A Yorkshireman in London

It’s All Saints Day back home - which cunnigly translates as la Toussaint over here. Whilst obviously an excuse for the whole city to grind to a halt, it is also good enough reason to allow all us poor students a week’s leave from our toils. Thus last week I sprung a surprise visit on London.

During the course of a week of drinking real beer from real pint glasses, I was somewhat surprised to discover that several more people than I thought are reading this blog. Conscious that my mind’s been devoid of interesting things for the last couple of weeks, and especially having turned down a column in City and Guilds’ student rag, I’ve found a sudden motivation to continue writing. So here, to celebrate, is a lovely picture of the garden inside the Victoria and Albert Museum, a vast establishment which otherwise failed to capture my imagination. Although it’s worth a visit to see the really old musical instruments.

Continuing the museum trend, the Science Museum was on the agenda - in particular the relatively recent addition known as the Wellcome Wing. This place I love, becuase one can blend in with the kids, press all the buttons, play all the games, and nobody cares. In fact, that’s what it’s there for.

Following an abortive attempt at Madame Tussauds (based on both price and queue length) I nipped down the road to another place I’ve never quite got round to checking out - The British Library. They have some great permanent exhibitions, showing off such prized books as the Magna Carta, and several originial musical manuscripts by composers such as Beethoven, Vaughan Williams, and of course Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan.

I turned down their shop’s recommended read (Peter Ackroyd’s Shakespeare: The Biography) in favour of the discovery of a new bookshop - Waterstone’s Gower Streeet. This real tardis of a store surprisingly hides a well-stocked second-hand department, and a vast collection of technical books and foreign literature - much more so than the it’s big sister Watertsone’s Picadilly, the largest bookstore in Europe. It was the latter where I spent several hours browsing through the collection that spans six storeys, where even armchairs are provided for getting well into a good read before choosing to buy it. Eventually, after many grand ideas of expanding my library, I had to settle, more economically, for the obligatory 3 for 2 on paperbooks … “how can you resist..?”

Thus continued to be the shape of my week - trying desperately to do all the things that cannot be done in that France. This also included an evening in the company of the Surbiton Women’s League Male Voice Choir, and a good afternoon spent watching the latest offerings from Wallace and Grommit. However, Britain got the last laugh, of course, as the clocks snook back and permitted an extra hour in bed on saturday night - it was an hour that I promptly lost on the train home.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 1st, 2005 at 11:52 pm and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.