Now, the British Museum Tour - Ideas That Made Our World has been advertised so often in my inbox that I could hardly avoid going on it. It's Funzing, see, and was advertised for today by two Meetup groups - London Speaks Sessions and LDN Talks @Night (strangely, not by the Funzing UK group, but maybe they thought they had enough on). Anyway, I booked with Funzing, and signed up with the aforementioned two groups - for today, finally, allowing me to delete all those other invitations! Honestly, I don't believe I've ever seen such a well-advertised event.
I love being in London for the weekends - I can catch up with myself slightly, and even had time to do the blog last night and get to bed in plenty of time to have a proper sleep. Which I did! Praise be, that cold seems to be on its way out. Anyway, I woke in time to have breakfast, and set off in decent time to the British Museum, in order to get there by 2pm. Unfortunately, I hadn't counted on the queue for the bag check.. as I joined the end of the long queue, I could see a guy standing on the steps with an orange umbrella, whom I thought might be the guide. "Orange umbrella" had been mentioned in the instructions email. So I texted him to let him know I was in the queue, and finally came out the other side of bag check just after 2. They were quite quick with the actual check, but of course I should have expected a bigger queue on a Saturday!
Yes, that was him, unnervingly standing all alone - but it turned out that another couple had beaten me to it, and were currently investigating the toilet facilities. And we were waiting on another few. While we waited, we had an interesting chat about the museum.. and in due course, the others showed up: one guy who'd been in the bag queue a bit after I had, and a couple of Spanish girls, who'd ended up in completely the wrong place, apparently! I'm glad they didn't miss it.
Of course, and as I said to him afterwards, we couldn't possibly cover the whole place in a couple of hours. However, this was a fantastic taster. We started with Assyrian reliefs, then moved on to the Egyptian gallery, which I'd love to come back to - and of course, it'd be easy for me, within walking distance.. and it's free!
More photos here. As we went, our knowledgeable guide explained to us the progress of human civilisation, and we got to see the Rosetta Stone. How could I have been here before and missed it!
The fact that it wasn't until 1822 that the hieroglyphics were decoded with reasonable confidence explains the explosion of interest in Egyptology in the 19th century. Our next gallery was the Parthenon gallery, in which our guide brought up the subject of whether the "Elgin marbles", appropriated by Lord Elgin from the Parthenon in the early 1800s, should be returned to Greece. As our guide explained, one of the museum's stated reasons for hanging onto them was that you could literally trace the entire history of the world, walking from gallery to gallery here. That, I can testify to.
One of the most amazing things we saw was a small sculpture of a couple having sex. What was amazing about it wasn't so much its execution, as its age.. the thing is apparently 11,000 years old! (Yes, Homo Sapiens were around then - and naturally preoccupied with sex, I guess!) Neolithic period, I believe.
Another highlight was our trip to the Aztec room, with its creepy masks and sculptures - oh, and a sacrificial knife!
We continued to the room focusing on the Age of Enlightenment, which, as our guide said, was one of the most interesting rooms, because it contained stuff from so many different fields of study. And finishing by an Easter Island statue, we gave him a discreet, and well-earned, round of applause. He was headed to the pub after, but since nobody else seemed inclined, I didn't fancy going either.
Terrific tour, terrific way to get your head around this enormous place with all its wonders. He focused on the ancient world because, as he said, many of the other galleries were closed for renovations. Apparently he runs his own company, but I didn't catch the name - still, you can book on the above Funzing link. This is a new walk, apparently, and scheduled for plenty of dates! Highly recommended.
I grabbed a hot chocolate in the museum cafe after - mainly to rest my aching legs and feet, but the chocolate proved most satisfactory too. He had offered a break in the middle of the tour, but we passed, which was fine - but I was glad to get home finally and put my feet up!
