The muffin man?!

When I left you last, I was off to walk to the National Gallery: it was 9.30 am. I arrived at the National Gallery at 2.30 pm. There is much danger to trying to walk anywhere without stopping, as any way you look there is tourist joy aplenty - Harrods! Fortuitously did not notice the signs saying no photos allowed:


Seriously, this is the kitschest memorial I have ever seen, its beautiful, so appropriately ghastly.
There is a Krispy Kreme in Harrods too, also distinctly wrong. I do give credit to the Harrods staff though, considering that they have flocks of people constantly gawking & roaming throughout the store, they are very polite. It is a very odd place, so many small rooms that connect to one another but give you no sense of where you are in relation to the outside world. I then went and found some coffee, which is almost ok, but someone really needs to get that concept of the long black out there more: that's two shots of coffee + hot water, not one shot, that just tastes like diluted nothingness. I wandered on through Green Park and St James Park - more squirrels! - found myself on The Mall, and amused, because it isn't in fact, a mall (as in a paved, non-car area - I at least knew that it wasn't a giant shopping centre. Which is another thing I like about London, the strips of shops, rather than air-conditioned barns of sensory death). Found the institute of Contemporary Art, also in changeover, and again the site of interesting exhibitions 50 years ago. Wandered up Regent Street, affectionately discovered Pall Mall, which was nice as it has always been one of my favourite properties to own when forced into playing Monopoly. Up to Picadilly Circus (aptly named), along to Leicester Square, then finally down to Trafalgar Square and the Gallery. Which also had various rooms shut off for changeover, but still enough open for some serious art nerd bliss. Pontormo was a particular standout, the colours were so much more than I had always given him credit for. Rubens lived up to very high expectations, and although the linked image does not capture the colours in the original at all, I'm sure you'll agree with me that that is one of the finest backs in art history.
Unfortunately some of the late nineteenth-century collection is currently being moved so I'll have to back when they rehouse some of the key works by Van Gogh and Cezanne and continue drooling and gurning.

When I tore myself away I decided to head home via Bayswater, so caught a bus in that direction and inteded a gentle stroll the rest of the way. Unfortunately, that rain I had been so happy not to have seen came, and I caught the wrong bus, so I ended up having quite the soggy trudge. Turns out my shoes leak.

The next day I decided it was time that I did something, I had a vague memory of, oh that's right, study, so headed off to the Victoria and Albert Museum for some library time. I do like a nineteenth-century built library, they impart a gravitas which your modern library doesn't have. Some work was achieved, in between dashes around to gawp, - elegantly gawp, but gawp none the less - at the collections there. I found some useful things in their collection, which is nice, having come from the other hemisphere. After library time it was Musical Time - I found a website which does some good deals on lastminute theatre deals, so I had dinner and went to see The Producers. Or rather, look down upon the producers, at the Theatre Royal, in Drury Lane, Covent Garden - which achieved numerous life goals, but two notable ones I will mention here:
1. Every time I considered the address I could replay Shrek in my mind: "The muffin man? The muffin man!? Who lives down Drury Lane?"
2. I saw a show in Covent Garden, so not only have I seen a show in Covent Garden, but whenever the conversation about the Producers comes up I can be all like "Well when I saw the London production..."
Anyway, after passing through the nosebleeds, lack of oxygen, and with the assistance of Nepalese attendants, I found my seat, and was able to make a long study of the hats of The Producers... v. good!
Got home quite late, so have taken it a bit easier today, back to the V&A to get a better look at the collections, and they thoughtfully have a couple of exhibitions pertaining to the 1960s on at the moment, one on fashion, and one on graphics, which is fantastic for me as it includes a lot of the pieces I've been speaking about.
One of my favourite areas in the V&A though is the plaster casts of great works of sculpture, and highly entertainingly, in a display case on the back of the plinth that the enormous David stands on, is the plaster leaf that they used to cover Dave's bits when female royalty came to visit:

The V&A has a truly dangerous gift shop. The kind of place you could just upend into a shipping container and send on home. Actually whole areas of London are like that. Dangerous.

Leaving the V&A I went and had a look at the Natural History museum, more because I thought it would be Good for Me rather than out of any particular desire to, but I got to see lots of dino bones and a stuffed dodo, so it was worthwhile. Another excellent gift shop, with every form of dino merchandise known to small boy.

After that I wandered up to Kensington High Street in search of wifi, so I could share all this with you, dear reader. Aren't you glad?