Kensington

In Kensington, I noticed, the babies do not match the young women who are pushing their buggies. During week days this part of London becomes nannyville. They emerge from houses that are tall and grand - like something out of Mary Poppins or Paddington Bear - belonging to the very affluent middle-classes. My hotel was typical: a Victorian town house five floors above ground and another beneath


overlooking a small square of community garden.


I had a peaceful night. The room small but perfectly adequate and the place clean, quiet and with a pleasing quirkiness,


and the staff friendly. I'd definitely stay there again - although Kensington is not particularly central for most of the events I usually attend.

However in this instant it was; just a short stroll, about fifteen minutes, took me to the Albert memorial


the Albert Hall,


the Royal College of Music and,

the venue of the AGM of the Society of Authors, Imperial College (part of the University of London).

Queen Victoria, I decided long ago, had brash tastes. She loved the gaudiness of India; nothing could be too shiny, too gilt, too bejewelled or too opulent in her eyes. Wealth and empire, once acquired, should be flaunted...


Albert was the love of her life and when he died prematurely she seems to have set a large part of London aside to honour his memory. The Albert Memorial (which glints quite dazzingly in the least suggestion of sun) is at the edge of a large splendidly encircled park, and across the road from the magnificent concert hall which is also named in his honour.

I like the detail of these structures; the patterning of the grille here for instance and the moulding of the sills.

I also like the way that you suddenly come across a building that is less well-known and less elaborate, but just as striking. This, presumably, is just a Victorian office block but, like one of the enviably proportioned females in the Martin Amis book I am reading, is both slender and tall in frame and yet curvaceous...


Although in another way entirely.