I'm quite
excited about tomorrow. I was considering going to a film.. which meant
redoing the film list.. and just got it finished yesterday. Imagine my glee
to see a horror film on top! I do believe that's the very first time that horror has come top of an unrestricted list of London showings. Twenty Twenty-Four is only showing tomorrow - and in the Vaults, yet! What a great location. Unfortunately, having decided to go see it - which took
about one second after the list was done - it then took me 20 minutes
to book it! I swear, I could not find a link - which was worrying, as the above site said tickets had to be booked in advance. But their booking link doesn't work, their advertised phone number links to the wrong company, the other phone number I found for them isn't monitored, they say to book via Time Out, but Time Out provides no links at all for them.. I was despairing by the time I found the link for the Vault Festival, which is the one you need. Honestly,
do they really not need to advertise better? Anyway, there's a shorts
programme too, and since there was a discount if you booked both, I did.
On Monday, I'm back with the Crick Crack Club - Love in the Shadows is in Soho Theatre, and, as usual for these events, already sold out.
On Tuesday, the Man is wearing his Hat again - Let's Do London - for less! is off to see Phantom of the Opera. Only 11 tickets, snapped up at once, of course - and hard to believe he's never seen it! Wonder whether anyone else who's going from the group has, apart from me..!
On Wednesday, I'm actually flying back to Ireland, because I'm going with my mother on Thursday to a Colm Wilkinson concert at UCH Limerick. Staying for the weekend, as it would be my weekend in Ireland anyway.
And on the following Monday, I got a cheap ticket to a comedy show - Alasdair King is performing at the Pleasance Theatre.
I love storytelling, so naturally gravitate towards anything that the Crick Crack Club does. And this sounded amazing - A Wild Spectacular, running late-night at the Wellcome Collection. I booked months ago, soon as I heard about it - again, before I even knew whether I'd still be in London.
Turns out it's only about a 15-minute mosey from the new place. There was only one person going that I knew, and she messaged me about 20 minutes before it started, to say she was already there, with a drink. Which meant it was time for me to get a move on. She also let me know where she was sitting - at the cafe, just to the right of the entrance.
More photos here. I missed her at first, but found her on a second walkthrough, and we set off on a voyage of discovery. Now, this was all about things wild, and wildness in all its forms was on offer tonight. Not fancying the odd items available as examples of foraged food, we headed to the first of the talks - Radical Innocence: The wild child in history, in literature and on film. The speaker dealt primarily with the subject of the Truffaut film, L' Enfant Sauvage - unfortunately, he seemed a little out of his depth, particularly during the Q+A afterwards, which was just full of questions to which he didn't have an answer. Methinks his specialisation was in something slightly off the subject.
Anyway, afterwards we wandered vaguely for a bit, and it was just by chance that we came across the area, through the back of the bookshop, where the unticketed storytelling was happening! Now, the location of that really wasn't advertised at all, which is a real shame, because it was one of the highlights. Nell Phoenix and Tuup were among the performers, including a choir, that rotated stage duties for the whole evening, so that you were never left un-entertained! Only problem was, there wasn't any seating - otherwise, I could happily have spent all my time there.
With a message from the organiser about meeting us upstairs at 8:45, we made for there, and found the place - a confessional, where you could describe your wild moments and have them artistically represented and posted on the wall. There was a table where you could indulge your artistic wild side, and there was a bar, where we decided to brave the queue for a drink, reasoning that we could see her if she arrived. Which she never did. Never mind, we got our drinks, my companion going for a cocktail. And we sat at the art table for a while, until I realised it was nearly time for the second of the talks we had tickets for! So down we went again.
Homo Timidus was a much more entertaining talk, given by a researcher into horror, whose subject was why we like it so much. He was a good speaker, there was much hilarity, and I namechecked many of my favourite films. Pity, when it came to showing the trailer for Paranormal Activity, it turned out he wasn't au fait with YouTube, and couldn't get it working..! But we had great fun with - as his research showed - one of society's favourite topics.
Afterwards, my companion called it a night - she has an early start. But I hung around for a while - watched a short animated film, checked out the otherwordly dancers, prowling the halls!
A terrific night, with plenty to entertain - I'm just sorry it didn't occur to me to head back to where the all-evening storytelling was happening. Never mind, it was good to get home early.
Tomorrow, I'm finally going to the much-advertised British Museum Tour - Ideas That Made our World. A Funzing event, as advertised by two of their Meetup groups - London Speaks Sessions and LDN Talks @ Night. So I booked with both.. and I can walk there again.
