The British Museum

Website: http://www.britishmuseum.org

Yesterday, after my free Hare Krishna lunch, I visited the British Museum. I've visited the museum before but have never felt that I've seen very much of what's on display. This visit was an attempt to at least get an overview of its collections.

Part of the reason I wanted to visit the British Museum is that I've been listening to a Radio 4 series called The History of the World in 100 Objects. This is presented by the director of the British Museum and each 15 minute episode uses one object from the museum's collections to explain the history of some country or people or empire.

I felt the same sense of surprise as on my previous visits when I walked from the initial old-fashioned building into the modern geodesic-dome-covered courtyard:Even though I know this is what the inside of the museum looks like I always feel a shock - the courtyard and its roof look far too futuristic to be the 257 year old British Museum!

I quickly found a map and a guide to the 100 objects featured in the radio series. The 100 objects were spread all over the museum. This was both good and bad - good because it forced me to walk through displays I wasn't intending to see and bad because it made it very hard to see all 100 objects.

I set off to the first of the 100 objects - the Mummy of Hornedjitef - and found it in the midst of a busy room about the Ancient Egyptians. This was clearly a popular collection and lots of children were excitedly talking about the gory details of mummification.

My heart sank when I saw that the location for object 2 - a stone chopping tool - was a different floor at the opposite end of the building... At that point I decided I wouldn't be able to see all the objects and that perhaps I should just wander the galleries.

I took a detour to see a view of the courtyard and the roof from a high walkway:Dawdling through the galleries I came across some Babylonian clay tablets. I realised that, although I'd read about the Babylonian cuneiform writing system, I'd never actually seen any of it first hand. The first piece that caught my eye was a list of synonyms. I particularly liked the "ditto" marks that are used:Next to this was a piece which detailed the story of a huge flood with similar details to the Biblical flood story:
Pleased that I'd stumbled across something interesting I continued to wander aimlessly and found myself in a gallery about Roman Britain. This included an amazing "golden cape" that was found in a rich Roman's grave in Wales. There was also some very impressive metalwork from Roman times:
At this point I began to feel somewhat overwhelmed. More than that, I realised that this is what happens every time I visit the museum. I arrive in an optimistic mood, I see a few amazing and unique objects which trigger off all sorts of thoughts about the vastness of history, and then I start to feel overwhelmed and lose track of what era I'm looking at. Eventually I leave the museum feeling that I saw hardly any of the collection - I keep thinking about what other treasures I could have seen if I'd paid more attention.

Without following the dates I came across a pair of impressive drinking horns which I liked to imagine drinking from:I stopped taking photos at this point to concentrate on finding my way around. I passed through a whole room about the history of money, a glanced into a room all about clocks, a long gallery about the Ancient Greeks etc. At last I descended a grand staircase and saw that have items on display everywhere, even on the stairs:
When I emerged into a gallery again I was again in Ancient Egypt and saw giant stone sarcophagi, huge scarab statues etc.

By this point I decided to seek out a particular object I'd heard about on the radio show that sounded impressive. This was a double-headed serpent made by the Aztecs from around 2000 pieces of turquoise and shells! Having heard it described on the radio (e.g. how the red shells for the mouth were gathered by deep-sea divers) I felt I could appreciate it's beauty even more:After this I was completely done-in. I'd seen so many ancient and beautiful objects and each one had made me think about who had made it and how old it was and how they made it etc that I couldn't take in any more. I made one last dash through the "Age of Enlightenment" gallery back into the main courtyard. One last look at the postcards and I left.

Summary: A collection of historical artifacts that is exceptional in both quality and quantity. Definitely deserved several more visits.

Free Hare Krishna Food

Website: http://www.iskcon-london.org/activities/food-for-life.html
When I first came to London I heard about Hare Krishna stalls that give out free food to university students at SOAS and LSE. Ever since then the student in my has wanted to find one and be given some free food. Yesterday I finally did it!

After a quick internet search I found the above website which details when and where the Hare Krishna volunteers distribution their food. Outside of term-time I found the best option to be van distributing food between 1pm-1.45pm in Camden. Now, as far as I understand, the purpose to the free food scheme is to give "Food For All". At SOAS and LSE this essentially means poor students, whereas at other locations in the city it usually means homeless people.

I turned up to the Hare Krishna van at around 1.30pm and found a few men and women strung out on the pavement eating from paper plates. Most of the people looked hungry and homeless but a few looked like nearby office workers who had popped over for lunch. When I queued up at the serving hatch I felt that I probably looked more like the former than the latter.The woman inside asked if I'd like a plate and I happily agreed. She reached back and scooped up rice from a huge tub behind her and then ladled on some stewed vegetables. By the time she was done she was presenting me with a huge portion of rice and potatoes etc. I grabbed myself a paper cup of a purple soft drink and then stood off near the wall to eat my feast.The food was filling and hot and I wondered what I looked like shovelling it into my mouth next to the industrial curb-side bins. It was a bit of a struggle to finish everything but I didn't want to waste any so I ploughed through it like a machine. When I was done I threw away the plate and cup and went on my way calling "Thank yooou" through the serving hatch.

