i was at the albert hall earlier. it was a beautiful day and it was good to be in kensington for the first time in a while. lady blessington, of whom i am fond, lived on the albert hall site in a house with three acres in the early 19th century. right now it’s all red brick colleges and albert memorabilia. in front of the hall is a monument to the great exhibition in 1851, featuring a rather fabulous bare-breasted african woman. one one side is a list of countries exhibiting. these are divided into “british”, including india, new south wales, barbados etc; and the rest of the world, a list of equal length including many countries i have never heard of.
in the interval i walked over the albert memorial for a cigarette. it looks amazing since its restoration. it was great to see a queue of asian tourists waiting to have their photo taken in front of one of the four continents featured at the corners, “asia”.
like an idiot i’d forgotten to take a camera’ all images from flickr.