I'm quite excited about Sunday. I was considering going to a film.. which meant redoing the film list.. and just got it finished today. Imagine my glee to see a horror film on top! I do believe that's the very first time that horror has come top of an unrestricted list of London showings. Twenty Twenty-Four is only showing on Sunday - and in the Vaults, yet! What a great location. Unfortunately, having decided to go see it - which took about one second after the list was done - it then took me 20 minutes to book it! I swear, I could not find a link - which was worrying, as the above site said tickets had to be booked in advance. But their booking link doesn't work, their advertised phone number links to the wrong company, the other phone number I found for them isn't monitored, they say to book via Time Out, but Time Out provides no links at all for them.. I was despairing by the time I found the link for the Vault Festival, which is the one you need. Honestly, do they really not need to advertise better? Anyway, there's a shorts programme too, and since there was a discount if you booked both, I did.
On Monday, I'm back for one of the Crick Crack Club's more usual sessions - Love in the Shadows is in Soho Theatre, and, as usual for these events, already sold out.
On Tuesday, the Man is wearing his Hat again - Let's Do London - for less! is off to see Phantom of the Opera. Only 11 tickets, snapped up at once, of course - and hard to believe he's never seen it! Wonder whether anyone else who's going from the group has, apart from me..!
On Wednesday, I'm actually flying back to Ireland, because I'm going with my mother on Thursday to a Colm Wilkinson concert at UCH Limerick. Staying for the weekend, as it would be my weekend in Ireland anyway.
And on the following Monday, I got a cheap ticket to a comedy show - Alasdair King is performing at the Pleasance Theatre.
Last night of the week with the Man With the Hat, who was taking both Let's Do London - for less! and London for Less Than a Tenner to Cadogan Hall for a classical concert. So, naturally, I was there.. once I figured out how to get there from the centre. Turns out that the 19 bus goes from practically right outside my office door to just down the road from the venue. Perfect.. and there was a newsagent's just beside the stop, where I could get a bottle of water for this nagging cough. I did leave slightly later than intended - got peckish before I left the office, and made myself a couple of slices of toast - but still got there in plenty of time.
We were in good company at the concert - Sir Ian McKellen evidently has the same discerning taste that we do:
Anyway, I needn't have bothered with the water; they were dispensing it for free in the bar. The bar, by the way, was jam-packed - in contrast with the night before, there were so many people there last night that I knew! (The Man Wth the Hat alone had brought 86 of us with him - not a record, I think, but must have been up there.) And in due course, we headed on up.
We were sat throughout the stalls (and some of us rather smug that we had better seats than the aforementioned Sir Ian). The concert comprised Britten, Copland, Elgar, Brahms, Bartok, and Klezmer dances. And for all of it except the Britten, we were fabulously entertained by the clarinetist, Martin Frost. Rarely have I been so entertained at a classical concert - as well as a varied and appealing programme, we got to hear Martin Frost play with both warmth and sensitivity, dancing around the stage with his clarinet for a partner. And indeed, it was toe-tapping dance music..
Afterwards, the plan was to head to the Royal Court - but there were quite a few of us, more than the night before, and there wasn't really room. So we proceeded with Plan B, the Duke of Wellington, down some side streets. Some people preferred the style of pub, others passed on it because they'd have preferred to stay close to the station, so they went straight home. Those of us who stayed in the Duke of Wellington had a fine chat, and it was great to catch up with people I hadn't seen in a while. Oh, and the nice lady behind the bar told me where to find a napkin for my nose - I'd used up such tissues as I'd brought.
Caught the 137 home - and profound joy, my phone data allowance reset at midnight, so I can now use it for internet at home again! Tonight promises to be unusual.. it's that late-night storytelling event at the Wellcome Collection. Tickets were all free, and are now all gone. I was too late to get a ticket for Ben Haggerty's storytelling performance, but I've booked the second, as well as the first and third talks. That bottle of water might still come in handy. Anyway, there's tons of non-ticketed stuff on. Got an email today telling me that they've overbooked the ticketed events, so even people with a ticket mightn't get in! Hey-ho.. Handy my home internet is functioning again, as it's closer to home for once. So I can take my laptop home again..
