Friday Walkabout
Visiting Liberty, reaching my limit for museums, and
taking shelter in the dissenter's graveyard
This entry is actually being written on Sunday. The
past two days have just been a blur of
activity.
On Friday morning I headed downtown in search of a present for Nancy. My first port of call was Liberty House.
Liberty is tucked just off Regent Street in a pretty hoity toity area (not far from Hamley's). Liberty is a pretty expensive shop, but the staff are incredibly helpful and friendly. If you go in looking for a gift for under 10 pounds most expensive places will snear at you. Harrod's might even show you the door. Liberty will bend over backwards to find something nice. By all means, visit Harrod's for the experience, but when you want to buy something nice, go to Liberty.
Above the walkway joining two parts of the shop is this clock.
The inscription reads "No minute gone comes ever back again. Take heed and see nothing do in vain." Damn straight.
Liberty didn't have what I was after, so I headed towards the British Museum. On Regent Street I came across more of the ubiquitous sign carriers.
You see these people all over the place, particularly in areas where there are lots of tourists. Presumably it's a cost effective form of advertising, but it must be staggeringly boring work.
I got to the British Museum with the intention of spending most of my time in the gift shop. See, at this point I am getting a bit over museumed. I mean you can only look at so many roman coins and dioramas before it all just starts to blur. In London it's easy to reach that point very quickly. By this point my tactic was to find the place, have a look over a floor plan, and visit the special exhibit if it sounded interesting. That way the next time I'm in London I can prioritise my visits better. Think of it as advance museum recon.
The museums here tend to be very impressive, physically huge affairs - and the British Museum is no exception. I did go into the gift shop, but I also got sucked into the Egyptian exhibit too. I like Egyptian stuff.
I was about to leave the room, filled as it was with sarcophagi, hieroglyphics, and statues, when something caught my eye. It was the Rosetta Stone. The real one. It's here. Cool.
When I was out with Jerry yesterday we passed by two places he recommended highly, but were shut at that time. I was heading back to have a look. The first location was the Museum of London - a history of the City of London. I was definitely too far gone at that point and couldn't concentrate or take in any history. I did a lap of the place and then gave up.
Next stop was Bunhill Fields - also known as the Dissenter's Graveyard.
It's a small graveyard, tucked between two buildings. You could be forgiven for not really noticing it. The story goes that it was a graveyard originally set aside for victims of the black plague, but they never got around to it. The ground was never consecrated, so they started burying non-Christians there. You'll find Daniel DeFoe here. You'll also find William Blake.
Blake is something of an enigma. I saw a memorial to him in the crypt of Saint Paul's Cathedral that referred to him as "Poet, Writer, Mystic." Jerry thought it was pretty cheeky having a memorial to Blake in St Paul's. I have to find out more about Blake. He sounds like quite a character.
Also in the graveyard are a bunch of Cromwell's kids and grandkids. That's a Cromwell in the big box on my right, and I believe I set the camera on the grave of another Cromwell to take this picture.
If you should make it to Bunhill Fields, look around for the groundskeeper. If you ask nicely he'll unlock the gate and let you wander amongst the graves. Definitely a place to visit, even if just for a quiet, shady, shelter from the city.
Oh, I almost forgot... at the entrance is a sign listing the rules for the graveyard. This includes banning "rogues [and] vagabonds" and prohibiting the "beating, shaking, or cleaning" of carpets in the graveyard.
From here I went to the Design Museum with a strong idea of what I wanted to get Nancy. I had no luck there either. On the train back home I noticed this on the floor and made a mental note to give Ryan Murphy a hard time about it.
We staggered home and I got ready for the Michael Franti show.
After the show I came home, as usual, by Underground. As I emerged I faced a line of people on the sidewalk. There was another line on the other side the street. It was nearly midnight on the night when the new Harry Potter was supposed to be released.
I walked home, dropped off my stuff, and took up a position in the smaller of the two queues.
I figured a Harry Potter book as a gift would be even more special if it was bought in London on the night it was released. For the record, Nancy's copy was bought at 12:47am.
