London 9

The ninth and latest installment in Matthew's Trips to London was brief yet action-packed, motivated by an overwhelming desire to make the most of my life before it slips away from me, day by precious day. After a quick morning meeting at the office - yeah, that's right, on a Saturday, pretty dedicated, aren't I? - i jumped on the train and made a beeline for the British Museum. It, along with the V+A, is one of my few as-yet-unrealised touristic aims in London, and i felt the situation ought to be redressed.

Unfortunately in my excitement to get into the office for a meeting, i neglected to pack my camera, so I will have to resort to long, tedious descriptions of everything I saw (along with copywright-infringing images from other people's websites) in order to properly document my activities for the day. Here's a photo i prepared earlier when i walked past the museum one time.

It was closed then, but fortuitously open when i went this time; the empty forecourt pictured was in fact teeming with tourists. The British Museum, as many will know, has an incredibly profilic collection so that one would struggle to see all the pieces on display (a small subset of the total collection) in one visit. I did the obligatory ones: the Rosetta Stone, the Egyptian mummies and the Elgin (Parthenon) marbles. The last of these is a great source of controversy as Greece feels that they should be returned. Several arguments against this are usually given: the artifacts have been looked after better at BM (though there are claims that this isn't necessarily the case), that it is better to present these works alongside others from other cultures, etc. Furthermore, the BM itself states ,"the restitutionist premise, that whatever was made in a country must return to an original geographical site, would empty both the British Museum and the other great museums of the world". The marbles are nice but they are not nearly as spectacular (and accordingly represent a less significant act of looting) as, for example, the Zeus Altar taken from Pergamon in Turkey to Berlin in the 1880s, which is also a source of contention.

For my two cents worth: Sorry but bad luck. Greece wasn't even a country when Lord Elgin took the marbles. The Ottomans, who were in power there at the time (until Britain, France and Russia stepped in to help Greece gain independence), were happy to let them go. Empires have looted each other like crazy for millenia, taking whatever they could get their hands on. Just as the Pergamon Altar and the museums built in Berlin to accomodate it and other such artifacts became a monument to Prussian then German nationalism, the Pergamon marbles have been in, and become a part of, Britain for two centuries. At what point in history should the line be drawn between actions that are part of history and cannot be reversed, and those which should be reversed ie. revised?

Controversy aside, my favourites at the British Museum were the Assyrian gates, the marbles from Halicarnassus, the Andean costumes in the special exhibition on Living and Dying and the Enlightenment exhibition. Definitely worth a return visit.

Having done the ancient thing, i went to get a bit of the modern, at the Dan Flavin retrospective at the Hayward Gallery.

Went to the Tate Modern to make the most of my membership by sitting in the Member's Room, drinking lattes, eating olives and feeling really special and exclusive. Also had a look at the Martin Kippenberger exhibition but was flagging by this stage so will have to go back again before i can make any judgements. Wandered through the main collection and sat through a film by Markus Schinwald entitled dictio pii that, despite the haunting ambient soundtrack music that i really liked, was a touch disturbing, especially once the narrated monologue ("We are the perfume of corridors, unfamiliarized with isolated activity, ... blahblahblah for another two and a half minutes,... tortured geometries, unsyncopated energies, blahblah... , we are deranged") had been repeated five times. Remarkably spooky characters.

Back to Cam for a few quiet ones and called it a day. A busy and tiring yet ultimately satisfying day.

London & Bristol

Scurried down to London for Kylie's birthday party on a Friday night.
Met up with the lovely MJ and the lovely Paul and headed to Clapham for a bit of the usual shenanigans, spurred on by cachaça warm-up rounds at MJs:

Here's the birthday girl:

Home via Chicken Cottage (Clapham Brick Lane curry for me):

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Up bright and early the following morning, had the remainder of the curry for breakfast and hit the road. We diverged at Victoria: MJ south to Brighton and I west to Bristol - twas a teary farewell I assure thee.