Tomorrow, I'm finally going to the much-advertised British Museum Tour - Ideas That Made our World. A Funzing event, as advertised by two of their Meetup groups - London Speaks Sessions and LDN Talks @ Night. So I booked with both.. Also probably closer to home than the office, so unlike last weekend, I might not be hanging around the office for the next few days.
And so the Man With the Hat started the month with Let's Do London - for less! at La Traviata, at the Opera House. And of course, I booked. I was rather worried about this cold I suddenly contracted this week though, and the cough that started to threaten yesterday. I did think about taking a drink with me, but didn't, in the end..
Stayed late in the office, which is so handy for Covent Garden, and had a pleasant stroll down. Got my ticket and made my way upstairs - I hardly knew anyone from the group that attended last night, but was seated beside a very nice lady. It's great to see new people attending, and even better when they turn out to be sociable. Anyway, she turned out to be something of an opera buff, which made the evening more interesting.
Straight away, you have to concede that this is a lavish production! Sumptuous costumes combine with dramatic backdrops - and while there is a large cast, it's the singing of the principal characters that most impresses. Now, the first time I saw this opera was an Ellen Kent production, near where my mother lives. And it's great that they get opera there at all - they only do two productions per year, one night each. But it has to be said, although the backdrops are impressive, the performances often leave something to be desired.
Last night though was the first time I've heard this opera sung so emotively. This was the first time I believed the story of the courtesan with the heart of gold, forced to give up the only man she ever loved. And I could just imagine the Victorian ladies, feeling daring - perhaps shocked - at attending a show about a person like this.. and then sobbing into their hankies as they saw how tragic and noble a figure she was! This is a beautiful production - to look at and to listen to. Highly recommended - playing again in June and July, with a different cast.
Oh, and I felt in good company with my cough and sniffles - half the audience was at it. When my cough finally hit, in the final act, well, it just felt as though we were all just coughing along in sympathy with Violetta, on stage, dying of tuberculosis (spoiler)..
At the intervals, there was a bewildering rush for the balcony, despite the cold. Happily, although I didn't bring outerwear for the first interval, I was in time to grab one of their warm blankets.. When the show ended, there was apparently a private function in the Sun, so we made for The Covent Garden, which had plenty of seating upstairs. We were just in time to order a quick bite to eat - they serve food till 11! And wouldn't you know it, what we had just seen sparked off a fun discussion on feminism. Which lasted until we got thrown out of the upstairs, and then out of the downstairs pub, by the increasingly exasperated server. And so home, well satisfied.
Tonight, back with both that group and London for Less Than a Tenner, to Cadogan Hall for a concert involving the works of Brahms and Elgar, among others. And with my cough worse today, I really shall have to take a drink with me.
Tomorrow promises to be unusual.. it's that late-night storytelling event at the Wellcome Collection. Tickets were all free, and are now all gone. I was too late to get a ticket for Ben Haggerty's storytelling performance, but I've booked the second, as well as the first and third talks. Anyway, there's tons of non-ticketed stuff on.
And finally, on Saturday, I'm finally going to the much-advertised British Museum Tour - Ideas That Made our World. A Funzing event, as advertised by two of their Meetup groups - London Speaks Sessions and LDN Talks @ Night. So I booked with both..
First Meetup of the year with LDAM. They were charging slightly over face value for Sex With Strangers, at Hampstead Theatre - so I can't remember why I bought my ticket from them. However, the limited availability of tickets might have had something to do with it..
Ah yes, Hampstead Theatre. Now, it's a lot easier to get to from the city centre, but still a bit of a trek - it was a slight rush after my work meeting, scheduled for the evening to accommodate the North American participants. Well, thankfully that finished 10 minutes early, but I still took the fast route, by Tube: Tottenham Court Road, Central Line to Bond Street, Jubilee Line to Swiss Cottage, the station with the posh lighting on the escalators. Ages since I'd been here, and I couldn't actually remember which exit to take - happily, I guessed right (No. 2), and the theatre was right in front of me when I exited. Which is good, because that drizzle that had been coming down all day was still being troublesome.
