Bollocks

All my careful planning, all my extra trips to London to fit in things that will be starting or finishing at awkward times, and what happens? Turns out Waiting for Godot closes in London on the 4th April and heads off on a world tour. So won't be getting to see that next time I'm there after all. (Although I am now wondering if and when it will hit San Francisco...) I do wish producers wouldn't make these sorts of decisions without consulting me first!

Anyway, this means Theatre Trip Day (Thursday 22nd April) will now most likely be eithe Wicked or Avenue Q. Would any non-Whitby-goers of London like to join strawpig and myself in patronising the theatical arts? (And going by the trip to the V&A, we shall be highly patronising, not to mention rummaging through their drawers and accusing them of being illuminati hairdressers.) And if so, any preferences betweeen the two, or recommendations of anything else.

(Meanwhile, I shall be over there in the corner sulking, and plotting vengence on the Universe for taking one of my favourite actors in one of my favourite plays away from me...)

Drawers and digits and drinking

London, part the umpteenth. Sunday.

Drawers
By a minor miracle, I was up early on Sunday morning (in other words, it was still morning). In a slightly more major miracle, Patrick (strawpig), Ellie (Number One Wife, worth many camels) and I all managed to co-ordinate trains and landed in Victoria within minutes of each other. We jumped on a cheating-overground-tube-train (they're just not right, okay?) that was thankfully less child-encrusted than the previous day, and heading fo the V&A,. Since I had two semi-native guides with me, we escaped from the underground tunnel maze and made our way through the equally labyrinthine network of roadworks, hoardings and red-and-white tape above. As usual, I was completely lost within two minutes of setting foot outside a tube station. Luckily, my lovely friends only threatened to abandon me in some unsavoury part of London and run away giggling, and never got around to actually doing it.

The V&A was on my itinerary because it was hosting the Decode: Digital Design Sensations exhibition. However, I also wanted to take a wander round the rest of the museum, and since we were still waiting for miss_corinne to battle her way through a mammoth hangover AND central London transit system to join us, we decided to do some exploring first.

My first impression of the V&A was that it contained an awfully large number of penises. This may have been because we started out by exploring some of the classical sculpture galleries, but even in the more clothed sections there seemed to be barely-concealed bulges everywhere. Naturally, we strove to behave like serious, cultured, high-minded adults, and managed to do so for at least 10 minutes. We renamed the Eastern Ats gallery the 'Hall of Childhood Television Game Shows' after Patrick developed inexplicable exhibit blindness, and Ellie and I had to start guiding him round the glass diplay cases a la Knightmare ('Half a step to the left... now forwards!) followed by speculation about the gaping hole in the forehead of a giant stone mask. ('I got the crystal!' 'Quick, get out!')

Ellie recommended the jewellery galleries (Shiny Things!) and while we were hunting these down, we passed an escaped digital artwork that had colonised a stairwell. This consisted of maybe a hundred small mirrors, each with a motion sensor and motorised pivot, that turned to watch you as you moved. Ellie and I were enthralled ad starting dancing around fighting for the mirrors' attention; Patrick was terrified and declared the whole thing even more wrong and unnatural than Blue Food. Eventually we took mercy on him and headed for the shiny-shinies.

In the jewellery gallery, we managed to drag Patrick away from the glowing neon blue spiral staircase long enough to have a proper look round the displays. (In the world of Patrick, blue food is bad and wrong. Blue shiny staircases, however, are like a halogen bulb to a moth. It's obviously a physicist thing.) The jewellery on display varied wildly between exquisite, I-want-it-NOW pieces and truly hideous bling, inspiring a wonderful mix of acquisitiveness and bitching. Corinne joined us, and she and I quickly discovered we have quite different tastes in jewellery, which was nice as it meant we could divide up the spoils between us. (I tend to like the black, red, purple and above all spiky stuff.) I spotted some gorgeous deep red rings and earrings but there didn't seem to be any kind of salespeople or tills around - I think the V&A could definitely learn a thing or two from Argos!

Up the blue staircase we discovered swords and crowns and hip flasks and all kinds of steampunk-y pocket watches (although being the genuine historical article they were less punky and more... um... steamy?) It was also around this time that Ellie discovered that several of the display cases contained hidden drawers containing even more secret treasures; she, Corinne and I turned into OCD five-year-olds and went on a drawer-opening rampage to discover them all. We then carried our mental shopping lists through to the wrought iron galleries (I claimed some beautiful abstract metal dragons) and a huge hall full of casts of pillars, friezes and tombs (a classic two-storey tower with exterior staircase that would look perfect in the garden next to the bird-bath).

There was much plotting as to how Patrick could blag a few bits of wrought iron, some furniture, the odd fireplace, and maybe a well or two to furnish his new flat ('Hi. We're the illuminati and we'd like our stuff back please.') We then discovered that in our wanderings, we had ended up on a balcony overlooking the classical statues. Seen from this less penis-centric angle, I noticed that two of them were struggling over a pair of what at first glance appeared to be salad tongs, but on closer inspection were definitely a pair of GHD hair straighteners. It was a revelation! Looking round, there was evidence of hairdressing EVERYWHERE - curling irons, perm combs, electric buzz trimmers, and a great deal of something for the weekend! This caused uncontrollable hysteria (not that hard) and the creation of bawdy tales of the hairdresser wars, which caused many people to look at us a bit strangely. By the day's biggest miracle so far, we were not instantly ejected from the museum, although I think this might have been an oversight. We also adjusted our larceny tactics accordingly ('Hi. We're hairdressers and we'd like our stuff back please.')

(And on to Decode, only briefly distracted by an incredible glass mobile that looked like a mass balloon animal orgy, and the V&A's total failure to provide a proper pot of tea - most disappointing - but that's another story...)