As you can see from the pictures in Installment Fourteen, I did indeed go back to the East End on Sunday. Although I did want to retake some of the pictures I erased, my real reason for going was to go to the Spitalfields Market. I took the tube to Tower Hill so as to start from the same place as the walk on Friday, and wandered over to the market, taking pictures along the way. On Sunday, this area is full of Londoners, both East Enders and otherwise, going to the markets. Fortunately for me, all of the shots I wanted to replace were conveniently located between the Tower Hill tube station and Spitalfields Market. I took my pictures and set out for the market.

As I was heading for Spitalfields, I happened to run across the Petticoat Lane Market. This market is located along a street that used to be named Petticoat lane (it was changed by the Victorians because its scandalousness but everyone still calls it that) and is famous for textiles of all sorts made by the various immigrants who made the East End their home when they settled in London. The East End has been the poorer side of London since the nineteenth-century, largely because the prevailing winds of London blew the smoke from all those coal burning fireplaces and factories to the east and because it's very close to where the Docklands where the immigrants would land. One quickly gets the sense that this is very much a vibrant community.

frying pan alley in the East End

The market itself is a great bargain market - what I had hoped that Camden Market would be. The market takes up several streets and is filled with all sorts of people buying and selling luggage, clothing of all sorts, children's toys, scarves and pashminas, handbags, jewelry, shoes, and cd's. I almost bought a Marks and Spencer skirt for Julie, but decided that it was a bad idea to buy clothes for someone else before knowing exactly how it fits (Nicki, Karen, and I will be going to the M&S outlet). Everything was priced to sell, and I kept almost buying things but satisfied myself with some washcloths that I needed (3 for £1 in very fun colors!). My plan is come back closer to the end of my stay in London - right now, I'm still trying to make my funds last another two months.

The nearby Spitalfields Market is very different from the Petticoat Lane Market. This market where you can get the latest fashions/ couture at a reasonable price (of course that reasonable in comparison what you would pay for this sort of stuff in a store - i.e. way out my lowly price range). I really enjoyed looking around at this market, and kept thinking that if I were going to give up life as a student and get a new fabulous life where I worked in some office building making tons of money, I would shop here and be the most fashionable girl on the block. Definitely a market for those of you with what we call in grad school "jobby jobs" - especially with that pound to dollar exchange rate.

gate one of Spitalfields Market

The people watching at Spitalfields was almost as good as the stalls. Everyone was so fabulous, and I was definitely under dressed for the occasion. I kept walking by the one couple that I called Bowie (as in David) and Iman(sp?). She was just as beautiful as the model, but he didn't quite have the Bowie mojo (who could, really?), but let's just say they would have a good chance at winning a look-alikes contest. Having had my fill of the shopping, I head back to Bloomsbury, stopping off at the British Museum to take a few pictures before heading home to relax for the rest of the day.

Another interesting find from my research - a 1901 letter by Ouida, author of Under Two Flags, and devoted animal activist:

It is not that I expect any good of Edward VIII but I think it is well to have finished had with the absurd national idolatry of a commonplace and inferior person who has long been but a bundle of ill fitting clothes. Even English snobbism can scarcely make a Buddha of Wales and he will not travel about with a donkey and have fine frescos scraped off the walls for whitewash to be substituted. He may be mediocre and perhaps mischievous, but a least he is a man of the world, and he won't publish silly books in bad English like his lamented mama. And he does Cordially detest his Imperial nephew. I think the influence of the late Queen on European politics has been uniformly mischievous. But for her Gladstone would have supported the South, and split up the U.S. (The clear interest of England) She alternately flattered and betrayed *Napoleon. German interests were always before English interests with her. She could have prevented the War of 1870 and did not and we suffer still from the effects of that war. She made her self ridiculous (if not worse) with her * T Brown. She loved Disraeli because he flattered her. She hated Gladstone because he did not flatter her. She did nothing for India at any time; only vulgarized it herself by a tawdry and absurd title. For forty years she never fulfilled her duties in public functions; Nor passed a Season in London as she was bound to do. She was professing Christian and she was at war throughout her Reign. She prated of peace and incessantly shed blood. She had the temper of the Tudors, but none of the charm of the Stuarts. She was German - a German hausfrau down to her fingertips. Worst of all, when her dogs were ill or old, she sent them away and took new ones! I hope you may have the patience to read this. I have put on * what I believe to be the truth. The long reign of Victorian R. and I. has been a long triumph of the mediocrities, the hypocrisies, and the shams. It is fittingly ended by the brass orchids of Mr., Chamberlain's Constituents and the apotheosis of Ld Roberts who has boasted a victory and only created chaos!

Dear old Stonehenge does well to show its granite wrath
Ever sincerely yours
Ouida

(* = unreadable word)