Promenading by Bus

Yesterday evening P and I had the use of a couple of free tickets to attend a Mahler concert at the BBC Proms.

The venue was the Royal Albert Hall and although it was a miserably cold and damp evening it didn't disappoint either inside or out.

(Apologies for the ice cream / burger vans in the foreground - presumably even culture vultures like to indulge their plebeian side occasionally!!)

The frieze around the top of the building is particularly spectacular.

Sadly, it was just too dark inside the auditorium to get any decent photos - but I did manage this one of the rather odd ceiling.

To my eye it looks like a host of UFOs about to land, but P and I presumed it is some clever system for making the most of the acoustics.

The concert yesterday was Mahler's Symphony No. 3 which was quite good, well certainly better than I had been expecting, especially as Mahler is not really my cup of tea.  P and I had primarily gone for the experience as neither of us had ever been to the Royal Albert Hall before although obviously we've seen it on TV many many times, both for the Last Night of the Proms and for the Service of Remembrance.

What turned out to be a wonderful revelation was travelling by bus from Liverpool Street to the Royal Albert Hall.  The buses were clean, efficient, turned up with amazing regularity (we never waited more than 2 - 3 minutes) and are very affordable.  I'm used to dealing with First Bus both here in Essex and in Bristol - these buses are usually grubby, old, turn up whenever they feel like it - certainly bearing no relation to any timetable, and are expensive.  Ken Livingstone should he heartily congratulated for his policy of taxing motorists via the Congestion Charge, and then putting all that revenue into public transport in London.  If he can do it why can't all the other large cities in the UK? 

Comments

[Gill]

What a lovely evening out,the building looks spetacular and must have made the evening seem very special. I've never been to anything like that, I wonder if it lived up to your expectations. Might be a bit highbrow for me, I enjoy some classical music but I'm not very knowledgable about it and tend to go for the more popular and well known pieces.