Post-birthday celebrations (part 2)

Monday 7^th May 2007

 

But wait! There’s more! Now I’m going to talk about the last week, which has all been wonderful and London based. Me and James headed to London on a stupidly early train on Monday morning. So early in fact, that we got there at around 12pm. This was good though, as at least we could do stuff on our first day. We headed straight to the hotel, the same on as last year and dumped our stuff. Unfortunately we weren’t in the same room as last year, we were in room 1 which as on the ground floor so we could hear the underground trains go past! And they were doing building work which was a little annoying.

 

After unpacking we headed out towards the National Gallery. Although the weather I general wasn’t too bad, it was nowhere near as good as last year and there were a few showers. Monday was a bit miserable and we got a bit soggy walking there and then when we did get there we had to wait ages at the café just to be seated so I think we were both a bit grumpy. But the food there turned out the really nice anyway so it wasn’t all bad. The gallery itself was good although neither of us are particularly into ‘old’ art, there was still lots to be gained from it. There were certainly some very impressive portraits and I was glad that I got to see some Monet which I like, and Van Gogh. Mostly though James was spot on when he said, ‘it’s like looking at someone else’s photographs’. Hehe.

 

After that we had a little wander around Trafalgar Square. We’d not really been around there before and it turns out that it’s a really good spot for bitching about people’s dress sense! Skinny jeans just make your legs look thin! And I have no idea what some of this emo hair is meant to be doing and I’m really not one to talk about gravity-defying hair-dos but really, you’d think if someone looked like a bird had flown into their head then one of their friends would tell them right? And I don’t get these hideous patterned dresses that women seems to like at the moment. Well, it turns out that karma got the better of us after a bit because me sat on the fountains, the wind changed…and we got soaked. Served us right. Later in the holiday though we found out where most of these fashion abortions had come from. Top Man! And all its hideous day-glo glory!

 

Anyway, that enough of that. Afterwards we wandered back to the hotel for a bit of a rest, the off out to the Pizza Express around the corner. There was only one group in there and after that we were the only ones in there! Very weird but that did mean that the service was really quick! Tasty stuff.

 

Tuesday 8^th May 2007

 

After breakfast we set off early, my zoo radar set. Even though we’d been to London Zoo before I was still really excited :D Rather than take the really long way round as we did last year, this time we went straight though Regents Park which is really pretty. Hyde Park is just grass really but Regent’s park has some really nice flowers and fountains. We were lucky too because it was one of the only completely dry days we had. I even saw a pretty bird in the flowers. I don’t know what it was but had bright light blue and white stripes on it’s wings and was a nice brown colour. I think it might have been a jay.

 

So, London Zoo then! It was excellent as always and we even got to see some of the animals that were hiding last year. Like the tapirs and anteaters. We were even privy to an escape drill which was rather exciting. We were told to go into the tapir viewing building and ended up waiting for ten minutes so although it was a drill we actually think that one of the penguins had escaped and was on a rampage through the zoo. Luckily there was a tapir to look at and he quickly became my favourite. He came really close up to us. They remind us of short squat cows. They seems so docile and oblivious to everything. I wanted to see him swim but he mostly just stood about eating.

 

The otters weren’t as playful this time, they were sleepy though so we saw yawning otters. So cute. And we saw them being fed. Also of note were the large amount of herons in the pelican/flamingo enclosure which was odd! There’s also a new gorilla enclosure which is excellent. Huge for three animals but they come quite close to you. The big male came straight for us. Glass or no glass it was really scary :s It was a wonderful day, made all the more special by the fact that James bought a cuddly tapir, a shaky penguin *and* a cuddly tortoise, which I didn’t know about until I found it in my bed later that night :D

 

We spent all day at the zoo so went back to the hotel and then back out for food at Garfunkels near Leicester Square which was really tasty and the on to Avenue Q at the perfectly named Noel Coward theatre. I don’t usually buy merchandise at shows but I had to for this. I got a badge, programme and mug while James got the badges. As an added joy we also got upgraded tickets! We were in the gods but they were closed so we actually got seats in the stalls for no extra cost! They were really excellent. Much like the show itself! God, it was soooo darn funny. Considering it’s nearly a week since we saw it it says a lot that I keep thinking of bits of it throughout the day and giggling to myself. Although I knew the songs they were so much better live and I didn’t know about the screens that sometimes come down from the side. I also thought it was really inventive with the use of the stage. There were no scene changes as such so to keep it interesting with the same background all the time was quite an achievement.

