What I Did on My Holidays

I have just returned home after spending a few days at my parents home in Devon, which has been lovely and relaxing.

A La Ronde

On Sunday, my parents had  a prior commitment to ring a quarter peal near Exmouth, so, as I didn't wish to sit in a churchyard for an hour, they dropped me off at A La Ronde which is now owned by the National Trust. It's a fascinating house - it was originally built in around 1795 for two spinster cousins, and is 16-sided, built around a central octagonal hall.

The original design included sliding doors into all of the main rooms, little triangular cupboards in the gaps between the rooms, and diamond shaped windows. The ladies moved around the house following the sun each day, so their bedrooms faced East, and so forth, so that they always had the best of the light. 

They were very good at handicrafts and were responsible for much of the interior decor themselves - the frieze you can see around the top of the wall is made from feathers, for instance, and the piece de resistance is the 'shell gallery' which is in the top of the house, (and too delicate to be visited except via cctv) which was made by the cousins from the shells and other curios they collected (they travelled extensively on the Continent before they settled down in the house) 

When the ladies died, they left instructions that the house should always go to an unmarried female descendant, and this continued until 1866 when there were no more unmarried female descendants, and the house passed to a male relation, who added some impressively large, steam-powered Victorian radiators, knocked some of the rooms together to make larger ones (and moved the bedrooms upstairs)

It's a strange house, but must have been a nice place to live - there are lovely views out to sea.

Later in the week we went to the seaside - we picked the right day for it - it had started out rather grey and breezy, but there were lots of sunny intervals, and as the school holidays are now over, the beach was pretty empty.

We went home via Ilfracombe to see Damien Hirst's Verity which is very imposing. I suspect it may be seen to best advantage from out at sea.

We also had one much wetter day, and we decided, based on a conversation we had, to visit the Tiverton Museum. My Grannie lived in Tiverton, and when we were little children, we used to be taken to the museum when we visited. I haven't been there since I was about 9 or 10, and I was explaining to my parents that, as far as I recalled, the museum had only one exhibit - a Big Green Railway Engine!

They tried to convince me that there were, in fact, quite a few other exhibits, as well, so we went to see,

It turns out that they were right. The museum also has a number of other exhibits, including lots of farm carts, and lace-making machines, but the engine is still the beast bit!

 Apparently it was bought and given to the museum in 1963, when Dr  Beeching shut the local railway, and has been here ever since. My Dad was reminiscing about being allowed to ride with the driver when coming back from visiting relations, as a small boy (which I suspect must have been against the Railway Regulations, even in the 1950s)

It was a very enjoyable visit. And only slightly marred by the huge queue of traffic I got caught in on my drive home, which involved my sitting in near stationary traffic for around an hour.

A Grand Day Out

I spent Saturday in London, to meet up with friends Jess, Paul, Anabel and Ian. I saw Ian and Anabel when I was in Dublin in October, but it's been over a year since I last saw Jess and Paul (Pittsburg and Trowbridge being, unfortunately, too far apart for frequent visits)

I was concerned about getting to London, as there were reports of flooding causing major delays on the trains, but I found in fact that the train into London was more-or less on time, and not particularly crowded, which was a pleasant surprise!

We all met up the British Library, and then started with a visit to the V&A, where we found Creepy Dolls, and a Wish Fulfilling Cow, and a golden chicken (which he label insisted was a goose, but which was, quite clearly, a chicken, and made me think immediately of The Bloggess).

We visited the Tippoo's Tiger, and looked at some of the South East Asian textiles and other exhibits.

 I loved  this 1900 year old winged lion, which is from India, but which looked somewhat Celtic to me.

After some lunch, we headed over to Sir John Soane's house, which is now a museum. You are not allowed to take pictures inside, but should you find yourself in London it's well worth a visit. Soane was an a architect, who died in 1837. He was a avid collector, and the house has everything from a Caneletto, several Turners and Hogarths, to pieces of Roman masonry,  the sarcophagus of King Seti I, and a roof boss from the old Westminster Hall. The museum is set up as it was at the time Soane died (which does mean that many parts of it are very gloomy, as it is lit by candles!)

