Richmond galleries

Once upon a time the councillors of Richmond upon Thames had a high opinion of themselves and built an impressive Town Hall on the riverside. Then they grew out of that and moved to a bigger newer building in Twickenham, also on the river.

That left the Town Hall in Richmond looking for a purpose. So it became a library. And a museum. And a gallery.

The library is in the middle of the sandwich occupying the first floor. It's just a library. There's nothing wrong with that but there are other places to get books or to access the internet so I have no reason for going there.

The Riverside Gallery occupies a couple of modest rooms on the ground floor.

The current exhibition has the enticing title Jem Panufnik: Riverside Robo-Attack!

For those of us old enough to remember, these pictures sweep you back to the days of underground comics when the likes of Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton exploded our minds with psychedelics legally.

As if to make the point, one of the pictures was a clear homage to Keep on Truckin'.

It's only a little gallery but it packs a reasonable punch and it's town centre location makes it an easy place to pop-in to.

Sneaking past the library to climb to the top floor takes you in to Richmond Museum.

This is about the same size and has the same cluttered feel as an attic. And it's in the attic.

The reason that I was charmed up the stairs was to see "a Georgian panorama of the Riverside between Richmond and Barn Elms".

This is a collection of 46 watercolour drawings covering 15 miles of the river in a single line that stretches 10m showing the Surrey bank on the top and the Middlesex bank at the bottom.

This section shows Syon House at the bottom facing Kew Gardens at the top. Neither has changed that much since Georgian times.

It's a fascinating display and the museum helpfully provides both magnifying glasses and mirrors so that you can get a close look at both banks.

This sort of local history appeals to me and the effort of the climb was amply rewarded.

First visit to Kew Gardens in 2012

With the office closed between Christmas and the New Year there was plenty of free time to see the family and also to pay a visit to Kew Gardens with friends.

I am not very good with heights (to say the least) but the Rhizotron and Xstrata Treetop Walkway was an obvious place to start. Walking among the trees at this height gives you great views of and through the trees as the seasons change.

This is as bare as it gets and the circular walkway is clearly visible from the ground.

I've been up there quite a few times now but it's still challenging. Luckily it was not that busy and I could walk round carefully and leisurely while trying to ignore the swaying, creaking and bending. It was good to hear at one of the rest points a mother explain to her two young girls that Dad had stayed below because he does not like it up there. It's not just me then.

The walkway is simple but clever.

It winds between the trees so that you really do get up close and personal.

The construction is reassuringly solid with high side yet is made from mesh so that the wind ignores it and you still get good views even when cowering with fear on the floor.

The downside is that the floor is equally transparent and that is somewhat less reassuring.

I tend to play safe and walk on the supporting girders whenever possible and I only stop to take in the view in the frequent observation bays above the supporting pillars.

And the views are definitely worth stopping for.

The Temperate House vies with the walkway for construction plaudits, and wins easily. The Victorians really knew how to build large greenhouses.

The walkway reveals more of the structure of the Temperate House than is obvious from the ground or inside. The uniform straight lines of the roof fall down like heavy rain then disappear to be replaced by gentle curves and the extravagant decoration of the fanlight.

Returning safe to the ground I headed for the Waterlily Pond to swap mechanical beauty for natural wonder.

And how better to demonstrate natural wonder than a peacock or four.

I had seen peacocks at Kew before but never this number and never this close. This one almost brushed me as he walked past.

Annoyingly peacocks walk with little jerks and refuse to pause for the many cameras that quickly appear from coat pockets as they approach.

I tried a few times to get a close-up of the Liberty fabric inspiring tail feathers and got badly composed and blurred photos for my efforts.

Luckily most of the things in Kew Gardens are pretty static and you only have to worry about the breeze moving them.

Just up from the pond is the lake. This is the view from the north end looking south-east. If you look carefully you can see the Sackler Crossing that is just over half way down the lake. More impressively if you look even closer you can see through the crossing to the trees beyond. Like the walkway earlier, the crossing is designed to stop people falling over/in also to also let light and wind pass through.

