rmd and I really wanted to go to Speaker's Corner, but we slept in quite late (hey, it was only 7 am Boston time when we finally got up!) Still, we went to Hyde Park Corner and walked up to Speaker's Corner, getting there a little past 3 pm. What fun! We had theater tickets for 4 pm, so we couldn't stay long, but we listened to fragments of a dozen speakers' arguments. If I lived in London, I'd be down there most every Sunday to listen to them all on their stepstools.
About half of the speakers were born-again Christians of one feather or another, telling their personal stories or preaching chapter and verse. Not much to say here, but I did get a kick out of the old guy who asked one woman, who was beaming as she was telling about her experiences as a Moonie and how she prayed and escaped all that, "Are you a born-again Christian or a liberated lesbian?"
Another speaker was making accusations about "thuggery" in the world and how it was all rooted in Americans and the CIA. "Give me an example," he called out. "Oil?" someone answered? "Well oil's *all* thugs, isn't it?" He went on about that for a bit until someone chipped in, "Olive oil?" At which point the speaker got down off his stepstool to deliver a personal lesson in rhetoric. "Now let me tell you the difference between 'wit' and a 'pun'. Wit is unificatory. It brings two different subjects together, and by uniting them, enriches them both. A pun doesn't do that at all, and enriches nothing." (I'm sorry, Callahanians, I quite agree.) His lesson delivered, he remounted and continued.
There was a Marxist who started off with the controversial position of being "against people starving", a white-haired lady being harrangued by a child too short for me to see, a "Christianity Created Captialism--Jesus must now destroy it" guy not saying anything, and a series of posters about human rights in Kuwait. Had I but worlds enough and time....
We had to dash to make it to the theater on time because I was so caught up in the speeches and debates at S.C. So we taxi-ed to the theater and sat down with about five minutes to spare, to watch Bombay Dreams. This musical was heaps of fun--a celebration of Bollywood. I gather the reviews have been mixed, but I saw nothing bad there. It's okay, Andrew Lloyd Webber's only a producer, he didn't do book or lyrics
ormusic. Shakalaka, Baby.
E, who knows all the nummiest restaurants, then led us off to Olivo's, where we had a delicious meal with several other folks who had been at the play with us. I had a venison ham appetizer, and a delicious beef entree. (hum. BSE. hum.) We had a variety of sorbets for dessert. We all shared round tastes of everything. If you're there, get a risotto.
And then we made our way back through Victoria Station and home-for-a-week. More to come!