We then tried to visit the Hunterian Museum in order to see Babbage's brain,but sadly it was closed, so we went to Forbidden Palnet instead, before finishing the day in a pub near St Pancras.

It was great to hang out with everyone, and to have some bite-sized bits of culture!

I did have some delays getting home - my train from London was fine (although not actually the train which was on the timetable) I felt sorry for those wishing to travel beyond Bristol - just after we pulled out of Paddington (with no further stops until Reading) they announced that the train (due to go to Exeter) was not going beyond Bristol, that there was no alternative transport being provided and that they suggested that anyone wishing to travel went back to their point of origin to try again... Given that the train had been sitting, fully loaded, for about 15 minutes, it seemed a little unkind not to have made the announcement 5 minutes earlier!)

In Which There Are Many Happy Things

The full title of the post should really be "In which there is family, and art and museums and friends and Rock and food and beer and meeting people and brownies and lots of fun" but that's a little too long.

You see, Wednesday was the day (night) that Amanda Fucking Palmer was performing in Manchester. when the tickets first went on sale, I had to decide between the London and Manchester shows, and picked Manchester because although it involved more travelling, I got to combine the gig with a visit to my brother, and to introduce him and his girlfriend to Amanda's music, which seemed like a good idea!

I drove up to Manchester in the morning, and was able to meet R for lunch (unfortunately, my visit coincided with the only-available-about-twice-year-and-very-useful training day he needed to do, so he couldn't take the afternoon off, which was a shame, but such is life. R works at the BBC, at Salford Quays. It was odd for me to visits the Quays, as they have changed almost beyond recognition since I lived in Manchester - the area was almost all industrial wasteland in my day...

After lunching, I went to look around the Imperial War Museum North -which has exhibitions relating to modern warfare, and in particular to the impact of war, so there were exhibits about victims of shell shock, and trench warfare, and about prisoners of war, and victims of concentration camps, (and those who were involved in liberating them) as well as about more recent events such as the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks. Not an uplifting experience, but both interesting and thought-provoking.

A little later, after nipping back to R's house to drop off my stuff and park my car, I got a tram into Manchester and spent half an hour in the Manchester Art Gallery. I only had time to visit a small part of it, but it was nice. They have some lovely Victorian decor - I liked the fishes and bees, for instance...

There are also some quite nice pictures - I didn't get as far as the Lowrys, but I did see the William de Morgan tiles, which were always a favourite of mine, and I enjoyed the juxtaposition of old and new art - the butterflies are by an artist called Claire Brewster, and are all cut from ordnance survey maps... I liked them a lot!

I didn't get to stay long, as the gallery closes at 5, and I then had to leave, after which I met up with R and his girlfriend, J, for supper (an American themed meal, involving milkshakes)

and then it was time to head to the cathedral. We went via Sinclair's Oyster Bar, which is a lovely looking half-timbered building (built in 1720, and moved a few hundred yards, after the 1996 IRA bomb and subsequent redevelopment of the area) We had some rather nice beer, and met up with my friend Hellie, who was also heading the the gig.

And so - the main event!

AFP watching the stage

I have been to Manchester Cathedral before, for services, but never for a gig - it made for a pretty awesome space.

 Once inside, we spotted Laurie Pink and Essers (which was good, because it turned out that Twitter had been hiding their DM's from me, when we were trying to work out if we could meet up!)

They had cunningly spotted that there was space to stand around the side of the stage, where there was a good view! So we did standing there, too.  There was some brass band going on at the other end of the nave , then the vicar came to welcome everyone. I suspect he doesn't get massive applause and cheering on a Sunday morning, generally...

Friendly vicar says hello

Jherek Bishoff

Then there was music. Jherek Bischoff played - including a piece called 'Cistern' which, he explained, was written in an empty, underground water cistern and rarely performed, but the cathedral seemed an appropriate space to try it in (for the record, it really, really, worked!)


After the second opening act, Amanda Palmer started her own set (having introduced the others) with an a capella version of 'The Wind that Shakes the Barley', sung from the top of the (medieval) rood screen, above an array of painted angels. It was stunning.

