Queen Victoria's napkin in “The Albert“

Parting ways with London today, I once again passed by Mark Masons' Hall, a centre of freemasonic activity on St James's Street. Yesterday evening, it was full of gentlemen in, I should guess, well-tailored suits, drawing up the bright, rational, unblemished future of the world under the watchful eyes of David Lloyd George and Sir Winston Churchill, gazing from the portraits hung on the walls of the neatly illuminated hall. Both times I walked utterly unprepared, but next time I shall bring my square and compasses, crash the party and offer my own insights into which strings of the global order need to be urgently pulled.

A few hours spent in The Albert, a stylish Victorian pub, the only surviving building from the original planning of Victoria Street, and one that made it through The Blitz intact. Pubs have their daily cycle, manifesting itself in their crowdedness, lighting, the intensity of sounds, and probably a few more things I cannot think of right now. The last property seems the most interesting to me. I am positive that the noisier it gets in a pub, the louder the guests proceed to talk to one another – to be able to hear each other, after all – thus perpetuating the increasing amplitudes of the waves. Here I mean the people socialising, for this evening The Albert attracted quite a few loners reading and writing – including myself, indeed. Long live the pubs!

I said my goodbyes to London at Waterloo Station, and not long after greeted Southampton. The ocean awaits.

Everything, it said, was against the travellers, every obstacle imposed alike by man and by nature. A miraculous agreement of the times of departure and arrival, which was impossible, was absolutely necessary to his success. He might, perhaps, reckon on the arrival of trains at the designated hours, in Europe, where the distances were relatively moderate; but when he calculated upon crossing India in three days, and the United States in seven, could he rely beyond misgiving upon accomplishing his task? There were accidents to machinery, the liability of trains to run off the line, collisions, bad weather, the blocking up by snow—were not all these against Phileas Fogg? Would he not find himself, when travelling by steamer in winter, at the mercy of the winds and fogs? Is it uncommon for the best ocean steamers to be two or three days behind time? But a single delay would suffice to fatally break the chain of communication; should Phileas Fogg once miss, even by an hour; a steamer, he would have to wait for the next, and that would irrevocably render his attempt vain.
Jules Verne, “Around the World in Eighty Days“