London: Nov 4: Churchill War Rooms & Museum

On Thursday, November 4, I left work to visit the Churchill War Rooms & Museum. Because it was perfect fall weather, I decided to walk there and back.

I took some pictures on this excursion and later in the day.

I didn't expect the museum to be my cup of tea but I was pleasantly surprised and ended up staying there much longer than I would have guessed. Nevertheless, the excursion still felt more like a way to kill a couple of hours outside of work rather than a destination I'd go out to my way to visit. (I may be saying this, however, simply because I know how good the alternative--a walk in the park in this great weather--could be.)

The institution is divided into two parts. The War Rooms are the underground bunker where Britain's government planned operations during WWII. They're preserved in the state they were in at the end of the war. I found them boring mainly because, as part of a war effort, their design was purely functional: lots of tiny bedrooms, a kitchen, typist rooms, broadcasting rooms, and meeting rooms, all compact and unadorned. Nevertheless, the War Rooms were brought a bit to life with intimate details provided on large informative signs, by the audio guide's interviews with people who were personally familiar with these rooms (and told stories about them), and by the audio guide's re-enactments of events from written transcripts.

Incidentally, I was shocked to learn the War Rooms weren't perfectly protected. Indeed, they were a single flight of stairs underground -- more like a basement than a bunker. Admittedly, there was a two-meter-thick ceiling of steel-reinforced concrete above it, but the most-senior staff knew it wouldn't survive a direct bomb hit. They kept this fact hidden from most of the government workers.

The Churchill Museum, on the other hand, was much more interesting to me than I expected. It was filled with tons of objects and really managed to convey Churchill's style, in both his personal and professional life. I spent a good hour in the museum, which surprised me because I didn't think I was into this stuff. I didn't know much about Churchill aside from his role in WWII and that he was rather witty, coining many now-famous expressions. The museum taught me about the rest of his life, including that he was a war reporter around 1900, a war hero (from WWI and other campaigns) turned politician, a painter, and, late in his life, a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. I also learned about his politics and policies, including that he laid the foundations for the welfare state and that he changed parties twice (both times opportunistically).

Two particular displays especially caught my attention. One described the rhetorical techniques he used and showed examples of them from his speeches. (He was quite a speaker!) The other showed a collection of witticisms he invented throughout his life. These were great -- I spent quite a while reading them.

Throughout the museum I saw a good number of men wearing suits and memorial poppy flowers in honor of Remembrance Day, a Commonwealth holiday much like America's Veterans Day. Remembrance Day was the following week.

Later, I met Di Yin to go to dinner at a snazzy Indian restaurant, Cafe Spice Namaste, in the East End. I'd selected it not because I'd heard the food was any better than at any other good Indian restaurant in London but because it's one of the few places that purport to serve an authentic vindaloo. I'd gotten the idea in my head that I wanted to try to real thing. The vindaloo was alright, not bad though not something I'd probably order again, but the meal and trek was well worth it for a different dish we were served. For details on the meal see the pictures.