On Friday morning I headed downtown in search of a present for Nancy. My first port of call was Liberty House.
Liberty is tucked just off Regent Street in a pretty hoity toity area (not far from Hamley's). Liberty is a pretty expensive shop, but the staff are incredibly helpful and friendly. If you go in looking for a gift for under 10 pounds most expensive places will snear at you. Harrod's might even show you the door. Liberty will bend over backwards to find something nice. By all means, visit Harrod's for the experience, but when you want to buy something nice, go to Liberty.
Above the walkway joining two parts of the shop is this clock.
The inscription reads "No minute gone comes ever back again. Take heed and see nothing do in vain." Damn straight.
Liberty didn't have what I was after, so I headed towards the British Museum. On Regent Street I came across more of the ubiquitous sign carriers.
You see these people all over the place, particularly in areas where there are lots of tourists. Presumably it's a cost effective form of advertising, but it must be staggeringly boring work.
I got to the British Museum with the intention of spending most of my time in the gift shop. See, at this point I am getting a bit over museumed. I mean you can only look at so many roman coins and dioramas before it all just starts to blur. In London it's easy to reach that point very quickly. By this point my tactic was to find the place, have a look over a floor plan, and visit the special exhibit if it sounded interesting. That way the next time I'm in London I can prioritise my visits better. Think of it as advance museum recon.
The museums here tend to be very impressive, physically huge affairs - and the British Museum is no exception. I did go into the gift shop, but I also got sucked into the Egyptian exhibit too. I like Egyptian stuff.
I was about to leave the room, filled as it was with sarcophagi, hieroglyphics, and statues, when something caught my eye. It was the Rosetta Stone. The real one. It's here. Cool.
When I was out with Jerry yesterday we passed by two places he recommended highly, but were shut at that time. I was heading back to have a look. The first location was the Museum of London - a history of the City of London. I was definitely too far gone at that point and couldn't concentrate or take in any history. I did a lap of the place and then gave up.
Next stop was Bunhill Fields - also known as the Dissenter's Graveyard.
It's a small graveyard, tucked between two buildings. You could be forgiven for not really noticing it. The story goes that it was a graveyard originally set aside for victims of the black plague, but they never got around to it. The ground was never consecrated, so they started burying non-Christians there. You'll find Daniel DeFoe here. You'll also find William Blake.
Blake is something of an enigma. I saw a memorial to him in the crypt of Saint Paul's Cathedral that referred to him as "Poet, Writer, Mystic." Jerry thought it was pretty cheeky having a memorial to Blake in St Paul's. I have to find out more about Blake. He sounds like quite a character.
Also in the graveyard are a bunch of Cromwell's kids and grandkids. That's a Cromwell in the big box on my right, and I believe I set the camera on the grave of another Cromwell to take this picture.
If you should make it to Bunhill Fields, look around for the groundskeeper. If you ask nicely he'll unlock the gate and let you wander amongst the graves. Definitely a place to visit, even if just for a quiet, shady, shelter from the city.
Oh, I almost forgot... at the entrance is a sign listing the rules for the graveyard. This includes banning "rogues [and] vagabonds" and prohibiting the "beating, shaking, or cleaning" of carpets in the graveyard.
From here I went to the Design Museum with a strong idea of what I wanted to get Nancy. I had no luck there either. On the train back home I noticed this on the floor and made a mental note to give Ryan Murphy a hard time about it.
We staggered home and I got ready for the Michael Franti show.
After the show I came home, as usual, by Underground. As I emerged I faced a line of people on the sidewalk. There was another line on the other side the street. It was nearly midnight on the night when the new Harry Potter was supposed to be released.
I walked home, dropped off my stuff, and took up a position in the smaller of the two queues.
I figured a Harry Potter book as a gift would be even more special if it was bought in London on the night it was released. For the record, Nancy's copy was bought at 12:47am.
Posted: Fri - June 20, 2003 at 02:40 PM Meltdown Out and About Email Comments
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Published On: Jul 02, 2003 09:07 AM
Total entries in this category: 17
Published On: Jul 02, 2003 09:07 AM