Seats of Power: Famous Names

Along the Seats of Power walk there are many famous names... street names that is. There are streets named after battles won, the generals that won them, and most importantly royalty. These names and the places that surround them keeps in remembrance the importance of these historical figures and their actions. The famous street names and the statues made me want to learn more about the people and the events in which they were involved. Very inspirational and motivational.


As in Number 10.


Side Street.


Country or Crown?


London Metropolitan Police Department.


Along the River.


As in the Battle...


But which Charles?

Functional.

Mayfair: Places to Eat

Along the Mayfair walk the roads were lined with places to eat. There was your usual Marks and Spencer, Pret, and EAT but there were also really creatively named restaurants and I love it. The creativeness of the names more then the windows called me into their shops and once inside I was not disappointed; the atmosphere matched their names, fun and exciting.

Italian, there's nothing better.

The Little Square in the little square.

I wonder if the wine is good?

Like the Emperor.

House of Chocolate.

Added Flavor.

The Fruit?

Who doesn't love English Waffles?

Bond... James Bond Exhibit

The Bond Exhibit within the Imperial War Museum was fascinating. The exhibit was filled with interesting memorabilia from the life of Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, and memorabilia from James Bond himself. James Bond is one of the world’s most celebrated spies and the novels in which he is the star lead the World War Two spy fiction genre in new directions. These novels by Fleming and later the movies brought to life for many people the way they envisioned the life of a spy and added glamour and style to it. The spy genre was vastly popular during the time right after World War Two and during the Cold War but it is still popular now as is evident by the production of a new James Bond movie this year.

The exhibit showed the development of Ian Fleming as a person and this development explained a lot about the type of man Bond is. Bond was a more adventurist version of Fleming; they were both loved women and golf and were involved in the government but Bond is the action while Fleming was the paper pusher. It was nice to learn about the objects that spies would have used, like lighters that were cameras, shoes that contained poison pointed blades and quite a few different guns. These objects may have been common for spies but they were not for the people that were reading about them. The spy novel was well received in Britain and America because they created an alternate world with mystery and excitement where good always won to an era that was highly charged and politically unstable; The Cold War.

The Shore

The shore along the Cornish coast is picturesque and thus the perfect setting for a mystery. The Cornish coasts and in fact Cornwall in general has been the setting of many mystery stories like Rebecca and The Moonstone because of their isolated position. The roads that we traveled to arrive there were windy and little and the large homes were spread far apart along the coast with no easy communication between them. The shore is also just reached by little paths that were carved into the rock cliff faces making the way down treacherous. The murders that could be masked as accidents or suicides are vast and could be easily done. The close proximity to the sea or ocean added another element, the possibility of a body being washed up on shore and the mystery connected with that. Was it a ship wreck or was it murder? This is the case with Rebecca when a boat shows up after a large storm revealing that Rebecca was murdered instead of suicide. Within The Moonstone the shore is also an important place. The country house is set close by and there is a place along the shore that contains quicksand. This quicksand creates a place for things to be hidden for a time, the nightshirt, or to disappear forever, in the case of Rosanna Spearman. The shore along the Cornish coast is beautiful and picturesque but that does not make it exempt from the murder and mysteries that are set there in mystery novels and really happen there.

The Mousetrap

The Mousetrap is the longest running play in the world! It has been running for 56 years and hopefully it will run for many more years. The Mousetrap in a locked door mystery that takes place at Monkswell Manor; the manor is isolated by a snow storm that comes during the night trapping everyone indoors. The story begins with the radio announcement stating that the murdered had been seen in a dark jacket, dark hat and light scarf and from that moment all of the characters that enter all seem to be suspects. The murder mystery continues with the detective, Sergeant Trotter, trying to collect clues and find out who it could have been. This is where the Agatha Christie twist shows up. Sergeant Trotter is not really a detective but is in fact the murderer. The detective is Major Metcalf who does not appear to be very efficient at protecting the house guests as one, almost two, are murdered on his watch. The one to figure out the story is in fact Miss Casewell whom we discover is one of the abused children and Sergeant Trotter’s sister. This play, like many others of Agatha Christie’s stories, has most of the characters linked to the crime in a pretty significant way and it is the detective’s job to figure out which person actually committed the crime and which ones just wanted to.

Oedipus

It was interesting to see how Oedipus unfolds as a play and when I first saw and thought about it I did not consider it a mystery but when I tried to support my belief that it was not I discovered that I was wrong. Oedipus is a mystery. Oedipus contains a murder, that of the King. While the watcher already has knowledge of the ending of the story when the play begins the characters within the story do not. Oedipus during the play is trying to discover who murdered the King. He questions the one man that was at the scene of the crime only to discover that he himself is the one that killed the King.

Another part of the mystery is Oedipus trying to discover how his oracle could come true. This may not seem to be very mysterious, just a side note about religion and the importance of the gods, but all during the play Oedipus is trying to discover the truth of the oracle. He is trying to discover if this oracle about his is true or false and if it is true how will it come to pass? Oedipus’s play is a whodoneit in the case of the murdered king and a howdoneit in the case of the coming to pass of the oracle. As there are two mysteries going on at the same and because they are so interconnected the play is at times confusing because the audience knows the truth the whole time and it is frustrating to see how he goes about to discover this same truth. The mystery seems to really only be discovered by Oedipus and is something that only he can interpret and fit together and in the end it is he that must put everything together and is the amateur detective.