Elaine reflected in a mirror in the Jewish Museum 
Cockerel and Viagra 
Chairs shaped like human bottoms 
Pera House 
Windows and chandelier 
Reflection of one of Canning’s expropriated chandeliers 
Angel 
From the sublime … to the recycling 
Bench at the Reflection Pool, Pera House 
Tree 
Memorial, Pera House 
Graffiti in Pera 
Graffiti in Pera, 2 
Koc Museum: self-portrait in fender – in blue jeans 
Koc Museum: fish made from car springs 
Koc Museum: submarine conning tower 
Evening in the spice market
The Jews have had an up and down history in Constantinople and Istanbul, as became clear from a visit today to the Jewish Museum. Much of the day we spent in and around Pera, where I found it difficult to resist snapping images of bottom-shaped chairs or Viagra strung from a cockerel’s beak in local shop windows. But the most moving visit of the day was to Pera House, the old British Embassy, built in the style of a rather grand English country house on land ceded to the British in perpetuity. Elaine and I met and talked to the widow of Roger Short, one of those killed in the terrible bombing of 2003, which killed 13 people. She was working on the plantings around the memorial to those killed.
Later in the day, we spent a hugely entertaining couple of hours at the Rahmi M Koc Industrial Museum, where the rest of the crew were much taken with the railway carriage used by the first Sultan to visit France and Britain in the wake of the Crimean War, while my eye was taken by other things – particularly the wreckage of a Liberator, Hadley’s Harem. This was one of 177 Liberators from Benghazi that bombed oil refineries in Ploesti, Romania on August 1st, 1943 – dubbed “Black Sunday”. After bombing the target, the B-24 was crippled by a German fighter and ttried to fly to the British base in Cyprus but ended up ditching near Antalya. The bomb-aimer had been killed and the nose blown away in the attack, so God only knows what it was like ditching in the sea, the subsequent crash also killing the pilot and co-pilot. Much of the airframe was salvaged in 1995 and the cockpit section, partly restored, was put on display with the help of Roy Newton, one of seven survivors of the crash.
In the evening, Elaine and I walked around the wonderful Spice Market, with its mounds of spices, dried fruit and honeycombs, among other delights.
New Mosque 1 
New Mosque 2
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