The Many Adventures of Will!: Google and London, Wow.

Dear Friends and Family,

In a recent post, I alluded to that fact that I was planning a trip to London this past weekend. What a trip is was!

Basically, each year Google (yes, that Google) hosts a dinner reception/party in London for the current Marshall and Rhodes Scholars. Ultimately it’s a recruiting opportunity for Google, but for us it is a chance to see the other scholars (in my case, for the first time since we parted ways in September). Google really threw out all the stops, and I hardly know where to begin.

Here’s a reliable method, “start at the beginning.” OK, well, I left Sheffield for London at 2:00 on Friday. It’s only about a two and a half hour ride to London’s St.Pancras Station, and normally it goes by quickly – Not this time. There was a seven year old boy sitting across from me who completely lacked any form of respect, restraint, or self-discipline. He was wretched. I was trying to read The Design and Analysis of Computer Algorithms but could only make it through about two pages on the whole trip. Incidental, the Third Day song I Can't Take the Pain began playing on my Ipod...The only worse experience I’ve had – as far as kids and travel go – was when another 7 year old boy was sitting next to me on an airplane flight (I think from California to Dulles) and he wet his pants about thirty minutes into the trip. His mom just shouted at him, “Well, you’ll just have to sit in it because we didn’t bring any extra pants.” So anyway, this was a bad omen to start my weekend.

When I got to London, I headed over to my friend’s house to drop off my stuff. Viktorya is a Marshall Scholar who is studying Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art (one of the premier art history institutions in the world). Viktorya and her husband, Andrew, (both very classy people) live in a tiny apartment in downtown London. They let me crash on their floor that night.

Once I dropped off my backpack at their place, the three of us then headed over to the dinner, at the Banqueting Hall in Whitehall. I had no idea of the significance of the place until Viktorya explained it to me. Basically, the Banqueting Hall is rarely open to the public. It was built in 1619 as part of Whitehall palace, although the rest of the palace burned down. Since then, virtually every English monarch has held parties in the hall. Queen Elizabeth, King George, Princess Dianna, you name it; this is where it happens.

On the ceiling is an original Peter Paul Ruben painting of the apotheosis of King James (James rising to heaven). Ruben actually never saw the painting installed. Instead, he completed it in his studio and shipped it to England. He wrote a letter explaining that he was so confident of his abilities as an artist that it was superfluous for him to come to England to see how the painting looked in the building. Ruben was knighted for the painting. It is the only remaining Ruben in the world that is not in a museum or a private/archived collection (sorry that the picture is fuzzy).

King Charles the First met his demise in the Banqueting Hall. When Oliver Cromwell’s revolutionary troops captured the king, he was marched through the hall and was hung outside from a scaffold that was erected on the second floor. It was reported that he wore two undershirts to avoid shivering from the cold (he didn't want his captors to think he was shivering from fear). His executioner was ten minutes late to the appointment, so as a sign of either respect or disrespect, the ten was scratched off the clock on the building across the street.

In order to ease the creepiness of dining at the site of an execution, the whole room was lit with Google colours. On the tables, they had little cups of water bubbling over with steam from dry ice, in keeping with the general Halloween theme. They also had these awesome Google-coloured lighted cubes that floated in the centre piece.

The director of Engineering of Google sat at my table (I was sequestered to the geek table with the other engineers and computer scientists). He has an office in London and California, but prefers to stay in London. Other Google employees were there, some who flew in from California just for this event. It was pretty cool. We got to ask our host about everything from how Google is working with/negotiating with China to how well the much anticipated but yet-to-be-released G-Phone works (he had one in his pocket).

There were a couple “join Google, it’s awesome” speeches, but eventually dinner came. Waiters with white gloves marched out and surrounded our table like some synchronized-swimming routine. It reminded me of the scene in Lord of the Rings where the Ring Wraiths surround the hobbits at night and have their swords raised to kill them. Only this time, they were dressed in white and instead of swords they had roasted duck and steamed vegetables.

After dinner, there was a party downstairs – nothing crazy, but it was fun. An entertainer was there doing card tricks. Apparently he has performed before at parties held by Will Smith and Coldplay. I don’t remember his name, though. To be honest, I had more fun at my birthday pizza party with six friends than with 300 people, a DJ, entertainer, etc. Maybe I’m just introverted or something.

It was really good to see everyone again and laugh about all the nuances of living in the UK, but it also made me appreciate Sheffield. One reason is because there are a lot more Americans at places like Oxford and Cambridge. Almost every other person at Oxford is American, so it can be tempting to just stick with them and not make as many British friends. I only really know one other American at Sheffield, which I think is cool (I know there are more and I’ve met some, but for the most part we don’t cross paths).

