A Trip to the Bright Lights of Bartertown

Allegra, ngaio and myself are heading off to London on Friday.  The trip started as Allegra wanted to go and see Wayne McGregor’s ballet, Random Dance.  The ballet is on Saturday, but we decided to make a weekend of it.  Last year, I spent my birthday with my parents while Allegra and ngaio spent the weekend in London.  I joined them on the Monday, to go to Forbidden Planet, the Doctor Who exhibition and the First Emperor exhibition at the British Museum.  Such a good time was had by all that we decided to do it again.

Current items on the itinerary include:

• Blackwells Bookshop on Charing Cross Road to see the Espresso Book Machine;
• Canary Wharf to look at the sky scrapers;
• Cross Bones Graveyard, responsible for the Southwark Mysteries;
• the Hollywood Bowl in Finchley to play the new Castlevania arcade game;
• the Bridge Café, where losing teams from The Apprentice go to psyche up before the chicken pecking in the boardroom;
• the falafel place Allegra and ngaio went to last time before I joined them in the capital;
• Krispy Kreme donuts, where we are going to pick up Kremey goodness for our department at work;
• the Natural History Museum;
• and of course the ballet on Saturday night.

The hostel we’re staying in is, I’m told, a rung below the one at Whitby.  ngaio refused to use the shower last time she was there for fear of being consumed by the mould and other organisms which had annexed it.

It’s a marvel of modern society that I can describe that list as ‘geeky’, and not ‘just plain sad’.  Eschewing the normal gravity wells of London which draw in most tourists, we’re indulging ourselves.  Sad or geeky, we’re doing what we want and people can call it what they like.   I’m really looking forwards to it.