F. Sorrow)

 
TheKinks: Some Mother's Son (from Arthur)

FOG PEACE

It was by this time about nine in themorning, and the first fog of the season. A great chocolate-coloured palllowered over heaven, but the wind was continually charging and routing theseembattled vapours; so that as the cab crawled from street to street, Mr.Utterson beheld a marvellous number of degrees and hues of twilight; for hereit would be dark like the back-end of evening; and there would be a glow of arich, lurid brown, like the light of some strange conflagration; and here, fora moment, the fog would be quite broken up, and a haggard shaft of daylightwould glance in between the swirling wreaths.

NOTE:    I've been growing (as Iexpect you may have also) angry lately hearing the expression "the fog ofwar" used over and over in the news (by journalists, diplomats, evensoldiers) to describe and in a very real sense justify the "atrocity ofthe day" (most recently the terrible killing of 24 Pakistani soldierslast week in a NATO raid supposedly launched in error against"friendly" forces).  Sometimesit seems to be spoken as an answer before a question is even asked.  

I’ve always loved fog – clouds on theground -- rolling through them on foot. The passage here, in case you don’t recognize it, is from Robert LouisStevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, which contains many fogreferences.  In a fit of pique, I decidedto Google “the fog of peace,” not realizing that it too has become a cliché – atiresome “irony cliché” that has been adopted by political journalists,historians, etc.  Too bad, it’s anevocative phrase without the politics and attitude.  I’ll stick with “peaceful fog,” although that’snot very Dr Jekyll, a long short story where peace is in very small supply.

Unfairground 2: London (Kevin Ayers Lyric and Link)

Pass me the bottle, baby;
One day you'll understand.
We almost make the same mistakes
and hold each other's hands.

 

Take this particular shade of grey
just for a change, I shout;
There's nothing in this fairground
that couldn't be left out.

London Review of Breakfasts

The Regency Cafe, Pimlico

"Dinner parties are mere formalities; but you invite a man to breakfast because you want to see him." (Thomas Babington Macaulay)

        I first learned about the London Review of Breakfasts website yesterday morning while enjoying London Daily Photo, which has become a daily ritual with me, and felt strongly that I needed to share this.

        The site is fun and easy to navigate.

        Here is a link to the "Opinions and Eggitorials" page.

        Here is a link to "10 of the best breakfasts available to humanity".

       The Macaulay quote above is borrowed from the site. 

         I hope you enjoy this.   Fun is getting harder and harder to come by, but it's important to eat a good breakfast.