She then came down onto the main stage and was, well, Amanda Fucking Palmer. Most of the show involved songs from the new album,  Theatre is Evil, but we also got 'Leeds United'..

It was an awesome night. We didn't stay for the post-show ninja encore outside the cathedral, on account of having to catch the last tram home, but even without it I was on a high.

And when we got back to the house, R revealed that he had specially baked some chocolate brownies for me, as a bleated birthday treat, and he & J stuck candles in them and sang 'Happy Birthday' to me at midnight, which made for a lovely, if slightly surreal end to the day. (plus, I got a whole lot of delicious brownies to bring home)

(more photos, as usual, on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/tmarjorie/

In Which there is a Dead Codebreaker and and Live Cellist

I  booked a ticket a while back, to see Zoe Keating, at her one London show, Then this weekend I had a mild panic for fear I would be too ill to go (The panic was mild only becuase I had no energy to panic properly) However, come Monday I decided that if I was well enough to go into work, I was damn well well enough to go to London to listen to music.
I am not sure whether the logic of that decision would hold up to rigourous examination, but it seemed reasonable at the time.

I had prebooked an afternoon off work, and a rail ticket, so I arrived in London at around 3.30, and decided to head across to the Science Museum, which currently has an exhibition celebrating Alan Turing's centenary.

It was a small, but interesting exhibition. As well as the obvious points, such as Turing's work at Bletchley Park during the War, and his tragically early death after his conviction for homosexuality, the exhibition included some information about his childhood friendships, as well as about his work at Manchester University following the war.

One striking piece of information, new to me, was that 2 of the papers which Turing wrote during his time at Bletchley,  were not released publically until April this year, apparently becuase it was felt that the work they contained was sstill too relevant and too important.

Which is astonishing.

After looking round the Turing exhibition I wandered into a few other parts of the museum. I admit that the section about vetinary history left me rather cold - it's hard to get interested in toothrasps and horse drenching bottles. I liked the Wellcome medical history gallery better, although possibly not for the right reasons. It is full of tableaux and dioramas, peopled by manniquins which appear to be rejexts from even the most undiscriminating shop display. The tableaux themselves range from an oddly unconcered Roman with an arrow in the neck, to a modern operating theatre, but are arranged, apparently at random. They also have some interactive exhibits where you can try out some psychometric tests, but without being told how you score, or what the normal reaction might be. I should like to think that the whole exhibition might be an elaborate psychological experiment..

The random Roman bath-tub was nice, though.

I then wandered back downstairs, pausing to take a look at the microscope made for George III (it has cherubs, and semi-naked ladies on it) and at Mr Babbage's Difference Engine, then I took a wrong turning past the Daleks  (they label them as being V2 and other early rocket engines, but you only have to look at them to see the truth =>;) and I found myself unexpectedly face to face with George Stevenson's 'Rocket'

It's pretty impressive. And I like how they keep it next to the Apollo 10 Command Module, and a few other bits and bobs of a similar kind.

There are Steam-Engines and Beam-Engines and great big Jet Engines, and bicycles and biplanes and all sorts of other fascinating things. It reminded me why I like this museum, and that I ought to come more often!

But, like all good things, the museum visit came to an end, as they like to close it in the evenings, so I took the hint, and headed out to Hackney, and the  Vortex Jazz Club, where Zoe Keating was playing.

The venue is small, and was very full. Opening for Zoe was Ruby Colley - a composer / violinist who, like Zoe, uses a computer to allow her to accompany herself.

She played a short, but fascinating set, which left me feeling that she is a name to watch - I shall certainly be keeping an eye out for any future performances.

Then, Zoe started her set (with a slight delay in starting, due to a computer issue). I can only say that her music is even more stunning live than it is recorded - and she's a witty lady, too. And despite the crowded, overheated room, the uncomfortable chair, and the nagging anxiety that I might miss the last train back, I lost myself in the music for a time.

and, although I was forced to leave before the set ended, I did not miss the last train home.

