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A maritime clock is essential to determine your location on the earth. Given a good map of the stars, and an accurate clock to know what the local time is, then it is possible to determine where you are by matching the stars to the chart and adjusting for the local time. A prize of (I think) 200 pounds was offered to the first person to produce an accurate clock. This happened in the 1700s, and the basic design was used for a very long time. There was much acrimony over the prize, as the committee did not want to pay it, claiming that they could not determine whether the winner's clock was accurate enough. They did eventually, but made many enemies in the process.
The other fascinating thing about Greenwich is that it is also the location of the 0 meridian. This leads to the expression Greenwich Mean Time, which is no longer used, as the new name is UTC - something like Universal Coordinated Time. Time keeping is a fascinating area of human endeavour. So all in all, I very much enjoyed the visit. There are two other attractions in Greenwich which I forgot to mention. The sailing ship Cutty Sark, which I believe still holds the record for the fastest voyage to Australia, and Francis Chitchester's boat Gipsy Moth IV, the boat in which he sailed around the world single handed. The Cutty Sark is open for visiting, but I had seen the inside of enough ships that it no longer held much appeal.
I caught the ferry back up the river, and then had about an hour and a half to fill in before meeting Catherine MacGonigal for dinner. Just after the ferry docked, it started to rain. I headed into a building just opposite Big Ben and waited a few minutes for the rain to stop. The clouds were moving quickly, so I expected it to stop soon. Which it did, so I then headed to Leicester Square, via Picadilly Circus, since I hadn't been there yet. Leicester Square is actually a park, a rather nice park, in the middle of the theatre district. At the appointed time, Catherine showed up, and we walked up to Covent Garden, then on the way back found a very nice (as it turned out) restaurant, and decided to eat there. It was very enjoyable to see Catherine again. We had a most pleasant evening - my shout, which Catherine appreciated as she is saving to head off to Africa in a few weeks. After dinner, back home in the train.
London Business & Tourist
Back To Seattle