Business as Usual

I hadn't been out of Wimbledon since we returned from our weekend walk on Sunday night, and things seem to have calmed down in London, so today I ventured into the city for a change of scene.  I met up with four other AWC members at a movie theater in Notting Hill to see a matinee of Sarah's Key.  The AWC organizes monthly movie outings to chick flicks or foreign/independent/art house films that our spouses are unlikely to want to see.  A French Holocaust movie starring Kristin Scott Thomas definitely fit the bill.  Parts of it were in English, but it was mostly in French with subtitles.

It was a good movie, although like all Holocaust-related films, I was glad I had a supply of tissues in my purse. It's not exactly uplifting, but there is a compelling mystery to be solved and I learned some things about French history that I never knew.

The Notting Hill and Kensington areas seemed largely unaffected by the looting and violence, but there were a few boarded-up storefronts.  When I got back to Wimbledon, I noticed that the front of the mall was no longer boarded up -- although there were several police officers patrolling inside and out.  The Debenham's department store (sort of like Macy's) at the other end of the mall, however, had kept the plywood up on their windows, and taken the trouble to print up posters indicating that they were still open for business.

Business as Usual?

I wouldn't really consider boarding up all your windows to be "business as usual," but it's all part of the "Keep Calm and Carry On" mentality.  Perhaps someone will come up with another clever variation on this meme to capture the current ethos in London.