From there is was a gentle stroll toward White Peaks where I discovered a latte, some cake and a mince pie.

Rested, the final leg was past Kew Palace, through the Queen's Gardens, past the lake by the strange Nash Conservatory and then out of the main gate on to Kew Green.

Kew Gardens has a clever knack of filling a couple of weekend hours effortlessly and pleasantly. That's why I keep going.

The Charity That Began At Home at the Orange Tree

The Charity That Began At Home is this year's seasonal offering from the Orange Tree, but I'm not sure why.

It's billed as a comedy and while it certainly has quite a few comic moments it also has some long slow sections where other emotions are more at play.

The premise is simple and quite clever.

A country lady, Lady Denison, is persuaded by the preaching of a Mr Hylton (pictured) that charity does indeed begin at home and that she should invite to her house an assortment of people who nobody else will invite, for reasons that soon become clear.

There include a very prim and proper teacher of German, a woman who feels she is entitled to much respect because of her distant connections to a minor aristocrat, a businessman who is down on his luck and pushes business opportunities at every chance, a young man who had to leave the army in disgrace and the general who has an infinite supply of stories of his times abroad, none of which he ever finishes and all of which are tedious in the extreme.

Having contrived to bring this mixed and dysfunctional bunch in to the same place the comedy flows easily as each character exaggerates their faults (the German teacher is wonderfully angular) and these rub off on each other.

The play could go on like that and simply milk the humour from the characters, much like Dad's Army or Benidorm, but then two things go wrong.

Firstly the guests find out why they have been invited and this makes them angry and most of them leave.

Secondly the wayward army man and the Lady's daughter fall in love.

The play changes direction at this point. Or, to be a little harsh, it loses direction at this point. The comedy disappears with the comic characters and is replaced by an examination of motives and forgiveness as those left try to come to terms with the new situation.

The question that is asked, but left to us to answer, is whether Lady Denison was acting in her own interests or that of her guests in inviting them to her house.

The young couple get engaged to be married in the open knowledge that he wants a comfortable life with a pretty (and rich) woman, who he does love to be fair to him, and she sees changing his ways as her mission in life.

This is not a marriage made to last but you'll have to see the play yourself to see whether it does or not. That's if you care.

I must admit that the end ending of the play left me cold despite the tender moment pictured here happening right next to me.

I think that I would have been happier if the play ended after the third act (of four) and left us with a comedy, albeit one that ends on a sour note.

Walking to Teddington

The best bit about living in Ham is the easy access to nice places to go for a walk. Nice places like Teddington Lock.

A wide path built for pedestrians and cyclists passes my house and winds gently down to the river where it joins the tow-path that links Kingston to Richmond far more scenically than the main road does.

Turning right at the river leads to Richmond and the first stop along the way is Teddington.

The first thing that you notice is the weir.

You hear the water tumbling down the man-made steps and see the devices that attempt to control the river by creating a smooth passage to the lock that skirts past the violent route taken by most of the water.

The barriers and machinery have been built with only functional thoughts in mind and absolutely no attempt has been made to disguise or beautify them. This industry in the water mirrors that of the ramshackle boats moored at the edge of it. I like them both.

Just beyond the weir is the lock.

Teddington Lock is big, as it needs to be to cater for the large pleasure boats that fill this stretch of the river in warmer times.

Walking to the far end of the lock you can appreciate its size. For a start you can hardly see the brick office where the lock-keepers do their work and you certainly cannot see beyond that to the other end of the lock.

You can see the two houses at the side of the lock that give further evidence of its size and the number of staff that were once required to work it.

The water slips past the lock either side of the orange paths that ring the grass in the middle of the artificial island.

The main lock is on the left here and there are three other passageways over to the right. This lock caters for boats of all sizes right down to the canoeists who have rollers to ease their path as they walk across.

The footbridge that takes you across to Teddington also provides excellent views both upstream and downstream and this causes most people to pause as they cross.

These are views that I never tire of.

Looking upstream gives another view of the weir complex where sturdy barriers keep foolhardy boats away from the turbulent waters.

