Palace of Westminster

This past week, I was in London on assignment for The D&O Diary. The November weather was occasionally gloomy, frequently foggy, and a little bit chilly, but it was still a great visit. London is such an endlessly rich, vibrant, fascinating place, even in the November gloom.

My prior reason for visiting London this time was to participate as a speaker at the autumn technical meeting of IntAP, the international reinsurance claims association. The meeting was held in the 30 St. Mary Axe building, popularly known as The Gherkin. It was an interesting session with a lively audience and I enjoyed the opportunity to be a part of it. My thanks to the event committee and especially to Cathy Church of Swiss Re for inviting me to be a part of this event.

It was an honor and a pleasure to be able to address this lively and engaged audience.

My thanks to Cathy Church for inviting me to attend and for being such a good host, as well. I first met Cathy at an IntAP event in Munich several years ago.

That’s the Lloyd’s building on the left, and if you look at the center you can just see the Gherkin edging into the picture. Interesting fact, the Lloyd’s building is located on the former site of the East India House, the headquarters of the East India Company. The Gherkin building is built on the site of the former Baltic Exchange, which was heavily damaged in 1992 by a bombing from the Provisional IRA.

This is the Leadenhall Market, adjacent to the Lloyd’s building and very much a part of the London insurance scene. In fact, at one time, Lloyd’s itself was located on Leadenhall Street.

The night before the event, the event committee hosted a dinner for the speakers and committee members at The Libertine, a restaurant located in the Royal Exchange building, which once housed the London Stock Exchange. (The actual exchange is now located elsewhere.) The Royal Exchange Building now functions as a high-end shopping center and fine dining location. It was a pleasant evening with enjoyable company.

Notwithstanding my busy schedule while in London, we did have a bit of a chance to look around and enjoy the city while we were there.

On our first full day, we traveled out to the Canary Wharf, in the London Docklands. I have been to London at least 40 times since the year 2000, when I first started traveling to London regularly. In all that time, I had never actually been to Canary Wharf. In some ways, it was as I pictured — a bunch of tall steel and glass office buildings built in the 90s and early 2000s. In other ways, the place was bit of a surprise.
The main reason for our visit to Canary Wharf was to visit the London Museum Docklands, located in the renovated West India Quay. If you have read this far, I am about to reward you for your persistence. The thing you need to know is that the Docklands museum is a really fantastic museum. The museum explains the origins and development of the London docks, the industrialization of the dock areas in the 19th century, the history of the docks during the WWII blitz, and the late 20th century transformation of the dock area into its present role as a financial hub. The museum also tells the story of the role of the London docks in the Atlantic slave trade.
I highly recommend this relatively new museum (opened in 2023), particularly for first time visitors to the city. In my humble opinions it may be one of the most interesting museums in the city.

Our visit to the Docklands museum was consistent with my general theory when visiting London, which is to try and do things that I have not done on my many prior visits to the city. As part of this approach, we next went to the Leake Street Arches, a pedestrianized road tunnel beneath the platforms and tracks of the Waterloo Station, just south of the Eye of London on the Thames River’s south bank. The arches took on their current existence as a destination location for legalized street art in 2008, when the street artisit Banksy organized a street art festival (the “Cans Festival“) there.

Interestingly, several of the grafitti artisits were at work when we visited.
This is not the sort of place we typically visit, but we agreed that it was actually pretty fascinating. Some of the art was really interesting.
From the Arches, we next went to the BookBar in Chelsea, an independent book store where you can browse the curated collection while enjoying a coffee or a glass of wine. A friendly, comfortable place. The tables are communal, and we struck up a conversation with one of our tablemates, who turned out to be an Italian who has lived in London for over 30 years. We had a plesant chat about the recent midterm elections in the U.S. (Just an observation, if you are a single male hoping to meet attractive women, this is the place to go.)
We had dinner that evening in the King’s Arms Pub of Fulham Road in Chelsea. I mention this here because of the conversation we overheard while there. A very young woman seated at the adjacent table with four similarly aged young men, enjoying what was clearly not her first beer of the evening, was saying “Oh my gawd, I mean, I didn’t even know the difference between a broker and an underwriter!” Can you imagine?
On Sunday, we were up early to make our way to St. Bride’s Church, a beautiful Christoper Wren-designed building located just off Fleet Street. It was Remembrance Sunday, and the church held a memorial service to honor and commemorate the country’s veterans. The church has fantastic acoustics and a professional choir. During the service, the choir performed Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem. It was a very solemn and moving service, which we were grateful to be able to attend. A very appropriate way to spend Remembrance Sunday.
After the church service, we walked across Blackfriars Bridge to the South Bank of the Thames, to see the Tate Modern art musuem, which houses a huge collection of modern and contemporary art. The museum is located inside the former Bankside Power Station. This picture shows an art installation in Turbine Hall, the museum’s massive central atrium.(The current installation in the atrium is a huge multimedia work entitled “Hold.”) Years ago, I visited the museum with my then-15 year old son, who reacted angrily to the museum’s edgy, challenging art. He saw it (all of it) as a cynical fraud. His reaction provoked a serious discussion, in which he was totally engaged, about what makes something “art.” I suspect many visitors to the museum have the same questions for themselves as they view the museum’s avant-garde collection.

The museum does offer great views back across the river. In the foreground of this picture is one of the museum’s art installations. I confess that I was much more interested in the view, which is of the Millennium Bridge crossing the river toward St. Paul’s Cathedral. Here’s a pro tip for anyone visiting the Tate Modern any time soon. The museum (which is free) has several cafes, including a coffee shop on the tenth floor. The 10th Floor coffee shop has great views of the river and of The City.
Later that afternoon, we went to the Champagne Bar at Harrods for a pre-concert dinner. I am wearing a poppy in this picture in honor of Remembrance Sunday. We highly recommend the bar, going there is a delightfully indulgent experience.
After the dinner at Harrods we then went to Cadogan Hall to hear the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) perform. I have long thought that if I could participate in any musical performance it would be as The Pirate King in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance. After this concert, I now want to be the violin soloist in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. The actual soloist at this concert was Mathilde Milwidsky, whose performance of the first allegro movement gave me goosbumps and of the second andante movement brought tears to my eyes. The final work on the program was Elgar’s Enigma Variations, the ninth variation of which, known as the Nimrod variation, has since 1920 been the anthem of Remembrance Sunday. It was a great program and a very moving experience.
Though there were periods of foggy, chilly gloom during our visit, particularly in the mornings, we also did have a chance to enjoy some November sunshine as well, including during an afternoon visit in St. James’s Park. That’s Buckingham Palace in the background.

The glowing fall colors in a flower bed in Hyde Park.

There is so much to see and do in London, which is a great place to visit any time of the year. All too soon, we had to move on to other destinations.