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A two Bullingdon day yesterday although I entirely failed to make it to either unscaled pole. I did, however, manage a more serious circuit of the Elephant & Castle than on the first occasion, to pass St. George's Cathedral twice and to come near to the south pole at the Oval. Celebrated by checking that the the 'Hole in the Wall' at Waterloo was still up and running, which it was. More than forty years now that I have been visiting the place, starting from when it was a place where winos got cheap cider and sandwiches. Rather different now, but a decent pint of Greene King IPA nonetheless, served by a pole.

It was also a two building day. The first building, illustrated, exhibited, included two features of interest. First, the building's designer was sufficiently arrogant to defy the forces of gravity by bending some of the columns, despite it being well known that leaning towers present problems. Second, it seemed to be necessary to prop up the concrete floors after their shuttering had been removed. In my day the system was that you waited until the concrete was hard enough before you removed the shuttering. They are doing the same thing at building being put up presently at Epsom Station. Hopefully, everything is under control, unlike at the Hammersmith Flyover where it sounds as if some of the steel ropes which tie the flyover segments together have rotted away. I imagine that if enough of the ropes go, the flyover will go.

The second building was Westminster Cathedral. Following up the Visser book (see 4th January), I wanted to visit a holy church. The two I had in mind were Westminster Abbey and Brompton Oratory. Ummed and ahhed as I came across Vauxhall Bridge, eventually settling on the Abbey. But then I cycled past the place, looking for a Bullingdon Stand, and realised that the Abbey was going to be crowded and not very holy at all, despite being an impressive building (last thoughts on the subject being at September 14th 2011). So I settled for the Cathedral instead, which while not very old, did manage to be holy. Part of the difference being that the Cathedral is a live church in a way that the Abbey is not; people actually used the place, to the extent of touching the steps to an altar with one's forehead and kissing one's fingers after touching the feet of a marble saint.

First stop was the All Souls' Chapel where I was reminded that everybody in purgatory has a valid ticket to heaven. They might have to be boiled in oil for a bit to purge their sins but they will all get there in the end. There was a slightly tacky altar piece, where a Jesus was surrounded by seven rather odd heads which appeared to be wrapped in wings and not much else. There was a glass box containing the earthly remains of St. John Southworth who had been hung, drawn and quartered for being a Catholic priest during Cromwell's reign. I had known that Cromwell had done some bad things in Ireland but I had not known that he was doing this sort of thing at home. At least this was the last time such a thing happened. The chapel as a whole was handsomely decorated with marble and mosaic, and, again as a whole, strangely impressive. And it had far more votive candles than any of the other chapels.

Continued round the chapels, ending up spending a bit of time on a seat in the nave gazing at the altar, the crucifixion hanging from the ceiling (very like the sort of thing you might see in Florence, a painting in the shape of a cross, with small oblong extensions to each of the four ends) and the ceiling itself. The building being clad in pale marble up to maybe 20 feet but then being dark brick above gave one the impression of being in touch with the sky - in a way one certainly is not in the average gothic cathedral or renaissance church, where one is very conscious of being enclosed in a structure, rather than being open to heaven. A throw back to the open air temples of the distant past?

Another difference was the way that mosaic cladding changed the texture and softened the features of the arches and domes. Quite unlike the carved stone of our vaulted roofs - but not completely without the trompe-l'œil trickery of some Florentine churches.

All in all, a very holy building. Something that, as far as I am aware, Protestants, Evangelicals and such like do not go in for. For them the holiness is just in the people and in what they are doing together, not in the building. The buildings that they do those giant services in in the southern United States are only holy when a service is under way. Empty, such a building might just as well be a conference centre. I suppose Anglicans stand between the two traditions in this respect.