In some ways, this should have waited until we had been here longer and could better appreciate it. Judie and I spent last night at Mansion House and at a birthday party in a crypt at Guildhall. It was a peek into a part of London society that I didn’t expect to see:

It began when we met Phil Saunders at our going away party in Montclair. He came with Jenny Bakshi, a old friend and UU from Montclair whose son, Nick, was friends with Alex. It turns out that she is now seeing Phil, who is a barrister (solicitor?) with the City of London. He had arranged a hot air balloon regatta over London to raise money for the Lord Mayor’s charity fund (you can find it on You Tube) and invited us to come to the reception commemorating the event. Here is a picture of him with the Lord Mayor. (It appears that one of the perks of being the Lord Mayor, besides being able to live in the ornate and impressive Mansion House, is that you get to wear that big medal on your chest for all occasions such as this one.) Mansion House is a fairly gigantic edifice across the street from the Bank of England. It was built in the 1740s to house the Lord Mayor and renovated several times. It is large and, while not exactly beautiful, it does give the intended feeling of power. It contains a lovely collection Dutch and Flemish art from the seventeenth and eighteenth century, which are hung all over the walls. Jenny took us in to see the Egyptian Room, a long ballroom with a high, vaulted ceiling, where major events are held. (There is nothing about it that is particularly Egyptian, but it is quite elegant.) Mansion House is not open to the public, so this was a special treat.

After this event, we were taken to the 60th birthday party of Sir Roger Gifford, a banker who was a former Lord Mayor. Handsome and charming fellow. The party was held in a large crypt under the old Guildhall, which is and has been for centuries the governing center of the City and was once the site of a large Roman amphitheater. Some of the crypts, which we walked through to get there, date back to Norman times, although the one for the party had been rebuilt after it was destroyed in the Blitz. Judie has been told that people in London often throw such parties for themselves and the purpose is both celebratory and commercial, as one invites business associates and presumably potential clients. That seemed to be the case with this event, which was populated by bankers and officials involved with the City government. It reminded me a little of the parties that I would go to while I was on the Town Council, in that everyone seemed to be either talking earnestly or looking around for someone that they should talk to and making sure that they made contact with everyone important. We met one of the City Alderman, a lawyer at one of the big law firms. The City, although small in size (one square mile), is divided into 25 wards, so she represented a district of only a few blocks.

As far as I can tell, the City of London Corporation, the local government, really doesn’t do all that much. The City owns pretty much all of the land under the City’s buildings and lots of property all over London, which it leases (usually very long-term leases) and overlooks. (This is part of what Phil does.) And it has its own police and fire departments and supports the arts at the Barbican. But it doesn’t seem like the alderman are kept very busy. They are elected in a unique way. There are relatively few actual residents of the City (although I think you need to be a resident to be Lord Mayor–or at least you used to), so they have system under which businesses are allowed to vote under a complicated formula according to their size. Thus, Bryan Cave can vote for the alderman in their ward. (I think it is the only place in the UK that does this.) So a lot of the alderman and Council’s job involves lobbying on behalf of the financial institutions and other companies in the City. As for the Lord Mayor, his role seems to be largest ceremonial, involving riding in coaches, dressing up in funny outfits, wearing judge’s wigs, raising money and going to events. There is a ceremony once a year when the new Lord Mayor takes office which includes the receipt of various items representing the tribute that he would once have received from the various guilds that ran the City and would have put his predecessors in to power. This happens during “The Lord Mayor’s Show”, a big parade in which he rides in a gold carriage carriage from the Guildhall, where the City’s offices are, to St.Paul’s to get blessed, to the Court’s to swear allegiance. It is the kid of pomp and circumstance that the Brits are great at and seem to love. The whole thing is televised on BBC.

We met a few people, probably the most interesting of whom were two Sheriffs, one of whom is the subject (or narrator?) of a TV series called “The Sheriffs are Coming”. Their main role is to evict squatters, collect on judgements and otherwise enforce court orders. They had some great stories, including how they went about removing the Occupy people from around St. Paul’s. A lot of their stories involved breaking doors down, which must be easier if you aren’t worried that someone will be on the other side with an arsenal of guns. The evening ended with a nice dinner with Phil and Jenny, who I think and hope we might get to see more of in the coming months. It turns out that Phil is not just the organizer of a fundraiser, he is a pilot (who somehow taught a blind person to fly) and balloon affectionado. (He has been to a similar ballon event in the town in Arizona (Lake Havasu) where the old London Bridge was moved. LBJ Had to personalize approve a small diversion of the Colorado River so that he bridge would have something to go over, we were told.) It turns out that it is relatively inexpensive to have a personalized balloon made and a number of companies have them, just for such events, as a marketing tool. I spoke with a woman from Fortnum & Masons about their balloon and the proper color to get it noticed (not blue or white).

Today, it was back to reality. Waiting for the cable guy.