London Day 4

We took the light rail and subway train to Tottenham Court Rd and then walked to the British Museum. We found that the exhibit Lee wanted to see was booked out until the afternoon. So we rescheduled and took the tube to South Kensington for our next block of tourist attractions. We took some photos from outside the Natural History Museum. Then we went into the Science Museum and had lunch at their cafeteria. After looking through a retrospective of Alan Turing I did the nerd thing of checking out the range of Charles Babbage displays. This included the modern reconstruction that proved his Difference engine really would have worked. More importantly was the prototype Analytical Engine, which was built by his son and proves that programmable computing was possible in the Victorian era. What a missed chance! I wonder if any Steampunk aficionados have included it in their imagined past. I was also quite impressed by the mathematical history section which included: slide rules (I was in the last year to sit tertiary exams with them); draughting pens (I had been a draughtsman in the early 80s); polyhedral models and pantographs (both of which I used to make); topology (a fascination I had in my teens). All up, it was nerd paradise. From there we crossed the road to go into the V&A Museum. There was definitely too much in here to see in a short visit so we looked at the map and chose the glassware section. On the way there we tarried in one of the sculpture halls, which had a disturbing number of Rodins among other impressive works. The glass section was itself impressive with light and mind bending modern works along with a jaw dropping number of ancient glass items. Forcing ourselves to leave we ambled up the road towards Kensington Park and came upon the Royal Albert Hall, and opposite it, the astonishing Albert Memorial. From there we walked along to Knightsbridge to take the tube to Holborn. A short walk and then Lee went into the British Museum for the Pompeii exhibit and I went a few streets over to see the Cartoon museum. This is a small private gallery - one half is a hefty collection of Ronald Searle originals. The other half is a retrospective summary of notable cartoon series, mainly from the early 20th century, each with example strips and a summary. When I was done I walked back to the British Museum for a coffee and free WiFi. Then we walked down to near the theatre and found a Moroccan restaurant (Souk) for dinner, quite excellent! Then we went to our second booked show, Matilda with music by Tim Minchin. Largely performed by a cast of children, this was a glorious stage enactment of a fantasy-class story with good songs, great physicality and seamless props. If at times it seemed a bit odd to have Minchin-esque word complexity coming from children this was more than made up for by the enthusiasm with which they did it. Recommended. Went straight home via tube.