Pulled a Bullingdon at Waterloo 3 and pedaled off to the British Museum, where there just a couple of free slots on the stand there. Walked around to the first entrance where access was denied, being directed instead to the second entrance which led me across the forecourt to the newly erected security tent. With the chap there who did me being mostly concerned that I was not attempting to take any bicycle tools into the museum, his concern having been triggered by my helmet. I have still to work out why bicycle tools are particularly dangerous to a museum. And there were no signs saying no bicycle tools - or no any other kind of tools. What about the Swiss army knife lurking in my pocket? Which, associating, they did think to ask for and remove when we visited Sainte Chapelle in Paris. See reference 3.
Off to the Greek pot department, which seemed to have fewer pots than I remembered. Perhaps pots have been taken away to make room for more accessible & educational displays. As it happened, there seemed to be more pots in the Enlightenment Room than there were in the Pot Room, but they were rather badly displayed and they were, in any case, the brown & black ware rather than the geometric ware which I thought I was looking for. But no joy, the pot in question did not surface. Maybe it really is lurking in one of my Gombrich books - it is the sort of thing that he would notice - and I just need to look a bit more carefully. However, for the moment, the matter rests with the duty curator to whom I have sent an email. Rather a nice idea if it works.
Then off to the new Ole & Steen place in the Haymarket for lunch, to be found at reference 2. All kinds of interesting bakery stuff and a plentiful supply of cheerful young Danes. They were a bit late with my rather superior ham & cheese toastie so they threw in, unasked, a free bun - also rather superior and said to be a traditional Danish bun. Not a cinnamon bun, but I can't remember the name and the web site is no help at all. Quite a nice sauvignon blanc too.
Bought a rye loaf, a loaf which involved carrot and tasted, to my untutored palette, rather like pumpernickel. Rather good and it did not last very long.
No.88 bus to Vauxhall, where I learned that the solar panels on top of the stainless steel art work were generating 0.35KW - at which rate it is going to be a long time before they get the carbon back that they put into the steel. But it may have been raining by this point. Vauxhall also boasted the most battered cash machine that I recall using.
No chance of any aeroplanes at Earlsfield, so I read about bells on my telephone, causing me to get carried off to New Malden. Which was a pain until I chanced upon a bonus copy of the FT: not often that one picks up any kind of a paying paper these days. And to think that, when I was little, I could rely on picking up a mint condition DT from the same litter bin in the Strand every morning - only damaged to the extent that the first owner had done the crossword - which did not matter to me as I can't do crosswords - odd given talents in both the mathematics and vocabulary departments. But there it is.
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/pot.html.
Reference 2: http://oleandsteen.co.uk/.
Reference 3: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=day+7+scaffolding.
No comments:
Post a Comment