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the bloody tower
How on earth can I possibly do more good stuff and not get murdered on Valentine’s day. I though to myself over a cold beer the other day. What I consider good stuff never seems to tally with the opinion of she who must be obeyed. Not wanting to spend my entire wages on ill advised presents (and certainly not wanting to go down the stuffed bear with attached rose option), I was stuck. In the words of U2, I was about to get “stuck in a moment that I couldn’t get out of” and it there really didn’t seem to an easy answer.
Then, from the deepest recesses of my grey matter popped an idea. And this was a winning idea, an idea so good that even I couldn’t fail with it. The Tower of London, her indoors has been on about it for years. The only problem being, was it a strong enough idea to persuade the women in question to get out of bed after a pretty large session the night before.
Would you believe it, it was! So at 13:00 (not too early) we brought both or hangovers and man flu to the gates of the Tower. And then I got really lucky.
Each ticket comes with the tour by the Beefeaters and includes the entrance for the crown jewels exhibit. This is great for 2 reasons, firstly I didn't have to think on a weekend, secondly I didn’t have to pay extra as I normally would have. Now what you need to understand is that I have been here loads of times (admittedly all between the ages of 5 and 11) and went to uni just opposite the entrance. Would I enjoy it? Would it seem like a detour on my commute home? Thankfully none of the above were true. We both loved it.
It’s one of the best attractions in the UK for making you feel a sense of national pride (if only when American tourists gasp when told it was built before 1906) and you’ll be surprised about how many facts that you can remember from those school history lessons. Make sure you set aside a good few hours though, as you get quite a lot included for your ticket price. The guided tour takes around 60 mins and you need approximately 30 mins to see the Crown Jewels. It’s also worth noting that the Tower shuts around 16:30.
So I pulled a blinder with the Tower tickets, now I just need to work out how to watch the rest of the six nations without distraction!
Sean Collins
16/02/09
Sean and Dan are escaping the shackles and trying to fit in more good stuff. Follow their adventures at http://sftw.typepad.co.uk/
Book tickets to the tower here
Seeing more good stuff - The Tate Triennial and playing at being a luvvie
Move mouse to the left, move mouse to the right. Count total number of paperclips, adjust screen monitor settings. Check outlook, update twitter. Eat mouthful of dry supermarket sandwich, drink mouthful of tea that you forgot had gone cold. Get crumbs of said dry sandwich between the keys on your laptop. Attempt to remove the crumbs with (in successive order) plastic ruler, metal ruler, pen, pencil, staple, post it note and finally used envelope.
Never again have a lunch break like the above. The UK is chuck full of things that last around 40 minutes. On Thursday we headed down to Tate Britain to try and enlighten ourselves and learn more over lunch than the recommended daily amount of salt that is contained in a tuna and sweet corn baguette.
Our supposed photo shoot is scuppered by the fact that you can’t take photos in the Tate, but don’t let this put you off. Around 100 years older than it’s more celebrated cousins (Tate Modern, St Ives and Liverpool), this may actually be the most accessible of the family Tate. To the casual art observer, modern art curators appears to hedge their bets between the comic style escapades of Lichtenstein and the absurdity of the modern British Artists. They seem to hope that their pithy 50 word write ups will keep us interested.
This isn’t so much of a problem in Tate Britain. The scenes are recognisable to us, they simply look appealing and heaven forbid seem to actually have been painted using brushes (rather than a potato peeler held upside down in bio degradable hemp and organically sourced violet juice). They are pleasant to the senses and in a refreshing change, no one bumped me with a oversized rucksack and there were no unorganised scrums around the most popular of pieces.
It’s just the right size for a 40 minute perusal and for some reason you come out a tad happier than when you went in.
The Triennial is on until 26th of April and the entrance to the gallery is dominated by an enveloping mushroom cloud of pots and pans. Rather than stack their gallery full of oversized sculpture, the curators here seem to pick and choose only best. (cue spontaneous mass applause).
Best of all there are free tours at 12:00, 14:00 and 15:00. Helping you come back to the office full of insightful anecdotes (without even having to try) and giving you and excuse to fill the afternoon with dramatic hand gestures and dramatic scarf wrapping.
Sean Collins
12/02/09
Sean and Dan are escaping the shackles and trying to fit in more good stuff. Follow their adventures at http://sftw.typepad.co.uk/
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