No sooner than i'd finished the Review section of the Guardian, i arrived at Bristol Temple Meads, then bussed into town. After some confusion related in part to Tim's unfamiliarity with his adopted home city and in bigger part to my general incompetence regarding public transport, maps, directions and instructions, we were eventually united. Joyfully so.

Had a look around the waterfront and the Arnolfini, a contemporary art space on the docks.

Up the hill to the City Museum & Art Gallery

There was a touring exhibition on from the National Gallery entitled Passion for Paint. Tim was really impressed at my correct identification of a painting as a Rubens,

though the works of Ian Davenport

and Raqib Shaw were more to his taste.

The permanent collection featured a lot of Victorian stuff as well as a fair bit of earlier Dutch & Italian work, results of Bristol's relatively early prosperity as compared with other British cities like Liverpool, Cardiff and Manchester.

Arted out, we passed by the Royal West of England Academy and continued toward Tim's house,

then headed out to see the Clifton Suspension Bridge, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel at the ripe old age of 23.

Reflecting on our own engineering achievements by that age, predicting crack-growth in pieces of ceramic and computer modelling of car suspensions seem a touch unheroic. Reminded ourselves reassuringly that engineering was easier back then cos they didn't have to waste time with computers and safety guidelines and stuff.

Back to Tim's for a fine Thai prawn & pineapple curry, courtesy of him, washed down with a couple of cold ones. While intentions to go out on the town had been voiced, our discussions on the aerospace industry, declinology, the Byzantine empire, the burgeoning breakcore and dubstep scenes, how utterly unbearable the weather is in England, the inevitable complications associated with romantically-related activities, production of electronic music, Brunel and the Great Eastern, formalising and codifying of language, quantum mechanical explanations in neuroscience and so-on-and-so-forth, lasted sufficiently long, to the tune of 10 beers each, that, at at their conclusion, it was deemed time to go to bed.
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Woke up next to a boa constrictor the next morning,

It, along with python, is the pet of Tim's housemate, and was thankfully still contained in its terrarium. Went out to get some brekky. Walked through the University of Bristol,

admiring the grandeur of their physics department - even grander than UWA's which mind you is the tallest building on the campus and a fine example of concrete nouveau.

Had a lookee at the Red Lodge, which i'm told is where Queen Elizabeth used to stay when she visited Bristol. It was built in 16c and has been variously renovated and modified since.

The south-facing, walled garden exemplifies a re-creation of an Elizabethan-style knot garden with herbaceous borders, circa 1630.

The house had been used for charitable purposes in the Victorian era,

which provoked us to reflect on how many young girls we ourselves had rescued from sin and misery, and brought back to the paths of holiness. Not many.

Walked south, around the town centre,

and crossed the river,

on our way to the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum.

A fine display of the historical, political, economic and cultural aspects of Britain's hegemony over most of the world. Still as post-colonial reverse migrants, these issues are close to home.
One of the rooms, allegedly the work of the great Brunel, was somewhat less inspiring than the Clifton Suspension Bridge.Had a few pints at The Reckless Engineer, apparently yet another celebratory allusion to Brunel, Bristol's favourite (adopted, he was born in Portsmouth) son,
then bade Tim, Bristol's second favourite adopted son, farewell,

and at 6:15 began the mission home, which finally ended at about 12:45, coinciding nicely with my sobering up. The monotony of transit was ameliorated by further reflections on the British empire theme courtesy of Niall Ferguson's fine book "Empire". Top trip.

Back in Britain

The Big Trip concluded for me, though Maarinke continued her Really Big Trip, with safe arrival back at Stansted and return to Cambridge. My box of posters, however, continued their train trip to Birmingham, where they dematerialised - I am an idiot and the train lost property services are not worth the paper their number was dutifully copied onto during my futile efforts to regain the posters. The Evil Train to Birmingham, from whose clutches I had narrowly escaped on my outward journey, finally got its revenge.

Maarinke spent a couple of days in Cambridge, where i introduced her to the joys of drinking warm ale, curry houses and the hallowed inner sanctum of the Pembroke graduate parlour, before venturing further north, leaving me to make a start on the year's work at the office.

