Talk: Pathology, Plague, & Pestilence in Old London Town

Today, London Social Detours was finally meeting in the afternoon again! So this time, it was a virtual tour of pathology, plague, & pestilence in old London Town - v topical.

Well, one might think so. What it actually was, was a talk with slides and short films, replicating a guided walk. We started with a couple of guildhalls, leading us on to hospitals and their attendant horrors. The connection wasn't clearly stated - the point of the guildhalls mentioned was that they were associated with the trades that eventually gave rise to the medical professions. Anyway, beautiful buildings! And our guide did her best to show us photos that indicated what we might have seen on a walk that covered this material.

Unfortunately, I already knew most of this, so I tended to drift off - actually fell asleep towards the end. Well, her presentation was about two hours long! As someone pointed out in the chat at the end, we covered more today than we would have in a guided walk. She saw this as a virtue. I saw it as too damn long - so I didn't join in the gushing admiration uttered in the chat. Jeez, it baffles me - these people obviously can't have experienced anything better. Now, I appreciate the effort she put in - but as I say, it was way too long; she could easily have found a break point and said, "you know, I think I'll break this into two parts". As it was, she gave us far too much information to process. Of course, part of why it took so long was her constant fiddling when she had to switch between photos and video clips, and we all metaphorically drummed our fingers while she thumped away at the keyboard and tried to figure out what she was doing.

There were several videos - the most interesting of which, for me, was the (silent) virtual tour of the Museum of the Order of St. John. I've never been inside, and it's a beautiful building. She narrated over it, so it all worked fine. As I say, I didn't take much from the rest - but felt massively nostalgic at the photo of the Museum of London, just up from my office..

Afterwards, enough people stayed on to have a chat - the lady from Florida who comes to London every winter is looking forward to her trip, in two weeks or so: just worried about the logistics of the trip, and particularly the use of the toilets on the plane. Mind you, as there are only 26 people on her flight (she checked), I think she should be ok!

On Saturday, back to film again for me.. it's about time I watched Milk, which is now coming up on my list. Stars Sean Penn in the true story of California's first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk. Available on Amazon Prime.