An Exciting Weekend - Part 1, In Which There Is a Bottle of Skulls (and Moles)

I have had a VERY full, and very fun weekend, so will try to break it down into managable chunks.
I got a train to London on Friday, having enjoyed a lazy morning at home. After booking into my accommodation (very cheap; I stayed in one of the LSE's halls of residence - they rent out rooms on a B&B basis, during the university holidays) I headed down the road to the Grant Museum, which is part of UCL and which I've wanted to visit for ages, but have not been able to because it doesn't open at weekends.

It's wonderful. It lives in an old library, and gives the impression of not-quite fitting, so that everything has been squeezed in. I've got cupboards like that, except they don't (mostly) contain the skeletons of extinct animals or jars of skulls. The collection was originally used for teaching (we are talking about 1828, or thereabouts) and those who benefited included one Charles Darwin.

The museum has a lot of bones. And a lot of Things in jars. Such as moles, and foetal pigs, and skulls, and snakes. There are skeletons, including those of a Quagga (albeit one with slightly fewer legs then it ought to have) and of a Tylacine, and a Dodo.

There is a Sabre-Tooth tiger's skull, rather endearingly displayed between a small plastic model of a sabre-tooth, and a plastic box containing a big-cat hairball. Around the galleries of the library are more skeletons - including several primates of different kinds leaning companionably on the bannisters and looking down into the displays.

I was slightly disappointed that there was (as far as I could see) no jar of eyeballs, but one can't have everything.  There were some beautiful glass models of squid, and corals and sea-urchins.

There's a pickled pangolin. (at least I think it was a pangolin) And you can adopt specimens if you want. I rather fancied adopting a bug-eyed monster loris, or maybe the walrus penis bone,  but they seemed to have been adopted already.                                        
 It's a fascinating place. I'm glad I went.

After looking round the museum, I wandered down to the British  Library, to pick up my tickets for Sunday, and to have another quick look around the 'Out of This world' exhibition - (the TARDIS is still there) before heading down to Charing Cross, to Amanda Fucking Palmer's gig . . .

Which I think shoudl ahve a post of it's own, don't you?

Art and Culture (& Keira Knightley)

I spent the weekend in London - I'd arranged to go up in order to spend some time with family, go to the theatre and take in a few exhibitions, and all of those things were sucessfully accomplished!

We started with a visit to the Royal Academy, which is having an exhibition of Van Gogh's work and letters. It was fascinating, and included quite a lot of Van Gogh's earlier works, showing very clearly his developing style - lots of works which one wouldn't, as a non-expert, immediately recognise as Van Gogh's!

The letters were also interesting; he was in the habit of smattering his letters to his brother Theo with sketches of the paintings he was working on, and it was interesting to see these next to the works themselves.

We'd planned to eat at Mildred's, but it was full, so we ended up at Prix Fixe instead - baked camembert followed by breast of duck... mmmmm.

On the Saturday, after a lazy morning, we headed into the city to Tate Britain where we saw the Henry Moore & Chris Ofili exhibitions - completely different to one another, but both fascinating, although I didn't enjoy the Henry Moore as much as the exhobition of his larger sculptures, in Kew Gardens, a coupls of years ago - I think I prefer the larger pieces, and seing them outdoors rather than on a gallery adds a lot to the pieces.

After the Tate, we met up with more members of the family at the Comedy Theatre, to seea matinee performance of The Misanthrope - this is a new, modern english version of Moliere's play, written by Martin Crimp and starring:

Damian Lewis (Alceste),

Keira Knightley - Jennifer (Celemine),

Tara Fitzgerald - Marcia (Arsinoe) &

Nicholas Le Provost - Alexander (Clitandre)

The play's setting has been updated to modern London, with Alceste a sucessful (if highly cynical) playwright, and Jennifer a young, beautiful american actress. There are plenty of knowing, tongue-in-cheek references to '17th Century plays' and to current events.

Damian Lewis was marvellous and, with strong support from Dominic Rowan (John / Philinte), really carried the play. Keira Knightley was good, and of course lovely to look at, but seemed at times to be struggling a little - she had a tendency to become rather shrill in order to project her voice. I think she has the potential to become a good stage actress but is perhaps not quite there yet!

