re:mote voices

Travel: Trip to London - Part 2
Date: 23rd-25th March 2006

Sunday. I had arranged to meet Squirmelia at 12 on Sunday, at South Kensington station. Up and about before then, I decided to head back to the area of the British Museum and try and find some of the comic/book shops I had had pointed out on Thursday night. Though by the time I got there and managed to get myself on entirely the wrong side of the museum I decided it was time to head to South Kensington.

I got there a little early, so tried to decide the best place to wait for Squirmelia. Our plan was to check out the museums, so I though there might be a particular exit – rather there is a big long corridor extending from the underground station, with exits all along it for the Natural History Museum, the Victoria & Albert and the Science Museum. So I went back to the station and hung around the exit from the platforms kind of area.

Once Squirmelia got there we decided to start with some brunch. We had a look around the outside of the station, but didn’t really see anything. So decided that we would try one of the museum café’s, the V&A was our first stop, so that is where we ate. We had a pie and veg, followed by a bit of cake and caffeine, before heading into the museum.

One of the reasons I had decided to go to the V&A was because of Russell Hoban. Most of his novels are set in London, with several having his characters visit the V&A, where they will come upon a certain object which will affect events that follow. The main two I could remember were the Chinese Bat Bowl from The Bat Tattoo and the statue of Shiva dancing from Her Name Was Lola. Squirmelia in the meantime was looking for ritualistic objects of power, to see if she could find something that could be used to bring the giant squid in the Natural History museum back to life. Which was fine with me too.



Statues of Shiva dancing, with one foot crushing the baby demon of ignorance Apasmara Purusha, which had made the lead character in Her Name Was Lola forget all about Lola, were readily found. There were a couple of versions of the station, in amongst a selection of other related gods and goddesses. However the Bat Bowl which was instrumental in the meeting between Sarah and Roswell in The Bat Tattoo proved to be more elusive. I searched through the Chinese collection and didn’t come across it, then we wandered through the Japanese and Korean collection while we were there.

From the Japanese collection:


Between the Indian and Asian galleries we came across a new exhibit, a colourful collection of fashion items – the more out there and over the top pieces that you get, like a fur coat, made from black teddy bears stitched together. Or a sofa, made from various teddy bears, unfortunately not shown in the image – the dummy had a foot on a black leather bear, which recalls Shiva and the Apasmara Purusha. A Hello Kitty headed model and cartoon character dresses







Squirmelia and I took a load of photos of the interesting stuff, while pretty much ignoring the permanent exhibit of mundane stuff.



Though it was while we were going round this section, I realised that I had picked up a stalker. This girl had been in the Tate the day before prior to the talk by Alan Moore, and here she was again.


Unfortunately after that we managed to lose her. Oh well. Maybe next time?

Having come in from the train station, we had come in the back entrance to the V&A, which means that we hadn’t seen the sculpture by Dave Chihuly. A huge hanging chandelier hydra like object, all tentacles and tumescent growths, that seemed to writhe and slither.



By this time we had been in the V&A for some hours, so decided we would move on to the Science Museum. So it was back out the tunnel and along to the next exit. Again we started our visit by a stop in the café, where we had a drink surrounded by bright colours and loads of families. Though that didn’t stop us making our first stop within the museum the interactive kid’s section. Though we kind of wandered around aimlessly, as it was kind of difficult to actually get hands on the hands on stuff for all the kids. Though we managed to shake hands with herself, and thanks to the horror’s of science, Squirmelia had her shadow stripped from her!



From the hands on section, we went looking for further Russell Hoban references, this time in the Math department – Klein Bottles – the spiralling interwoven glass structures that featured in Amaryllis Night and Day. These objects were thought to be impossible, while they could be described by mathematics, it wasn’t until Alan Bennett was able to construct them from glass that they became actual objects.




While there I came across another literary reference. The Difference Engine. Babbages early steps towards the computer, calculating machines using gears and the like. Which was the name of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling’s collaborative Steam Punk novel.




From the Math Department we wandered into the Energy Department. Where there were a series of interactive little items about energy – its generation, use and conservation. Including games where you stamp on floor buttons to affect what happens on a screen, a pole that gives electric shocks, a city model, and the idea of bodily wastes being a valuable resource.