 

The puppetry was also excellent. Some of the puppets required two people and also, there were only seven people to operate them all so there was a lot of doubling up on voices which required people to change puppets mid-scene and it was great the way that you never saw the change. What was also weird was the fact that the puppets didn’t have a body so the person operating the puppet was in plain view. Not that this mattered at all. But it was odd the way you ended up looking at the puppeteer for the expression and the puppet for the voice, but it worked really well. So yes, excellent overall and I’m really glad it lived up to my expectation. I’m glad that James liked it more than he thought he would too and the audience were really into it too. Of course, there are always going to be those *really* irritating people who don’t seem to be enjoying but they were few and far between thankfully. Still, cute actors go a fair way to address this balance ;)

 

Wednesday 9^th May 2007

 

There wasn’t anything planned for today really so we had a general shop on Charing Cross Road, mostly in Borders and Fopp. I spent the birthday voucher I got in Borders very wisely, picking up Germaine Greer’s ‘The Female Eunuch’, Donna Tartt’s ‘Secret History’ and High School Musical Top Trumps, naturally. I didn’t end up buying much from Fopp really. Just Word magazine I think, which I had to get just because it had Rufus Wainwright on the cover. It turns out that it’s a very good read although it’s quite pricey so I doubt I’ll be getting it every month.

 

We ended up in Leicester Square with the intention of getting cheap tickets for a show that night. James had his heart set on the Blue Men Group so he got a bit grumpy when we couldn’t get tickets for them. To think it over we went and had dinner at Chiquito on Leicester Square which was very nice and we finally decided to go for Chicago, so I bought grumpy man tickets for that. Excellent price too. We ended up being on the second row in the stalls for half the price of a top-price ticket. Bargain.

 

More on that later. After dinner we went on a ridiculously long hour and a half walk to the Houses of Parliament, then along the Thames, past Cleopatra’s Needle, right up to the Millennium Bridge. It was nice actually because we’d not done that walk before although it started to rain and I was knackered so I probably didn’t enjoy it as much as I could have. We ended up at the Tate Modern. Now I’m sure I enjoyed it more when I last went a good few years ago, I dunno if it’s because I was tired or because there was less there this time (the main hall was empty for example) but I remember it being better! There just seemed to be a fair bit of rubbish modern art. That’s not to say there wasn’t stuff to be enjoyed. I love the Lichenstein stuff they have, and there was some really good African art and the Pollock stuff I like too. There were some good videos. One piece was littered about the gallery on different screen, showing the same incident on different screens which I liked. There was also a really good video of ants collecting coloured confetti (real ants I have to add). First it started off focusing on one ant, building up until, at the end, the view was of lots of little ants collecting lots of coloured confetti :D They were still taking the Gilbert and George exhibition down too so it was interesting to see them storing it away, much better than seeing the exhibition itself :p Not really liking a lot of it really did make me wonder what exactly do I like? I don’t like rubbish modern stuff and I don’t like old stuff either! I guess I just know what I like.

 

We were so tired after walking around the Tate (and we nearly gave up on that) that we walked up to St Paul’s Cathedral, got a sandwich from Apostrophe and got the tube back to the hotel! This gave us a fair bit of time to recover before going to see Chicago. It was novel being on the second row, I’ve never been that close before but it was really worthwhile to see everything close up, including the mega-buff male dancers, in fact, even the female dancers were worth a look (which is worrying). I love the whole look of Chicago though, all dark and 1930’s, and the songs were excellent too, performed with some proper WOW-type singing. Much like Avenue Q, there were no scene changes as such, the background being to orchestra on a stepped, errr, thing, but they had lifts from this orchestra bit and ladders at the side which kept it interesting, due to inventive usage! There were only minor niggles really, The first song needed more oomph, Billy Flynn and Mama needed a little more charisma when singing, it was just tiny stuff really, mostly glossed over on account of the dancing and leading ladies being astounding. So yeah, I really enjoyed it :D Cell Block Tango is always a favourite.

