H.M.P. (26 March)

These posters are all over the city right now:

H.M.P stands for "Her Majesty's Prison," and the letters are usually followed by the name of the prison in question--of course whoever is putting up these posters is obviously making a comment about the state of London. These particular posters are right outside The Photographers' Gallery, where we had some coffee and toured the current exhibit before heading to a free reading by Alan Sillitoe, who opened his talk with a wordless greeting to the audience, courtesy of his RAF wireless training and some now-ancient equipment:

He offered an autographed copy of one of his novels to anyone who could decipher the message, but the prize went unclaimed as no one could understand his warm welcome without translation. Although I haven't read anything by him (Bob has several of his books), the talk was full of good humour and interesting anecdotes and we also got the chance to see a man of eighty rather comfortably pair a leather vest with a pair of military boots!