The British Museum is a highlight for every London tourist,
except I hardly ever go because there’s always too many people in there. And old
stuff, after a while, starts just looking like old stuff. Do you know what I
mean? It loses its significance in a sea of old stuff. So it’s been three or
four years since I went to the British Museum. It felt like the right time to
return.
I once learned a great tip from my friend Loraine Edwards:
always get the children’s guide to the museum. It turns the entire museum into
a scavenger hunt! Or a treasure map! Or, in the case of the British Museum, an
audio tour given by a space alien.
Designed for children ages 4 to 12, the audio guide tells
the story of two English kids who shout all their lines like Dora the Explorer.
They are abducted by a questionably racist alien named Vid, who is the most
irritating character of all time (barring Jar Jar Binks.) He basically walks
you around the museum and makes sexist comments about the naked statues. The
point of the plot is that the English kids have to give Vid all the information
in the museum before he will send them back to earth, but its really about a
bunch of actors in a sound studio using a bunch of different Eastern sounding
accents. Anyway, Josh, Jason and I visited the Asian and African wings with
Vid, and had a pretty entertaining time. He showed us:
An Assyrian lion getting attacked by spears!
An African mask. Vid could not believe how lifelike it was!
An Eastern monk who has cleared his mind of everything. He stares at you no matter where you are, not unlike the Brigham Young portrait at the Beehive House.
We had a quick lunch at Nando’s Chicken factory nearby,
which was delicious and pleasant except for when Aubrey opened her ketchup bottle
and there was an epic explosion.
We saw a matinee of Once, a musical that was adapted from that
fantastic Irish film a few years back. I loved it. It’s really so sweet and
gentle and the music is so beautiful. It’s staged in a giant Irish pub on
stage, and all of the actors double as musicians. They all sing, play, and clog
dance, and the story is really engaging. It’s been playing in NYC for a few
years, but recently transferred to the West End. I’m so glad we got to see it
here. I was very touched.
We rode bikes home. The sky was clouded over. Is this the
end of our swelter spell?
