The list (number five)

Here's an updated list with a few items crossed-out and a few added:

• Tour round Buckingham Palace
• Go up the BT Tower for the view
  
• Cycle around Richmond park
• Sneak into the fancy hotels - Hilton, Savoy etc
• Go to all the museums in London
• Go to all the major art museums in London
  
• Have a drink in the ice-bar off Regent Street
• Do the sing-along sound of music at the Prince Charles cinema
  
• Watch a film at the Electric cinema in Notting Hill
• Watch a film at a Leicester Square cinema
• Watch an IMAX film near Waterloo
• Go to a casino
• Explore the new O2 centre at the Millennium Dome
• Tour round the BBC TV centre and BBC Broadcasting House
• Watch a live, well-attended debate in Parliament (e.g. Prime Ministers questions)
• Go out for an artsy night out in the east-end.
• Shop at Petticoat Lane market
• Go on the rides at the London dungeons
• Sit in on a Sotheby's auction
• Eat at a traditional pie 'n' mash shop
• Tour round Lord's cricket ground
• Tour round Wembley stadium
• Go to the London wetland centre
• Visit Chelsea Physic Garden
• Get into London fashion week
• Tour around City Hall
• Tour around Tower Bridge
• Go to the tennis at Wimbledon
• See some plays
• Ride home in a rickshaw
• Eat at some famous restaurants
• Visit the hidden-away nature reserve behind St. Pancras station
• Visit a big mosque, big synagogue, other big places of worship
  
• Use an "isolation tank" near London Bridge
• Get a free Hare Krishna vegetarian meal
• Go to the the Jazz Cafe in Camden
• Go to some jazz club I've heard about in Soho
• Eat a meal in one of the touristy Leicester square steak houses
• Tour around Battersea power station
• Explore Heathrow Terminal 5
• Tour round Albert Hall and Albert Memorial
• Tour round Chiswick Fuller's brewery
• Eat at the restaurant at the top of Tate Modern
• Visit an exhibition at Earls Court and Kensington Olympia
• Visit a city farm
• Tour round Thames barrier

The London Dungeon

Website: http://www.thedungeons.com

Today I visited the London Dungeon, one of the most touristy places in London. Tucked away under London Bridge station the dungeons are always very busy with long queues of visitors waiting on the pavement outside.

I arrived at the start of the extraordinarily long "buy your ticket on the day" queue at about 12.30pm. I finally finished my visit to the dungeons at 3.40pm. It was quite a visit I'm sure you'll agree... until I tell you that out of that 3 hours 40 minutes I spent 2 hours queueing. That is, from the time I joined the back of the queue (out on the street, in the rain) to the time I joined a tour group that actually set off around the dungeons was 2 hours. 2 hours of my life I'll never get back...
In the queue I was sandwiched behind a large group of twenty-somethings and in front of a family. When the family joined the queue the father said "When we went to York dungeon the queue was this long and only took 20 minutes." I didn't realise dungeons were so universally popular.

The family consisted of two nice parents and four horrible savage children. The kids spent their time shaking wet umbrellas on each other, throwing food on the pavement, repeatedly spitting on the ground and, of course, shoving into me. Just great. I waited quietly in the rain and had so much time to fill that I managed to listen to the whole of the Dark Side of the Moon album. I watched as the family nipped off for hot drinks at Starbucks and the twenty-somethings nipped off to Pret for sandwiches and hot stinking croissants.

Given this hellish queuing I was looking forward to getting past the ticket desk and setting off on the trip. I guess I was naive. Before buying my ticket I had a photo of me taken posing in stocks. I then bought a student ticket for £18.95 and sped off into the dungeons. Or so I thought. First stop was an awkward misunderstanding with a few of the twenty-somethings ahead of me. They were waiting past the ticket desk for some friends who'd gone to the toilet and I stood in their midst for about thirty seconds. I finally figured out why they were waiting and set off to the dungeons. Or so I thought. Next stop was another queue that wound through a weirdly decorated corridor. There were rats on display, entrails, tinned rat etc. I heard two people separately comment "Oh I see! It's death by queuing!".

Finally we squirmed past an important door and were shuttered off into a tour group. An actor dressed in a cloak welcomed us to "The Crypt" and sent us off into "The Labyrinth of the Lost". During his introduction he would talk to one side of the group and then SUDDENLY spin round to the other side and shout his next piece of dialogue to the person he thought was most likely to have a heart attack.

The labyrinth was fun since it was a hall of mirrors and (at last!) we were free to wander (not in a queue) through it. We all made it through to the other side and were greated by a woman who told us we all had the plague and should go to the doctor. She led us through some more spooky corridors and into an "autopsy room". An actor dressed as a doctor was hiding behind the autopsy table and JUMPED OUT at us. He then plucked out a member of the group and analysed them in front of us all, telling us what he'd be like if he had the plague. We then left the doctor and visited "Newgate Gaol" where we were ushered into a court room. Three members of the group were made to stand in the dock and were accused of committing crimes. As they walked up to the dock we were encouraged to "booooooo".

The first was a 10 year old boy called Oliver accussed of running around Covent Garden pinching ladies bottoms.
Verdict: Innocent.

The second was a woman called Lucy who was accussed of urinating into water wells.
Verdict: Guilty.

The third was a man who said he was from Beligum.
Immediate Verdict: GUILTY.

