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Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 02:03 pm
London part 2b: Still Saturday

Boats
So, having been driven out of the Natural History Museum by the screaming of children and the inappropriateness of dead things, I was considering giving up, retrieving my luggage and heading off early for the day. But it wasn't even lunchtime yet, and I wasn't prepared to give up on the art and culture trail that easily. Besides, I'd paid a small fortune for the privilige of letting my bags sit in a locked room for a few hours, so I was determined to let them enjoy the experience for as long as possible. I was all out of itenerary and needed to find new ways for London to entertain me.

This wouldn't be easy - all my knowledge of London - all the what's ons, what's wheres, and how-to-get-theres were on my laptop. Which was in my bag. Which was in a small locked room on Victoria station. My brain wasn't going to be much help - at that point I felt so frazzled that all I could remember about London was 'its a bit big' and 'probably not in France'. I switched to automatic navigation, and with a little google-fu assistance from Kris, was soon on my way to an old haunt: Tate Britain, one of my favourite haunts back when it was simply 'The Tate'.

I'd forgotten was that it had changed more than just its name. On previous visits, I used to wander for hours through rooms that gradually unfoded a story of painting and scuplture, from pre-Renaissaance through to contemporary art. But now the story is thrown off kilter, with only a few rooms of twentieth century work. Most of the gallery is now filled with older artworks, all so serious, heavy and staid. It did occur to me that I ought to plough through it all anyway out of some kind of sense of duty. Then I remembered. I don't actually LIKE most pre-twentieth century art. For a former art student, I have a shameful disdain for most of art history. Those endless centuries of photo-realistic portraiture and landscapes may display pleny of skill, but to me they're still just the Facebook profile pictures and holiday snaps of their age. I don't get properly excited by art until you hit the point of people getting more interested in the nature of paint, and the nature of not-paint, and art and not-art... the sort of stuff that's less about what it's ~of~, and more about what it ~is~. And now that I am no longer an art student, I can say 'sod that historical crap' and go find the stuff I actually like instead. (Or at least a nice cup of tea, which the Tate seemed equally reluctant to supply.)

At this point, I would have given up on the whole day as a Bad Idea if it hadn't been for one small, inconspicuous poster, displaying the times for a water taxi service between the two Tates. And, as luck would have it, one was due within minutes. It was clearly a sign. I've always been fascinated by boats - when I was young I dreamed I'd have a cute little sailing boat of my own, for whenever I felt like popping over to France, or Spain, or India, or Australia. (In my mind, this mighty ocean-faring vessel was roughly the size of a small car. Showing that my ignorance of such things as international borders and custom controls was ~nothing~ compared to my ignorance of just how big and fucking scary the sea is even a few miles from shore. Also, it turns out that Australia is a bit further away than I thought.) Still, the idea of boats as transport has always appealed, and unnecessary boat trips even more so. The thought of making a journey on water that you could make on a bus - that your brain insists you ~should~ be making on land, because that's what land is there for, duh! - always fills me with childiish glee. It's an eating-a-whole-tub-of-icecream-for-dinner-because-when-you're-grown-up-you-CAN sort of feeling.

Also, it's surprisingly easy to forget, while traipsing round London, that the Thames exists. It's always a bit of a surprise to emerge from the underground to come face to face with this huge stretch of water. Even then, it's more of a pretty backdrop - it's not until you're on the river that you realise it's still very much the heart of the city. I mean, sites tend to grow up around a river... but then they outgrown it, and hide it underground or round the back of the station, only digging it up when they want to build over-priced waterside apartments. But the Thames is too big to hide, and many of London's landmarks still face proudly onto it. Seeing this from the water, it's so much easier to imagine a time when the day-to-day life of London depended on the Thames, it's rhythms and moods dictating the march of the city. It was like seeing a whole other aspect to London, one that you know is there, but it's easy to forget. Admittedly, the boat I was on was more taxi ride than guided tour, and it was a short trip, but I was still surprised just how much there was to see crammed into such a relatively small stretch of river.

I've made a myself a promise for a future visit: when the weather has remembered how to be warm, I need to take a ride on some kind of open air sightseeing boat down the Thames, with the wind in my hair (and, no doubt, my hair in my face) gliding through London's heart.
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 03:14 pm (UTC)
I've been on a sightseeing boat trip in that London and it was ace!!!!
Sunday, March 21st, 2010 10:01 pm (UTC)
Cool :-) Hopefully I'll get to go soon, though I expect if I do I'll take approximately 10 bazillion words to say 'it was ace!' ;-)
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 04:36 pm (UTC)
I really should do a London boat trip some time. I've done the open-top bus tour, about 25 years ago, from which the only thing I really remember is that there are Gryphons at every entrance and exit to the City. But not been on the water, should do.

I too love boats, mum and I used to take regular holidays on the Norfolk Broads, spending two weeks of relaxed cruising punctuated by long walks to beautiful medieval churches, usually followed by a swift half or three in the nearest country pub. Of which there were many! Back then I wanted to eventually live on an old ex-hire cruiser, with lots of batteries under the floor and solar cells and wind-generators on the roof, so as to be able to sail forever for free (and none of that inconvenient mucking about with actual sails). Sometimes I still wonder if I shouldn't sell everything, abandon the Goth scene, buy an old boat, and spend a couple of years haunting Norfolk as a reclusive inland flying-Dutchman, attempting to actually write a proper novel!

It sounds as if you like the art I hate and hate the art I love though! I'm firmly of the "if they can't paint a classical landscape or beautiful story-provoking pre-Raphelite scene, then they have no business calling themselves an artist!" school of art. I want pictures that look like pictures, not explosions in paint factories or old mattresses covered in blue paint (Glasgow's Museum Of Modern Art had exactly that on display last time I was there).

Looking forward to the next installment!
Sunday, March 21st, 2010 09:59 pm (UTC)
See, I'm likely to see a far more interesting story in the explosion in the paint factory, if it's told right! But this is a good thing - if everyone liked one kind of art, they'd end up closing down half the galleries, which would be all kinds of wrong...