I found the (sometimes a little forced) verse structure of the play to be a little distracting at times - rhymning couplets seem not to fit terribly well with modern english, but in spite of some critisism I did enjoy the play, and was very glad we had the opportunity of seeing it.

Following the show we went into ChinaTown to eat at Imperial China - good to have the time to socialise with family!

All in all, it was a very enjoyable weekend, and even spending part of Sunday morning hanging around Waterloo station, with rain beating down on the roof was not unpleasant (my habit of travelling with a book, and acquiring coffee on arrival at the station worked out well!)

My next trip to London will be to see see Amanda Plamer & Jason Webley's show, and will, I think, be a totally different experience!

In Which There Are Skulls, and a Lion Hunt

As I was in London anyway, for the purpose of seeing the talented Mr Webley, I decided to take the opportunity before heading home, of visiting the Moctezuma exhibition at the British Museum. After all, it is all about Mexica, with skulls, human sacrifice and and bloodshed - what's not to like?

Of course, in an ideal world, I would have thought to check before I left the hotel, what time the museum opened, but as it turned out I was able to find a convenient coffee-shop to sit in, watching the rain fall and reading about Shakepeare's London for 45 minutes until the museum opened.

They have a temporary garden in the courtyard outside the museum just know - it is part of a collaboration with Kew Gardens, to accompany the 'Gardens of Jodhpur' exhibition, so I did wander past the Baobab and Mango trees briefly, before heading indoors into the dry.

The exhibition was fascinating. I knew, of course that the Aztec* civilisation remained until the conquistadors arrived with their guns and small pox, but I hadn't quite put the dates together in my mind to realise that in the 16th Century there were people carrying out human sacrifices, hunting using obsidian axes and so on. There were a number of skulls, including a genuine human skull which had been beautifully covered with turquoise and jet mosaic, and fitted with straps to allow it to be used as a mask. Delightful. There were also a number of manuscripts, written by the conquistadors but illustrated by Aztecs. Beautiful but sad - a record of the end of a civilization.

After seeing the exhibition I spent some time in other parts of the museum - the Assyrian rooms, featuring many beautifully carved reliefs, including a whole set featuring a lion hunt. (I felt sorry for the lions. They started out in cages, and never seemed to be allowed to win, or escape.) There were also many chariots, and some not-altogether-seaworthy boats, although I am not convinced that they were an integral part of the lion hunt! I find it incredible that they are so clear and relatively undamaged after almost 3000 years.

I also took the opportunity to visit the Elgin Marbles (after all, who knows how much longer they will be in London) Whtever the rights or wrongs of their ownership, they are beautiful.

(*Apparently 'Aztec' is an inaccurate, if well known description)

In Which there are Curiosities of Many Kinds

Having enjoyed a wonderful evening seeing Amanda Palmer, and with my train back not due to leave til almost 4 p.m. I decided to visit some museums. You will all, no doubt, be relieved to hear that I fortified myself with an excellent breakfast, first.

I walked back towards St Pauls - I love the Millennium Bridge, and the contrast between its modern, industrial lines, and the giant wedding cake which is St Paul's. It's a very nice wedding cake, don't get me wrong....

As I came up to the cathedral, I started seeing lots of Fire Fighters in full dress uniform. There is a National Monument to Fire Fighters just down from the Cathedral, and so I presume that there was to be a memorial service - I believe the monument was originally put up in memory of those in the fire service who died in WW2, but more recently was put on to a plinth which is used to display the names of firefighters from all over the country, who are killed in service. It's one of those places you tend to wander past without really noticing most of the time. . .

I headed to the Victoria & Albert Museum; I'd seen that there was an exhibition named 'Telling Tales' featuring pieces inspired by faerie tales. It was interesting, although not exactly what I had been expecting - included 'cinderella' and 'witch' chairs, a wardrobe made of fig-leaves, a stuffed fox with gold-plated maggots and some stuffed mushroom-clouds, (to cuddle, in order to embrace ones fears...)