We then left and went on the "Traitor: Boat Ride to Hell". This was billed as amazingly exciting. I joined a boat and we set off. I don't know what I was expecting but what we got was very disappointing. There were no people jumping out at us, no scary noises, no rapids... not much in fact. The whole trip was completed slowly, almost like a formal ballet, in complete darkness. When it was over we were ushered out and into Sweeney Todd's barber shop. We sat in barber's chairs and, once again, all the lights went out. A recorded voice of Sweeney Todd spoke in our ears and then we were jerked back in our chairs. Was that it!? Just compare that to the advertising poster:
We then left and went to the Jack the Ripper part of the dungeons. We saw a few dead, mutilated bodies of prostitutes (pretty odd entertainment really) and then a video about "Who was Jack the Ripper?". This lacked any explanatory power and was basically a series of photos of Victorian men with a voice-over saying "Or was it Colonel _____, or was it physician _____". We were then ushered out and into a mock pub. A woman behind the bar told us it was the ten year anniversary of the ripper murders. We were supposed to get more and more scared as items on the bar began to move of their own accord and then SUDDENLY the lights go OUT and a strobe light shows JACK THE RIPPER trying to slash a group member near the front of the bar! Now I have to admit that was pretty good. He appeared suddenly in a hat and cape with a blast of air and then suddenly was GONE!

We then "learnt" about the Great Fire of London before going on the ride "Extremis: Drop Ride to Doom". We sat in two rows of seats in a room. A restraining bar came down upon us, the lights went out and the seats were raised up. At the top we looked out upon a row of hangman nooses and a judge pronounced that we were due to be hanged. The hangman pulled the lever and SUDDENLY we DROPPED DOWN. And... err... well, that was it.

We were let out and sent into the photo preview room. As always the photos of me were terrible and I didn't want to spend the enormous fees to buy them. The tour ended in the gift shop: "The best Halloween shop in London". It did seem pretty good. There was a variety of Halloween costumes available:Overall I felt the London Dungeons were overpriced and disappointing. My desire to visit them, I reflected, was due to their extensive advertising that makes the rides look exciting. The rides were lacklustre and plain - not "scary" or "terrifying":
As an attraction they clearly save a lot of electricity money by keeping the lights out for most of the time. The high visitor turnover meant that visitors were ushered through each part too quickly. At various points the actors call the tour group "scum" and, worst of all, because I was visiting alone, I was variously called "a suicider" and "billy no-mates". And, to rub salt into the wound, I was paying loads of money for the experience!

Summary: Not worth it.

Tower Bridge

Website: http://www.towerbridge.org.uk

I've tried twice to visit Tower Bridge but each time something has gone wrong. I finally managed it today.

At about 2pm I bought my £4.50 student ticket from the ticket office in the north tower. I passed through the security metal detector and x-ray machine and into the waiting lift. We waited for the lift to get full wall-to-wall and then ascended to the top of the tower. A woman gave us an informative welcome message which was timed to last exactly as long as the lift journey and then we all exited into a video room at the top of the tower. There were good views:I watched a short film about why the bridge was built and the competition for the best design. It was built to easy road traffic in the east of London but also had to allow ships to pass. There were loads of wild and wacky designs - including bridges that slid back and forth across the river, or bridges that snake around the ships in complicated shapes. After fierce scrutiny the current hinged design was chosen. It was built from Scottish steel with 2 million rivets and opened at last in 1894. It was deliberately designed to look old-fashioned to fit in with the Tower of London nearby.

After the video room we got to walk out on the walkway that connects the top of the towers. I didn't know this was a walkway until today (I'd thought it was just for decoration). This was great and I was impressed by the views over the river. The walkway was enclosed but there were windows that we could take photos through:
There were information boards too where I learnt a lot about the bridge. The bridge has appeared in a few adverts:
A plane flew through the bridge:
After World War II there was a suggestion to encase the bridge in glass to provide living space and offices etc:After the walkways I went down the south tower to watch another video about how the bridge was built. I learnt that in World War II the Germans deliberately tried not to bomb the bridge because it was a good landmark for their bombing approaches into London.

I got the lift down the tower and we were told to "Follow the blue line" to the engine rooms:
The engine rooms were the final stop of the tour but possibly the best bit. We learnt in detail about the machinery that powers the raising and lowering of the bridge. We got to walk around the steam-powered machines (which have now been replaced by electric power) and understand how all the stages fit together. I found it fascinating to see how complicated it all was and how clever the engineers must have been to design it.

The last part was the "Engineering gallery" with a number of hands-on demonstrations about physics and engineering principles applied to small models of the bridge. One young boy (who didn't work there but was just a visitor like me!) enthusiastically demonstrated one to me. He got me to sit on a chair which he raised off the ground by turning a geared wheel for a long time. Then, with my feet dangling, he pressed a button and my weight applied hydraulic pressure to an oily liquid which came shooting out of a pipe nearby. This is the same principle as the massive "accumulators" used to store power which is then used to work pistons that raise the bridge:
These demonstrations were much better than the hands-on stuff in science museums because you could see the ideas had been harnessed and applied to solve a problem. In museums the demonstations are often just pointless mechanisms that show the principle working in a sterile way. It was more interesting here because it was applied to something.

We ended in a gift shop with hundreds of little models of the bridge available to buy.

Summary: Surprisingly fun and interesting. The videos brought the issues to life and the demonstrations and information boards were clear and interesting.

A long absence

For the last month or so I've been too busy to do any local tourist trips. Whether it was moving house, going to Italy, doing DIY or just doing fun non-touristy things on the weekends I've been neglecting the local tourist list. That is, until today...