Saturday, September 18, 2010
Cape cod
Yesterday being both a Friday and one of the days of the first papal state visit since the reformation of the church all those hundreds of years ago, it was doubly appropriate to have baked cod for lunch. At least I think it is the first state visit; the royal web site not being specific on the point although the papal visit of 1982 does not appear to qualify. And although the papal web site covering the 1982 visit is overloaded and unavailable in Epsom, its index entry does suggest that that visit was actually the first ever visit of a pope to the UK, never mind the reformation. Another index entry suggests that there has only ever been one papal visit to the more extensive flock in Ireland.
Sadly, the cod not quite up to the standard of the past few weeks. This may be something to do with the Hastings cod sometimes being caught in a trawl, which means they usually land in the boat alive, and sometimes being caught in a sort of stationary drift net, which often means that they land in the boat dead. This last not being good for flavour. Or so the fish man was telling me yesterday. But quite edible.
After a short siesta, off to Vauxhall to catch the Pope between Lambeth Palace and Westminster Palace. Slight downer at Vauxhall Station where there were sundry police and where the eastern exit had been shut for crowd control purposes. But these measures were nothing to do with the Pope, rather something to do with cricket at the Oval. Never mind, onto Lambeth Bridge where the crowd was not too thick and took up station at the railings.
The scene was enlivened by large numbers of regular police men, smaller numbers of irregular police men (some armed), a police boat, an RNLI flat boat, various helicopters (provenance unknown) and quite a lot of police vehicles. Plus, of course, the faithful and the curious. Quite a lot of the faithful had yellow and white papal flags and some of them were dressed in yellow and white. No sign of St John ambulance.
While we were waiting we learned. That the papal throne used in Twickenham appeared to be of wooden construction with a red and gold loose cover. The sort of cover than you or I might have on our sofa. Very democratic. That there are lots of Catholic archbishops - maybe 20 or so covering the UK compared to the very much smaller number of Anglican archbishops. Clearly a different sort of set-up. Which extends to the Archbishop of Westminster not being the primate ex-officio. Usually but not always. That there are not enough good quality Catholic schools. See http://www.cts-online.org.uk/.
As the big moment approached, the police men on motorbikes had a few practise swings across the bridge. As did some large cars, filled with what looked like securoplebs if not securocrats. And then, after a while, we had a couple of coaches filled with cardinals, waving peacefully to the crowds. And then, the popemobile itself. With a rather motley collection of cars before and behind. Perfectly decent cars but not matching. Not your motorcade of black Mercedes or anything like that. Ambulance brought up the rear.
It may have been a coincidence, but the chief fire boat chose this moment to do a display with its power hoses.
And so the Pope went off to address various important people including Pastmasters Brown, Blair and Major and Postmistress Thatcher. I understand that as one of the elect, Pastmaster Blair was honoured by being allowed to kiss the papal signet. Not sure about Cherry. His Holiness might have had enough after shaking hands with a senior lady priest, something he is very clear about not approving of.
Various important policemen updated whatever it was they had on their important clipboards. And we wandered off to the 'Black Dog' where trade was much better than it used to be, if rather noisy. Amused there by what seemed to be the large number of fancy cars being driven past, mostly by young black men. Plus one elderly roller.
# posted by Jim @ 6:52 AM 