Still all amped up about art and travel and stuff, i went to London that Saturday to catch the last day of the Derain exhibition at the Courtald Institute. First stop, though, was Lincoln's Inn Fields,

site of the Sir John Soane's Museum,

That is a real gem, definitely worth visiting if you're in London. John Soane was Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy and architect of the Bank of England, Number 10 Downing Street and the Dulwich College Art Gallery, and is now regarded as a progressive and influential architect in the context of the neoclassical style. His house, which is packed to the rafters with antiquities and artifacts, paintings (esp. Hogarth's 'Rake's Progress') and Soane's own architectural and furniture designs, was opened as a museum during his lifetime and has been maintained in that state since. It rocks.

Moseyed south toward the Strand, pausing for a patriotic moment outside Australia House,

then, blinking back appropriately patriotic tears and humming "I still call Australia home", on to Somerset House, where an ice-rink has been set-up,

I wasn't there for frivolities like ice-skating so i marched purposefully into the Courtald Collection, flashed my academic staff member card: free entry - yes!!! (consolation for my choice to pursue the ascetic, almost monastic lifestyle of the academic) and charged in to see the Derain exhibition. Comprised of his paintings of London from 1906, when his Fauvish tendencies were in full effect, it provided an interesting counterpoint to the, probably more famous, London paintings of Monet.

It was real good. Also good to check out the collection there of Kandinskys, Jawlenskys, Mackes and Munters, given i had become a (self-proclaimed) expert in Expressionism whilst in Germany.

Went over to the Hermitage Rooms to have a look at an exhibition of watercolours entitled Gainsborough to Turner: British Watercolours from the Spooner Collection. That was very good also, and allowed me to reminisce on my recent tour:

This is Turner's painting of Drachanfels - remember that from my last post? It was the mountain next to the Rhine near Bonn where the dragon lived, the one that Siegfried (remember him? that's right, he was the hero of the Nibelunglied, on which Wagner's Ring Cycle was based, good, you were paying attention) slayed.

This is Cozens' picture of Castel Sant Angelo in Rome, which we saw when we were there. Naturally, i loudly pointed out to most of the other people in the room that "yeah, i've just been in Rome actually and seen that, yeah, just this month, looks even better in real life, went to Munich as well actually, and Florence." They applauded dutifully.

Went outside to get comparison of real Thames and surrounds with Derain's efforts.

Yep, London, if not looking quite like Derain's paintings, was looking good. It's a shame this shot was ruined by an idiot getting in the way just as the camera went off.

Still full of enthusiasm, i went to the Gilbert Collection to have a look at some Russian Avant-Garde photography,

a recent montage of Yorkshire landscapes by David Hockney

and some micromosaics.

A diverse selection indeed. Met Kylie and Anthony at Covent Garden and had a bit of high tea at the third oldest fish and chip shop in London, followed by a few beers then headed back to Cam and my aforementioned monastic existence there.

Met Maarinke in London the following week (what she did in the mean time shall remain a mystery until she starts her own blog), for her final day in England. Having sustained ourselves with pasties, we strolled from Waterloo down the Thames

to Tate Britain,

had a look there at the Pre-Raphaelites et al, then caught the Tate Boat,

(We were pretty excited)

all the way to Tate Modern, to have a quick look at Rousseau and some of the recently recurated main collection.

Dinner with Kylie & Anthony and MJ & Kieran in Clapham, then beddybyes. Saw Maarinke off the following day, after an heroic but unsuccessful attempt to consume a celebratory Australia Day beer with M's friend Joel (thanks a lot Walkabout Covent Garden, you pricks, for the false advertising regarding opening times), then scampered back to Cambridge to teach dynamics to second years (having taught it to myself on the train). After six weeks and seven countries, Maarinke returned to beautiful, sunny, summery, warm Sydney and i stayed here in the rain. I remain ambivalent on the virtues of sacrificing climate for career.