London Weekender (Part I)

Before I get to grips with this entry I'd just like to ARGH at a certain friend of mine who told me some news of theirs and then asked me not to put anything in the diary about it. I hadn't been thinking of putting anything in the diary about it... until they told me not to. This overdose of accidental reverse psychology drove me up the wall on Thursday night. I'm over it now, but I just wanted to share with you how annoying it is when someone tells you not to do something at the same time as putting the idea of doing it in your head in the first place. And obviously, this paragraph does not count as putting anything in the diary about it. Hmph. And possibly LOL.

So, on Friday morning we headed down to see Mr & Mrs Bro. Attentive readers will remember that they arrived back from their honeymoon on Thursday. The plan was that we went down and cooked them a slap-up brunch while we caught up. My parents were also there, as they had been to pick Bro & SiL up from the airport, and had ended up going for a meal with them in the evening and then staying overnight.

The other thing about Friday was that it was of course Alison's Birthday. Alison had asked for money from everyone that she wants to put towards getting a tenor saxophone. In addition to money I also got her mats for her new car, a Mr Happy air freshener for her new car, and a little "Tatty Teddy" to sit on the dashboard of her new car. Quite a few other people, as it happened, also got her car stuff.

So anyway, we headed south in her car, with her driving while I dozed a little, since I had been up until 12.45am the previous night working on the picture CD for Bro & SiL. Straight after the wedding I'd contacted everyone I knew who'd had a digital camera at the wedding and asked them to send me their pictures. I'd then compiled them onto one CD in a nice html presentation with captions of varying levels of sensibility.

Not surprisingly, while I helped Alison cook, and while we all ate brunch, Bro & SiL were going through the pictures and my parents also saw most of them. It seems I did a good job, even with the captions that were written around midnight with heavily drooping eyelids, as there was much guffawing and cooing over the pictures and their captions.

And then we moved on, taking with us the funky Thai silk print and funky Thai wooden frog that makes frog noises and the funky Thai dragon made out of pulped sawdust, all of which were funky presents for us from Thailand, obviously.

Our next port of call was London, where we were to stay with SiS (Sister-in-Sin - Alison and I are "living in sin", so Alison's sister is therefore my Sister-in-Sin) and her significant other, who I have to term SBF (Sister's Boyfriend) because there really is no other easy term for your girlfriend's sister's boyfriend and since I don't have a sister myself (other than SiL, who I can't be refering to when I say SBF for obvious reasons) it's pretty obvious that when I say SBF I'm refering to Alison's Sister rather than any form of sister of my own.

We met SiS and a friend of hers who was down for the day (who I will refer to as TM for Teacher Mate, since TM was both SiS's mate and a teacher) in South Ken and went for lunch. Now, for lunch we went to a Sushi place. I was apprehensive about the idea but wasn't going to make a fuss since this was Alison's birthday lunch here. Anyway, it turns out that I was right to be apprehensive - Sushi really isn't my thing.

And then we went to the Natural History Museum. This was very cool, since I'd been there quite a bit as a kid, but hadn't been there for something like 15 or 20 years. The first thing we did on arrival was to book ourselves onto a tour of the Darwin Centre (which I will explain more about when I come to the tour), before heading to the Earth Galleries. On our way there I saw Pickwick in a glass case so I took a picture of her.

The Earth Galleries were cool. I already know a fair bit of the basics of geology and stuff, and TM kept slipping into Auto-Teach mode, which added quite nicely to the stuff I already knew. The Earthquake simulator was a bit disappointing, mostly I think because with everything safely secured in place you got no impression of how things could get thrown around. The volcano stuff was cool, but then I've always been fascinated by volcanoes.

On the way back across to the Darwin Centre we did a quick lap of the Creepy Crawlies exhibit, which gave Alison the creeps, not surprisingly. The interesting thing there was the mock-up of a kitchen, showing all the different places you're likely to find bugs, etc. along with a little score-card telling you which bugs were good, which were bad, and which were just a nuisance.

And then the Darwin Centre itself. It's where the Museum keeps its "Wet Collection", ie, all its specimens that are kept in jars full of alcohol. We got a tour of the centre from a young woman who had the semi-posh Blue Peter Presenter patter down perfectly. I found the whole thing fascinating, if a little grotesque at times. Some of the bottled specimens looked hideous, but I guess that's fairly understandable. I left the place convinced I was gonna have nightmares about all those bottles of dead things.

