A London less ordinary

They are pelicans! yes, really! In London. And my friend says she saw one eat a duck once. Which rather dreadfully made us both laugh hysterically. Especially as a pair of ducks was sitting on the rock next to these pelicans.

It was a bit dark and they weren't that close. That was the best my phone could manage. Anyway, it turns out they've been in St James Park since the seventeenth century. How come I didn't know this? You can read about them here. For some reason, I thought pelicans were grey rather than white.

This trip to the city was centred around a talk with Iain McGilchrist and Philip Goff.

I walked from Swiss Cottage to Parliament Square - which is a decent trek, I'll have you know. My friend and I had dinner in a swanky pub (there are such things in London) before the discussion began.

So. I would tell you about it if I had my notes with me. Turns out that both of them are kind of Christians, a bit of a surprise. But the thing I liked most was McGilchrist's insistence that what matters arises from relationship - relationships come first and those which relate, as it were, emerge from the relationship. I think that Karen Barad makes a similar point. The relata precede the relationship. That's the thing. Anyway, a relationship requires that there are two different things relating... yet the different things come into being out of the relationship. I think I need to read his new book. It's only 1500 pages.