The group was supposed to be in the lobby bar, but I couldn't see them at first - it was quite crowded. Spotted them on my second walkthrough, and was in time to grab a seat. Some had drinks, some food, but with announcements already being made about the house being open, I decided against getting anything myself. We had a nice chat though, not bothering to take our seats until it was nearly time. I discovered that one of the group has just signed up to both of the Man with the Hat's groups! A discerning choice - as she said, she was delighted to find a group with such a varied range of interests..
We weren't all sitting quite together, but near enough to each other, in the front stalls. My, I'd forgotten how comfy the seats are here! Great lower back support, decent legroom. And we were quite central, so the view was impeccable:
Luckily, my cold had pretty much dried up, and apart from a few sniffles and a slight cough - not too troublesome - I was fine. So, the action takes place over slightly more than two hours, with only two participants; in the first half, they meet in a remote hotel, where they have both booked to stay to get some writing done. She - Emilia Fox - is a teacher and frustrated writer, working secretly on her second novel. He is younger, cute, more forthright: a blogger, who's written a book on foot of the blog, which is now to be turned into a film. All called Sex With Strangers, and resulting from a bet that he made with his pals that he couldn't pull a different woman every week, using old-fashioned chat-up lines in bars.
Starts fairly predictably - she's a bit prickly, he's cheekily trying it on. Of course, there's an instant attraction - for one thing, he's read her first novel and was bowled over. And he's damn cute - remembering the male nudity in Dead Funny, I regretted that it wasn't him in the cast list.. Sadly, we don't quite get the full monty in this play, but nearly! The curtain is constantly going down on them getting.. friendly.. and apparently, someone in our group was sitting beside an elderly couple who were quite disapproving!
I really loved it. It's funny, it's entertaining, the acting is spot-on, as the characters change with changing circumstances. He's extremely watchable. And it brings up interesting questions about the relationship between older and younger, old-fashioned and new-fangled, paper and ebooks.. As their relationship grows, can they resolve their differences? And what can each learn from the other? We were on tenterhooks to find out in the second half! Highly recommended, if you can get a ticket - runs until 4 March, but tickets are limited, and completely sold out for tomorrow.
For a venue with such small reception areas, it's surprisingly easy to lose people, and we had trouble finding each other both at the interval and afterwards. We managed, and at the end of the show, one of our group was insistent that we go to Singapore Garden, a local Chinese. "Only a minute's walk!", he said. Which was encouraging, as it was still drizzling. Huh. A long minute. At least it was downhill.. and as I remarked, with the drizzle, it wasn't as bitterly cold as before.
They were quite crowded, but found space for the eight of us that went, at a round table in the back. Ordering was a bit chaotic, and delivery sometimes lacking in communication - "What's that?" "Where's what I ordered?" but we got everything in due course, and were well fed. I was stuffed by the time we emerged - some drove home, the rest headed back to the station. Me, I bussed it - I had looked up a bus route beforehand, but we'd changed location significantly now, which tends to change bus travel arrangements. Braving data charges, I found a direct bus home, and wouldn't you know, although Google Maps predicted I'd just have missed that one, it actually arrived at the stop just as I did! And so home, and well satisfied with my night. Glad to have met up with the group this time, it was a great night.
Tonight, the Man with the Hat is starting the month again. Let's Do London - for less! is off to the Opera House for La Traviata. I'd better take a drink with me - I have an intermittent cough, which just won't do at the opera!
Tomorrow, he's taking both that group and London for Less Than a Tenner to Cadogan Hall for a concert involving the works of Brahms and Elgar, among others.
Friday promises to be unusual.. it's that late-night storytelling event at the Wellcome Collection. Tickets were all free, and are now all gone. I was too late to get a ticket for Ben Haggerty's storytelling performance, but I've booked the second, as well as the first and third talks. Anyway, there's tons of non-ticketed stuff on.
And finally, on Saturday, I'm finally going to the much-advertised British Museum Tour - Ideas That Made our World. A Funzing event, as advertised by two of their Meetup groups - London Speaks Sessions and LDN Talks @ Night. So I booked with both..