The V&A is a big museum: last time I went I seem to remember seeing Queen Victoria's bloomers, and some amazing, if rather sad hatpins (sad because so many of them made from dead hummingbirds, and feathers from birds of paradise). There's lots of bits I've never seen. After seeing the exhibition, I took a wrong turning on my way to look at Beatrix Potter's original sketches, and ended up in the textiles galleries. It's fascinating. There are racks and racks containing samples of textiles, all painstakingly marked up with typewritten labels. You can simply pull out a rack from your chosen centuary and weaving and embroidery laid out before you.

Whether what you happen to want to see is 4th Century Mespotomanian weaving (pic. to left) or Roman, or 14th Century Italian (pic to right), or Victorian lace, or anything in between.

Another cabinet is filled with samples of different stiches, all carefully embroidered in different colours to show how the stiches are formed, by a member of staff in 1913.

There was no-one but me in the room. Perhaps samples of ancient fabric are generally considered interesting than Elton John's old clothes, which are a few corridors along.

I wandered through the India exhibit, to see the famous 'Tippoo's Tiger', a giant automaton from around 1790. You have to admire a wooden mannikin who can wave cheerfully and smile while being eaten alive by a tiger with a pipe-organ in it's belly.

And the tiger seemed to lead naturally to my moving on from the V&A, across the street to the Natural History Museum.

I wasn't able to visit the new Darwin Centre, because I was 2 days too early, so I wandered past the petrified wood and, having taken a wrong turning somewhere in human biology, and started looking not at the exhibits, but the architecture.

The musueum was custom built, and the style is Victorian Gothick, but the decoration is themed around Natural History - in the main hall (Where the Brontosaurus Skeleton lives) for example, the ceiling panels feature paintings of botanical specimens, and the pillars, archways etc are decorated with different animals, plants and insects, all as accurate as possible, like a cathedral to science. apparently Sir Richard Owen (The first director, and moving spirit in the building), insisted that extinct and living species were kept to different sections of the building, although of course they were caught out by the Coeleocanth

I particularly liked the Octopi and other sealife, in what is currently the dinosaur hall.

I also enjoyed wandering around the museum alone, which allowed me to look only at the parts which happened to catch my fancy, without worrying about what any companion might want to see.

All in all, I enjoyed my day wandering around in museums, and having done so, also enjoyed my smooth rail journey back home.

In Which There Is a Great Glass Elevator

Sadly the end of the holiday was looming. Sunday was a relaxed day, which involved a leisurely and tasty breakfast with Gayle & M, followed by an afternoon in which I made it all the way to the hotel patio with my book, to enjoy the sunshine and a nice cool drink.

On Monday, I had thought it would be interesting to visit the Weisman Museum. However, it turns out that it is not open on Mondays. Nor is the Minneapolis Institute of Art, which was my second choice. (Did I mention that forward planning isn’t my strongest point?)

So I reconsidered by plans and decided, instead, to pay a visit to the Mill City Museum instead. Old Flour mills (or, new flour mills, come to think of it) are not high on any list of my interests, but I thought that it might be worth a visit, and anyway, it has a observation deck and is in the heart of downtown Minneapolis.

It was more fun than I expected. I hardly got lost at all finding it, and although I didn’t find the museum’s collection of ‘ the Staypuft man’ memorabilia very thrilling, I liked the traction engine, the kitchens (with different types of bread to taste).

There is then a tour which involves going up in a converted freight elevator and stopping on various floors for recorded information and then you get out at the 8th floor, and can go up to the 9th where there is an observation deck with excellent views over the Mississippi and a great glass elevator all the way back down to the ground.

As I was at the top looking down, I saw a whole tour group of people doing the Segway tour.. looked interesting.

After exhausting the possibilities of the museum I met Aleta, and we went for lunch at Hells Kitchen , where there was good food and good company - bison burger and sweet potato fries...Mmmmm.

Aleta then took me on a driving tour around downtown Minneapolis, which I really enjoyed. I got to see the outside of the Wiesman (Which is well worth seeing as a building, even if you can’t get in). Maybe next time I shall see the inside, too.

And when we had finished, I managed to get back to the hotel without getting lost, too. Although I did find that I had managed to lose my ipod at some point during the day, which with an 8 hour flight, 6 hour wait in airport and 4 hour train journey ahead of me, was a little annoying.