 

Thursday 10^th May 2007 

 

Oxford Street was the main attraction on Thursday and I managed to get quite a lot really. Lots of CD’s/DVD including a Prince 3CD set Best-Of and Soft Cell album, ‘Goodbye Lenin’ and ‘Napoleon Dynamite 2DVD set’ for surprisingly cheap. I’m sure I got something else but I can’t remember what :s I got a T-shirt from, err, somewhere and a new wallet! My first in ten years! Trust me, it was the only thing I was going to buy from Top Man. The day-glo hideousness is still burned into my retinas. Yuck.

 

We then wandered down Regent Street to Hamley’s and spent ages in there! I didn’t even get anything but it’s always good to have a look around there. There was a proper mental member of staff controlling a flying UFO thing so we avoided him. We did get bubbles blown at us when we went in though, which was nice! After that we decided that a rest was in order so we got some dinner and went back to the hotel for a while.

 

Emma arrived into Euston station at 4pm so we went to collect her. It really didn’t seem like a year since I’d seen her and it’s odd that she’s moved back to Hinckley and isn’t in London any more. It was great to see her though and we quickly headed off to Archway for a drink and a good chat. We were there for nearly three hours until Gemma picked us up! Emma’s going back to uni in September to do an MA in Social Work but until then she’s got a job looking after criminal kids.there’s only too at the house she works at but it sounds like the scariest job ever! Mostly because there’s no precautions taken to ensure that you don’t get murdered :s She kept on telling us stories throughout the evening that none of us could believe, and she’s only been there for three days! Still, she’s good otherwise!

 

Gemma took us back to hers for tea and homemade cake! Hurrah! We chatted some more. Gemma and Emma are very funny together, it has to be said and I had a good time. It makes me pine for a social life! We headed to a lovely Greek restaurant at about 9. Chris had messaged to say that he was going to be late so he arrived at the restaurant (I can’t remember its name! Arch-something) so it was good to see him too. He’s applying for jobs at the moment, to try and venture away from the eating disorders clinic. I think he’s veering towards nursing work which he’d be very good at I think. A jolly time was had by all and the food was really nice too. I had sauté prawns for starter and meatballs for main. Yum yum. I’d not had greek before but I would again.

 

Friday 11^th May 2007     

 

Arrangements were made to meet Chris and Emma at the V+A in order to look at Kylie’s Pants, or to give it it’s proper name, the Kylie Exhibition. Gemma had said that it had been booked up before but me and James got there early and got tickets for all of us easily. We had a quick wander round first though. I’d really wanted to see the ‘glass’ area but never got the chance so I did it this time and I really enjoyed it. Emma took a special liking to a seat with lights in it which appeared to not be wired up to anything. We had a quick drink outside and then headed to the exhibition.

 

Now, I know it’s Kylie but there was a surprising lack of gay men about (well, ignoring the three out of four in our little group! There were just loads of old biddies! Ph, and lots of fashion students. It was a really well put together thing though. The main room had loads of costumes and the Best-Of DVD playing on a huge screen. It was a lot like a disco. They had a lot of photographs on the wall which were all really interesting. Sod the vacuous ‘dumbing down’ argument. There’s a lot of artistry that goes into the fashion and photos. They also had all of her releases in chronological order on the wall, awards she’d won and lots of other interesting stuff including sketches and scripts for music videos and set lists and dancer descriptions. So yeah, we had a good time in there!

 

After that we went and got a sandwich and sat outside the Natural History Museum which was lovely, especially because we’d been getting some sun. This didn’t last long though and we set off back to the V+A so that me and James could collect our bags. We sat inside for a bit, discussing nudity in museums, as you do, and then we headed off tube-bound. Me and James for the station and Emma and Chris for shopping!

 

The train journey home went without a hitch and we were back fairly early. I’ll write about the weekend another time and I was glad we came back when we did, I was so tired! Friday night didn’t involve much really. Just unpacking and watching stuff we’d taped. Great holiday though :D