Of course, the whole 'dinner in the Banqueting Hall/party with Google' thing did wonders for my already over-indulged ego. I was long overdue for a 'spinach-between-my-front-teeth' incident or the old 'forget-to-zip-the-fly' trick, but strangely it never came. Well, now that I'm thinking about it, maybe it's just that nobody said anything... Hmm... I need to check up on that....

Back to the story, I spent the night at Andrew and Viktorya’s place, slept in, had a light breakfast, and then headed out to find more adventures. My first order of business was visiting John Wesley’s Chapel and home.

John Wesley was a short man, but a powerful preacher of grace, faith, repentance, justification, and sanctification. John’s father was a clergyman, and while John was travelling to Georgia, he came across some German Moravian Christians, who impressed him with their simple, steadfast faith. But, he said it was while reading Martin Luther’s Preface to Romans that he knew God had forgiven him, for Christ’s sake alone. Wesley was challenged by his friend, Reverend George Whitefield, to begin preaching, which he did to a great effect. John travelled all across the country for over 50 years speaking to groups numbering up to 30,000. This was the beginning of the Methodist denomination.

As it were, Saturday was the chapel’s 230^th anniversary, so the museum of Methodism was closed, but I did get a sneak peek of a painting of Wesley that has not been on display for 140 years. The painting was recently donated to the chapel from an archive, and was going to be unveiled latter that day. I came just as they were getting ready to put the veil on. I got to see his grave, his house, and the organ his brother, Charles, used to play. As an interesting side note, former Prime Minister Margret Thatcher was married in the chapel.

Directly across the street is the Bunhill Fields Cemetery, which I found most interesting. Bunhill Fields was originally a cemetery for plague victims during the Great Plague in 1665, but eventually it became a cemetery for the Dissenters. You see, after Oliver Cromwell’s revolt and dictatorship, when the monarchy was restored, the Acts of Uniformity mandated the acceptance of the Church of England and the Book of Common Prayer. Those who dissented – who refused to accept the Church of England - were actively persecuted. Because the Dissenters were not allowed to be buried on Church of England property, they usually ended up in public burial grounds.

I didn’t know this at the outset, but Bunhill Fields is the resting place of a great many well-known Christians (I was going to say the ‘final resting place...’ but that’s not really true...). Among them are:

Isaac Watts: hymn writer and pastor of a dissenting church.

John Bunyan: author of Pilgrim’s Progress, who spent over 12 years in gaol for sedition.

William Blake: engraver, poet, illustrated Pilgrim’s Progress

Daniel Defoe: Author of Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders. Defoe was jailed for criticizing the way the High Church treated Dissenters. Later (after a change of government) he became a secret agent.

Dame Mary Page: Wife of Sir Gregory Page, “in 67 months’ Dame Mary ‘was tapp’d 66 times, had taken away 240 gallons water without ever repining at her case or ever fearing the operation.” Gee Whiz!

Susanna Wesley: Mother of 19 children, including John and Charles Wesley.

George Fox: Founder of the Quaker movement

George Whitehead: Prominent Quaker leader.

As well as John Rippon, hymn writer; Thomas Bayes, statistician (aka: Bayes Rule and the Bayesian method), Eleanor Coade, developed the Coade Stone; John Gill, author of The Exposition of the Bible; Joseph Hart, hymn writer and minister, Richard Price, invented life insurance, Thomas Pringle, secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, and James Foster, author of Essay on Fundamentals.

Most were buried between 1665 and 1840, and all deserve a more thorough treatment than the one line I allotted them.

Anyway, it was amazing just to be there, and you don’t have to agree with every morsel of their theology to appreciate the way God used them. I think it was also helpful to be reminded of my own mortality after being treated like an honest-to-goodness rock star the night before...

So, my next destination was Charles Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle. Often quoted even today, Spurgeon was England's best-known preacher during the late 1800's (he preached his first sermon at age 16!) and the Metropolitan Tabernacle was the first 'mega-church' in the modern sense. Spurgeon published thousands of sermons, tracts, books, and articles over the course of his lifetime, helped found an orphanage in London, and was also a good friend and supporter of Hudson Taylor, who founded the China Inland Mission.

I would like to get my hands on a copy of some of his sermons sometime and familiarize myself with him a little more.

With my mission accomplished for this trip, I grabbed a lunch of white-rolls, Brie cheese, and milk, hiked across the London Bridge, and wandered back to the train station through the freezing cold rain.