Shane Wombat's Droppings: …and big and smokey it was…

Monday 25 May 2015

…and big and smokey it was…

Shane in London

G’day Petals,

Grimy grey and brown with fumes, flat, large and permanently bustling: a “Mud-Larkers” experience: finding gems amongst it all.

Persia, Circa 1500, V and A

The cornucopia of the V and A, the overwhelming quantity of beautiful works in the National Gallery, the importance of educated looting, amateur archaeology and research at the British Museum, the idiosyncrasy of Tate Modern with delightful exchanges with Charles the info assist and the historical context of British art at its "Big Brother, The Tate.

Charles

The private galleries and “heavy” door-guarded jewellery shops in Dover and Grafton Streets where 70,000 BP will get you a restored C18th painting, “probably by….. from the school of……” and where the Faberge pendant is discreetly POA....

Mr Darwin's Pigeons, Natural History Museum

... then to The R.A. to see the Richard Diebenkorn exhibition and note on leaving the remembrance panel to the 2006 academicians who died in First World War as battalion members of “The Artists Rifles.”

At the Neo-Classical space of the Maritime Museum at Greenwich an odd synchronicity to the trip observing a fashion shoot to tail the Parisian one

Royal Naval College, Greenwich

and the loquaciously helpful and knowledgeable information from Ron in the painted Dining Room who was well matched in friendly helpfulness by Daphne at Southwark Cathedral and plein-air street artist Rick ( www.rickholmes.co.uk ) too, at the nearby market.

Artist

The friendliness of the business woman we shared a lunch table with at V and A and the conversations with Lucy (“the dresser” from Miss Saigon”) at the Tate; the Oxford couple and another woman at the Wallace Collection, as well as the bus travel banter with Katrina
( kat@katrinaskoberne.com ) certainly belied the traditional view of English social reticence.

John Holland Pub, Waitress, Vicky

The Buses. Taking a week to nearly understand the timetable system, we Wombats can now understand why it was the Brits who de-coded the Enigma Machine.

Prices in London? Prohibitive!

Democracy is so Overrated

Travel was around three times more costly using the "Oyster Card" than was its Parisian “Metro” equivalent, as was food in all its forms except perhaps take-aways.

London

Beer? I’ve learned I prefer Lager to Ale and Mrs Wombat now likes a Lime slice in her G and T and only Schweppes Tonic, si vou plais..

It was all interesting but oddly….once will do it.

London 2

And now, for a long, long flight in cattle class… baaa, baaaa, baaaaaaa.

Hoo-roo possums,

Shane

Which in finishing this travel note is not to forget the help and advice from Brian and Jan at Claris’s in Biddenden for their assistance and detailed knowledge of their beautiful wares.