Summary: A very generous enterprise...

The list (number nine)

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

• 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's Fuller's brewery
• Tour round Wandsworth's Young'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
  
• Visit a talk at the Royal Geographical Society
• Buy some food from a roadside taxi cafe
• Visit the London library at Piccadilly
• View a trial at the Old Bailey
• Visit Highgate cemetery
  

Tour around City Hall

Website: http://www.london.gov.uk/city-hall

Last Saturday ABJ and I visited City Hall, the home of the Greater London Authority. The building was part of the OpenHouse weekend in which hundreds of buildings across London open their doors to the public.

We arrived to have a look around and waited in the queue for the security check. Everything was surprisingly well-organised and once we were through we dodged the queues at the lifts and walked up a slowly sloping ramp that wrapped around the edge of the building and led us up to a large discussion chamber:From here we could see the main architectural feature of the building - a spiral staircase which rises up through its centre:We tried to climb the staircase but were turned away and told that people could only follow it in one direction. We hopped in the lifts and went up to to the 9th floor to look at the views of London.

There were good views, including the nearby "Scoop":as well as views across the river:
as well as Tower Bridge:and the landscaping nearby:After seeing the views we walked down the spiral staircase and enjoyed seeing everybody taking arty photos of it, as well as looking into people's offices.

At the bottom of the building is a giant aerial photo of London. We joined the crowds in locating our house on the map and discovering any recognisable landmarks near to it.Summary: Interesting modern building.

Tour around the Albert Memorial

Websites:
http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/kensington_gardens/tours
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Memorial

Yesterday ABJ and I went on the a tour around the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens. The tours are held on the first Sunday of each month from March to December and are £5 per adult.

We turned up for the 2pm tour and paid our money to the blue-badged tour woman who gave us a hand-written ticket from her ticket-book. There were around 20 people waiting for the tour - the group had an average age of around 60.

Unfortunately the start of the tour was a bit shambolic. The tour guide was in a panic because she had been unable to get through on the phone to the park security to tell them to turn off the alarm on the memorial. Her worry was that when she went to unlock the railings around the memorial a loud alarm would go off and chaos would ensue. She therefore spent the first 5-10 minutes on and off her mobile phone desperately trying to get through to the park security or find the correct number for them. This fiasco led one German man to lean to his wife and say "Ah, English administration..."

Anyway, at length the tour began and we were ushered in front of the memorial. This was built after the death of Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, to honour his memory. The original plan was to build a giant obelisk on the site of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. As it turned out, however, nowhere in the British Empire could quarry a large enough piece of stone. When the planners told this to Queens Victoria she said "Oh, that's good - I didn't like that design anyway..." After that a competition was opened for designs for the memorial. Most of the designed entered were classical - lots of columns and pillars - but the design that was chosen was more "medieval", inspired by the Eleanor Crosses.

The memorial itself is extravagantly detailed and the tour spent a lot of its time explaining the meaning of the different statues, mosaics etc. The mosaics on each of the four sides represent Literature and Music, Painting, Architecture and Sculpture. The statues at the four corners of the base represent the continents Europe, Asia, Africa and America. There's also a host of other statues representing things like chemistry, agriculture, humility etc. The continents were illustrated with one animal (there were lots of arguments about which animal should represent Europe - in the end a cow was chosen).

There was elephant for Asia:a camel for Africa:and a bison for America:We heard that underneath the base of the memorial is lots of concrete as well as numerous supporting brick arches. The stone for the memorial came from all over the British Isles and we heard where the different coloured stone for the base came from (something I'd never thought about whenever I've walked across them):The group was led further around the base and shown more details on the statues and the mosaics. It was interesting to learn that the north face focusses on architecture and the mosaic shows someone holding up the plans to the memorial itself!The group were now allowed to go beyond the railings and up the steps of the memorial.
This was the best bit of the tour because it meant that we could have a close-up look at the detailed carvings. Around the base of the memorial there was an intricate series of carvings depicting famous artists, architects, sculptors, musicians and writers. This carving was performed on site over a period of 4 years! Here's an example of the series of famous architects:
Being closer also allowed us a closer look at the centrepiece - the statue of Albert himself. This was made of bronze and covered in gold-leaf. It was added to the monument years after the building work was completed because there was such a debate over what the statue should look like. It was chosen that he'd wear the uniform of the Order of the Garter which is why he has a prominent garter on his leg:
He is also holding a catalogue of the Great Exhibition which he organised (you can even read the title on the front):
After a few more explanations about statues etc our hour long tour ended. We all felt we had a much better appreciation of this amazing memorial.

Summary: Lots of detail to see if you know what you're looking at.