14.11.19
What a day of contrasts.
Our original Airbnb host Meg, had suggested on her list of ‘different’ things to do in London, that sitting in on a criminal court case at the Old Bailey was an interesting thing to do. No guts no glory!
As you can’t take any bags into the public gallery, the criminal court had done a deal with the local Travel Agency down the road, that seems to double as a cloakroom!
For 1£ per kg, you can leave your bags in the back room of their office. Nice little earner!
Having deposited our passports, money, credit cards and picnic lunch at some random travel agency, we made our way up Warwick Passage to the public gallery of the court.
There were about 4 groups of cameramen outside, not sure if they were for ‘our’ case.
After a thorough inspection through security, we were ushered up to the public galleries. We had a ‘choice’ of courtrooms and cases- fraud, murder or rape. What a dilemma!
In what I can only describe as a Monty Python moment, we asked the attendant what he’d recommend!
He thought for a second and in his opinion, seriously, he thought we might prefer the rape trial as it was topical, and on the news every night. Hadn’t we seen it? Nope!
We were fascinated. The defence barrister was launching into an attack to discredit the alleged first victim (out of an alleged 10 others). You could feel and hear her anguish, youth and anxiety.
We sat transfixed at the minute detail they were going through, down to counting exact seconds of mobile phone calls, positions of body tattoos, the exact amount of money she had on her that night. On and on it went. Repeating the same information over and over but with a different line of questioning each time to try and catch her out. She was only 21 years old.
His aim of course, was to put holes in her story and doubt in the juror’s minds. And he was pretty good at his job!
Interestingly, the defendant Joseph McCann, had refused to attend court. Not sure how he gets away with that!
We sat enthralled watching the court procedures for about 2 hours. People like us in the public gallery came and went. There were obviously a lot of law students there, taking notes. Believe it or not, we would have loved to have stayed longer, but when the jury took a break, we thought we’d better too. Didn’t want to class ourselves as complete weirdos!
We were now on a mission to find Pete.
When we first arrived in London 6 weeks ago, we’d booked an Unseen Tour where the tour guide, a homeless person, was a no show. We thought we’d give it another go.
Thankfully this time Pete showed up, and we had an exclusive tour of Brick Lane, completely from his perspective.
The Brick Lane area used to be notorious for being the haunt of Jack the Ripper.
This fish and chip shop had taken it on!
Nowadays it is very hip, very multicultural, but still has an underbelly. Pete pointed out 4 buildings within sight of each other that were homeless shelters. In the immediate area there are 4000 beds to accommodate those who need them.
As well as telling us about the sordid exploits of Jack, Pete was very much into street art, so we concentrated on those two features of the area with a bit of history thrown in too.
Had we been wandering on our own we would have missed the lot.
Pete could give us a context of each piece of street art, and which artist he admired the most and why. One was Australian!
The final one he showed us was another Banksy, and was actually a car. Banksy had spray painted it pink, and immediately it became famous.
It is now sited on top of a container with a perspex box around it. Kind of detracts from the original idea I think!
After thanking and saying goodbye to Pete, we stopped at a local middle eastern bakery for a few snacks.
Delicious!
Munching on our tikkas and pakoras, we noticed this sign in the supermarket window.
Summed it all up really!
Our last stop for the day was the Blue Fin Building, just over Blackfriars Bridge, where Katie works.
The afternoon light over the city was gorgeous.
What a groovy work environment!
Relaxing lounges, kitchens full of any food your heart desired, desks that mechanically rise up and lower…..and a spectacular rooftop view of the city.
We successfully embarrassed Katie in front of her workmates, who seemed to enjoy the moment as much as we did!
It had been a pretty ‘different’ kind of day.
Meg would have been proud of us!
Kanga And Wombats Adventures 