Oblivious of this, two ducks skip lightly away from the artificial island that supports the bridge over the broad river.

There may be danger here but there is calm and beauty too.

The second span of the bridge takes you from the island to Teddington where the Anglers awaits.

If you can resist that temptation then the Tide End is almost next door.

I went to the Anglers. This is a nice enough pub but the locals and dart board have been usurped by children and gastro food.

I have fond memories of this pub as it was literally on my route home when I worked out by Heathrow for IBM. I would catch the bus from Feltham to Teddington Lock and walk home from their, passing through the pub for a swift one as I did so.

The bridge has not changed, however, except for the occasional lick of new paint.

Somehow its construction seems far more solid than necessary to support just a few pedestrians and (dismounted) cyclists.

Looking downstream gives another view of the lock, this time trying to hide beyond the island, and also of a few small boats moored in the shelter of the island.

This is a river of two halves.

On this side (Middlesex) the weir has been tamed to create a space that is quiet and residential and on the other side (Surrey) there is the bustle of commerce through the lock.

The other side also has the trees and fields of Ham Lands so having dallied briefly in Teddington, and enjoyed my pint, it is with pleasure that I return back over the bridge to Ham and the footpath home.

Lady S. by Van Hamme and Aymond

I have the Forbidden Planet International Blog to thank for introducing me to Lady S.

Their positive review for the latest volume to be published in English persuaded me to buy all three volumes as a Christmas treat for myself (I like to buy my own Christmas presents then I know that I'll get things that I like).

Lady S. tells the story of a young woman with an interesting history that includes being a refugee, petty criminal, diplomat's aide and agent for a shadowy anti-terrorist organisation.

The first English volume covers the first two Belgian volumes which first introduce Lady S. and then tell the story of her first mission.

Lady S.'s history reveals itself to be more complex and interwoven than we expected at first and this is nicely done through a succession of time-slips that show us that history in a series of self-contained episodes.

Here, early on in the story, Lady S. is at a reception with her diplomat father when an unexpected voice takes her back to her escape from Russian controlled Estonia.

This is also a typical example of the fluid artwork.

The layout is standard comic book with the page divided in to rectangles with gutters between the panels.

The panels are standard too with the scene almost always drawn from eye-level at medium distance. Occasionally the viewpoint is raised or lowered but not enough to change the feel of the story-telling.

The simplicity of the layouts and the panels makes the story flow quickly, which is just what you want from a thriller, but while the art takes second place to the words it still plays a big part in the fun and I love the feel of the snowscape and the way that it contrasts with the earlier scene.

In her first adventure Lady S. gets embroiled with a plot to expose Turkey's support for Georgian rebels. Of course it proves to be more complicated than that and the plot twists beautifully around double-agents and fake documents.

This is sophisticated and intelligent story-telling.

Volume 1 concludes with Lady S. gaining her moniker and accepting that she has no choice other than to join the secret organisation that has recruited her.

Volume 2 takes us to Stockholm and a audacious plan to kidnap the Nobel laureates. Again the plot twists and turns and people are not always who you think they are.

Lady S. gets fooled and falls for one of the false trails and only manages to recover the situation by recalling a chance remark from earlier.

It's another cracking story that runs so quickly that the plot curves blur as they sweep past you.

The final English volume (there are more in French) has Lady S. on the run when her past as a thief, a "hotel mouse", on the Cote d'Azur catches up with her.

As she runs from the CIA and the local police she is aided by the organisation that she is working for, the Centre for Anti-Terrorism Research and Intelligence Gathering (CATRIG), and in doing so we learn more about them and their purpose.

I read all three volumes in a single sitting and was totally captivated by the pace, flow and twists of the story.

Lady S. is quickly developed as a believable character who has a reason for being where and what she is with skills honed as a refugee on the run and living on her wits as a thief.

There are no special gadgets (e.g. James Bond or Mission Impossible) and no exceptional talents (e.g. Bourne or the Saint). She is just a bright girl who knows how to play tricks.

I am sure that Cinebook will be doing English versions of the other volumes before too long and I'll be buying them.