Last night I watched "Dad's Army" on television, an old comedy from the late sixties/ early seventies that I haven't seen in years. It has aged quite well, and I enjoyed watching it very much, although undoubtedly part of the appeal was a bit of nostalgia. I'd forgotten how sympathetically and warmly the "gay" character, played wonderfully by John Le Mesurier, is portrayed. It's funny how frequently characters like his cropped up in British comedy of that era, almost subversively entering the psyche of the backward-thinking, biggoted generation of my parents. I'm sure that people like my parents didn't even think of these characters as being gay: in fact my parents loved John Le Mesurier's character!

Remember yesterday how it was the first sunny morning in a couple of weeks? Well, that was all it was; it turned grey again in the afternoon, and continued that way this morning. I decided against trying Wimbledon again, in favor of spending the day at Greenwich.

First things first, though: I went to Starbucks on The Kingsway for my morning coffee and newspaper, and sat next to a miserable family of American tourists. The parents were arguing about whether to visit "The London Tower" (whatever that is!), while their teenage daughter just sat and complained about everything. She reminded me of the American girl I'd overheard on the Undeground declaiming in a knowing, hip manner that there is nothing to do in Paris! I have to say that it's not hard to see why American tourists have a bad name in Europe. Maybe that's a bit unfair, but, in any event, listening to their arguments reminded me of all the good points in favor of traveling alone. Although, like the character said in a British period movie, "wives are useful when traveling, since they can look after the luggage at railway stations." In my case, had I a wife, I suppose she'd come in useful to take photos of me for my journal :)

Getting to Greenwich meant passing through Docklands again.

Although I've been to Greenwich before, my first impression today was that it was a place set in the past. Perhaps that impression was first set by the view down an old-fashioned street towards the Cutty Sark; but it was certainly added to by the numerous old duffers in suits, cockney pub owners yelling at their workers, and later, a licensed pub in the Old Royal Naval College in the same room as a rather cheesy display of copies of various royal jewel collections.

View down a Greenwich street towards the Cutty Sark. You can imagine it looking much the same 150 years ago.

The magnificent and famous clipper ship, Cutty Sark.

I first took a look round the Old Royal Naval College, an imposing architectural highlight of London, now made over to Greenwich University. Apart from the afore-mentioned cheesy royal jewels, and the Painted Hall (where Nelson lay in state before his funeral), I looked in the much more impressive Chapel of St Peter and St Paul, which is a beautifully proportioned room with a gently curving gold and blue ceiling, and a gorgeous old pipe organ. Apparently the interior of the chapel is unchanged in two hundred years.

Outside the Old Royal Naval College

Another view. You can just make out the tower of Canary Wharf in the distance

Inside the Chapel of St Peter and St Paul

After lunch (I lucked out here, finding a good, cheap noodle place nearby), I spent a couple of hours in the National Maritime Museum - the biggest museum of its kind in the World, apparently. I'm afraid you can't take any photos inside the museum, but I'll just run through the highlights. The first thing I came across, funnily enough, was a model of the late 19th century ship, Moshulu, familiar to me since the real thing is docked as a floating restaurant in Philadelphia. In fact, I had a very romantic dinner there years ago with the only woman I ever had any kind of sexual relations with (that one night only), my then best friend, Niju. And I lived to tell the tale :)

Other great stuff: wonderful World War Two paintings of naval battles; quite a few ship models of famous ships built on the Tyne (the river on which South Shields sits, where I'm going tomorrow), such as the Mauritania, and the King George V; coming across some of Nelson's sayings, such as "You must hate a Frenchman as you do the Devil" (I agree with that one :); the massive painting by Turner "The Battle of Trafalgar"; and all the great, historical names of Royal Navy ships: Conqueror, Superb, Indefagitable, Colossus.

Behind the museum, a beautiful, gently sloping park climbs up to the Royal Observatory. I didn't remember it being such a lovely park; richly green, and peaceful, particularly this afternoon when the velvet smooth, blossom-scented, grey air was motionless: you could hear the blackbirds singing in the shade under the trees.

In the park leading up to the Royal Observatory

There was a beautiful guy sunbathing all alone in the center of a vast lawn: a smooth, tanned, young, rippling body. I wouldn't have minded getting close to him :) But I didn't want to seem like a dirty old man, so I headed off to the top of the hill, and sat down under the trees, admiring the views of the city a long way off.