By this time it was getting close to closing time. So we decided to pop into the shop, see if they had anything cool. That was clearly a big mistake, as every child in the entire building had converged there. It was like a feeding frenzy, all these tiny hands clawing up plastic dinosaurs, key rings, pens and the usual souvenir tat. Regardless, we were still the second last people to get our coats and bags from the cloakroom, much to the annoyance of the put upon staff.

Fighting our way past the cannibalistic child frenzy, we made it outside, and ducked back into the long museum corridor to get a train back to the centre. Where we went for pizza, passing the Odeon in Leicester Square, where the paraphernalia of the V For Vendetta premier were still on display.



After dinner, Squirmelia headed for a train home, her weekend over, back to work the next day. I still had another day to go, so I took my time, wandered up Tottenham Court Road, where half the second hand bookshops were still open. I didn’t find anything that I was after, so I just headed back to the hotel. Taking my position in the computer room, waiting for Spanish kids to get off the computers, drinking the even more dwindling caffeine options from the dispenser and reading.

Monday. My last day in London. Having already experienced wandering around on the Thursday with my extra baggage, I had no intention of repeating that. So my first trip of the day was to King’s Cross, where I found a left luggage and left my bags. Of course these kind of places have changed in recent times, the left luggage including the full airport style luggage scanning x-ray machine. I grabbed a chicken and vegetable Cornish pasty in Kings Cross station for breakfast – the kind I always have when I get one from the franchise stall in Glasgow Central.

My next stop I thought would be Forbidden Planet, then the other book and comic shops in the area. But as I headed into the underground I changed my mind. Back to Camden! For a number of reasons, Kradlum had confirmed which street the Camden comic shop I could remember was in, I had seen a couple of paintings I had liked while there on the Friday, and Crash had posted online to suggest that we should have taken more pictures when we had been there. Unfortunately, I found the comic shop too late, the comics I was looking for had just sold out half an hour ago – comics that would have been there on Friday as I walked past and said to Crash, "There is a comic shop down one of these streets". Regardless, I went up, bought the paintings I wanted, then took a load of photos of the Camden markets. Unfortunately, when we had been there on Friday it had been quite clear, and there had been a good buzz. Returning on a Monday morning, a grey drizzly Monday morning, didn’t really give the same atmosphere.




From Camden, I went back to my previous plan, into Forbidden Planet and whatever other book and comic shops I could find. Managed to find one comic shop that had one of the three comics I was looking for, then Gosh comics which I had failed to find the day before, where I bought a pile of reduced graphic novels. Then to Forbidden Planet where I bought a couple of books. After that I went for a cup of tea and read for bit. Before heading back to the British museum for another look around there.

On Thursday night we had looked through the doors into the library as it was closed at that time of night, this time I went in and took a couple of pictures. Before heading up to the oriental exhibits, where they advised you not to drop to the floor below!




In the Thai section I found another statue of Shiva dancing, this one a winged version. I also decided to actually focus on Apasmara Purusha this time.



From the Thai and Chinese exhibits, I wandered up more stairs to the Korean exhibit.





Back on the ground floor there was an African exhibit:



After the British museum I went for a sandwich, killing time before I headed out to the airport. I was trying to time it that I got to the airport on time, without having too much time to kill. But of course, London is a city that will devour you if you let it. So when I decided that it was time to head back to Kings Cross I found myself stymied at every turn. As I went back and forth between stations, trying to find a line that was still running to Kings Cross the words pieced together, a personal action, became someone on the tracks. Finally I found on my fourth attempt a line that ran on different tracks that still went to Kings Cross. Where I was able to reclaim my bags, and switch to the Kings Cross Thames Link to Luton Airport. There I made the mistake of getting on the Luton train, the train that at peak times like this is absolutely and ludicrously filled with people and stops at every stop before Luton.

Once I got to the nearest station, getting to the airport and checking in was no problem. I decided that maybe I would have some dinner. Offered chicken pie and mash I decided to go for that, however there was no pie – so instead I was offered boiled rice and gravy. The pie was also chicken with stuffing, which was just odd. Overall a meal I can very much recommend you avoid! Despite my best attempts, I ended up buying fries from Burger King, since the pie and rice had been so disappointing, and the guy at the next table was eating from Burger King. The rest of the evening was spent reading, flying, reading, getting home. And back to work the next day.