Then on to the V&A. The last weekend of every month they have a special event on late night Friday and then all day Saturday, and we caught the fourth annual Village Fete, where groups of designers do crazy designer versions of village fete stalls. There's loads I could say about that but really if I'm going to cover the whole weekend I've got to get on. Suffice it to say that it was very cool and I wouldn't be totally against the idea of going next year, if the opportunity was there.

After the V&A we met SBF in Soho. Now, since they visited us back in May, when I bitched about him a lot, he's gotten himself jobbed-up. This meant we met him in a pub where he'd gone after work (he actually works on the edge of Soho). We had a quick drink at said pub and then moved on to an Italian restaurant.

The restaurant was great. Not only was the food good, but the service really wasn't half bad either. My pizza apparently had a hole in the base. I knew something wasn't quite right because it didn't slide across the plate nicely when I was moving it around as I attacked it, but really, it was a pizza, and it had all the right toppings on it, so I wasn't worried. The staff, it seemed, were worried. They made me a whole second pizza to replace the one that they'd noticed wasn't quite right when they'd taken it out of the oven. I made a token effort at attacking the second pizza, but I was full by then. Still, fantastic service, wouldn't you agree?

Saturday morning I lazed around while Alison and SiS wandered around the local shops, then in the afternoon we once again hit Soho, this time in shopping mode. Three bookshops and I didn't buy anything. How's that for willpower, especially from a book whore? More frustratingly, four comic shops and I hadn't found a copy of Green Lantern #155.

However, our first choice of restaurant for Saturday evening was opposite a fifth comic shop, and the fifth one was the charm. Finally, I have GL #155. Finally, I know the exact details behind Kyle's decision to leave Earth following Terry's attack. It was intense stuff, and knowing the outcome of the comic really didn't spoil it one bit.

Naturally, the fact that I used the phrase "first choice" meant that we didn't eat there, mostly because I didn't really fancy it. Instead we went to a Thai place just around the corner from the Lyric Theatre. Yeah, there are lots of theatres in Soho, so why did I pick that one? Because after eats we went there to see Hitchcock Blonde, that's why!

As you'd expect for something associated with Hitchcock there was a fair element of the psychologically mindgames to it, with the story of the play having 3 different timelines, one in 1999, one in 1959 during the filming of Psycho, and one in 1919 early on in Hitchcock's career. None of the play itself was set in 1919, but surmising what happened then was an important part of the goings on during the 1999 bit. The 1959 bit mostly involved Hitchcock himself - played by William Hootkins, who has been in everything. Read his Bio, it's true - and the body double for the shower-scene in Psycho, played by Rosamunde Pike. She was the blonde ice-maiden Bond-girl in Die Another Day. And, in one scene of the play, she was completely naked.

I've got some comments to make on that, other that the obligatory "Rowr!" comment. After the play (which was very good, lots of intrigue etc.) SiS made the comment "When she did that I thought 'Gareth will like that'." This bugged me. It seems that because I'm less discrete about ogling that most other men who, being men, ogle just as much as I do, that I have a reputation for being a lecherous ogly perv. Or something. And it's not like I'm more pervy than other men are or anything, just that I'm less inclined to hold back comments to that effect in deference to societal nicities.

The fact that it bugged me was only complicated by the fact that I was already bugged by my somewhat pervy reaction to the whole thing in the first place. The idea that Hitchcock's heroines often died in the nude and hence body-doubles were often employed for this purpose was key to the play and early on when this became apparent a part of me was hoping that there'd be some nudity later on. When it finally did happen I then felt bad for hoping that it would. So with this already bouncing around my head, SiS's comments didn't do much to make me feel less entangled in my own psyche (and everyone else's, I guess).

Another thing about it was a realisation from the fact that I spotted the potential for nudity early on and hoped that it would come about. Like I said, I don't tend to think that I'm any more pervy than other men, only that I'm less discrete about it. So I wouldn't have been the only one in the theatre who was going "Rowr!" to himself when it happened. But everyone treats it solemnly, with the excuse that it's art. Art or not, it still amounts to a very brave woman showing her rude bits in front of a couple of thousand people. Art or not, there is still an element of titilation to the whole thing. The idea that the only thing that makes it okay is that it's art is something of a double-standard. I don't have a problem with it either way, I just don't see why people say that it's art and pretend not to be titilated by the whole thing.

Gah, I've run out of time, you'll have to wait to know what happened today.