We started with breakfast at Pret A Manger (no accents, please, we’re British).

Then we caught a number 38 bus into town.

The bus journey was very long and slow because of road works. By the time we reached Soho, we were feeling in need of something to restore our spirits!

The temptation offered by Zédel was too strong to resist. This is my favourite French-style cafe.

With its early-20th-century decor and waiters dressed in black waistcoats and aprons, it recalls that France of yesteryear that has now virtually disappeared, much to my regret.

We unashamedly ordered a second breakfast which we consumed with conspicuous leisureliness.

The bill came in this colourful folder which I shall keep as a souvenir.

Moving on, we found ourselves in Golden Square Gardens, where this pair of sculptures was on display. They are Big Bra and Corset, respectively by Kalliopi Lemos.

I preferred this statue of George II with a pigeon on his head.

We passed through Carnaby Street, still one of the more popular and visited streets of London, though its reputation has dimmed somewhat since the heyday of the Beatles (who?).

We next entered Liberty’s, the famous department store.

Tigger was looking for wool for her crochet projects.

Photo by Tigger

Photo by Tigger

The interior (and, for that matter, the exterior) of the store is as interesting, if not more so, than the goods on display.

This is Regent’s Street, another popular shopping area but catering for a rather different clientele from that of Carnaby Street. Here we caught a bus to our next destination.

Seeing this statue of the artist Millais, art lovers will know where we are because it stands on the corner of the Tate Britain art gallery.

In the Tate, we attended one of the tours that they organize. It was on the gallery’s archives, a subject that didn’t particularly interest me especially as the rooms we toured made echoes and I had difficulty understanding what the guide was saying.

After the tour, I had a quick look at the art and took a few photos. This sculpture, unlike his usual human heads decomposed into brick-like components, is by Eduardo Paolozzi and is entitled Forms on a bow (1949).

This figure is by Ronald Moody and is entitled Johanaan (1936).

We next visited a rather large exhibition, large because of the space needed for the huge “artworks”. I put that word in quotation marks because I am not at all sure they were really artworks at all. Anyway, see what you think from the following examples.

This is a general view on entering the exhibition. Unusually, entry is by a large, heavy wooden door on a spring. This gives you the idea that you are entering a factory or industrial site.

The exhibits are all large pieces of industrial machinery, some arranged in an “artistic” way, others not or, at least not obviously so. There were no labels that I could see.

So what’s it all about? The exhibition is entitled The Asset Strippers and is by Mike Nelson. Rather than try to condense into a few words the screed at the entrance to the exhibition, I prefer to give you this link to the Tate’s description page.

Here we are on a bus travelling along another famous London street. Any guesses as to which one it is? The Cenotaph that you can see on the left is a clue: it is of course Whitehall.

We had intended to go to Camden Town to have a late lunch in a Chinese vegetarian buffet that we know but when we arrived we found that it had closed down.

So we took to the bus once more and returned to the Angel to have lunch at Sizzle, a cafe I have mentioned before. (For example, see A ramble in Hoxton.)

And here we are in Sizzle. Lunch over, I was happy to drag myself home for a nice long rest.