Pub Crawl and Culture in St Albans

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The Clock Tower

I spent another day in St Albans at the weekend in order to spend time with some friends. We alternated visits to pubs with various cultural activities. I was excited to finally get the chance to go up the Clock Tower.

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Going in…

This is located on the High Street of St Albans. It was built between 1403 and 1412, the only medieval town belfry in England. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument. It’s possible to go up the tower at weekends during the summer months, at a cost of £1 for adults (children go free). The climb is very steep and rather tough, so if you’re unfit you may wish to reconsider!

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The clock machinery
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Inside the tower

We were exhausted by the time we got to the top of the tower, but it was worth it because the views were amazing.

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Cathedral of St Albans
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Looking out over St Albans
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A formidable-looking gargoyle

Later we visited the Roman remains in the park, before finishing off in a number of pubs.

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In the park

Cheers!

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2015 Reading Challenge – A book based on or turned into a TV show

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The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri is the first in a series of very popular Italian novels that have become the TV hit Inspector Montalbano. I love the TV shows and based on this novel, they are enjoyably true to the books.

Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy – British Library

Even if you’re not a history lover like me, you’d be hard pressed to have missed the publicity surrounding the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta this year. The British Library, naturally enough, have installed an exhibition celebrating this document and its impact on the world, entitled Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy.

The exhibition explores how the Magna Carta came about, the context in which it was designed, and its immediate impact, as well as looking at the ways in which it has inspired campaigners throughout the centuries and impacted on political events. Linked to this, it examines how it has been exploited and perceived by the media and by people in general.

The treaty came about after King John, who had lost much territory in Northern France, imposed huge taxes on his wealthy subjects. The barons, angry, forced him into a negotiation, resulting in the “Carta de Ronemede”. Though much of it is now obsolete – one clause, for instance, covered fishing in the Thames – it still had a significant impact, as the exhibition shows. In addition, clauses 39 and 40 – guaranteeing the right to a fair and speedy trial – are still in force today.

The exhibition was very busy when I visited, but that was probably my own fault as I chose to go at the weekend.  I did find that it was incredibly interesting and much more thorough than I had imagined. Partly this was because of the quality of the artefacts on display: two of the four original Magna Carta documents from 1215, plus Jefferson’s handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence and an original copy of the US Bill of Rights, which both owe a debt to the Magna Carta. Statues, paintings and an assortment of manuscripts also added to the exhibition.

British judge Lord Bingham wrote that: “The significance of Magna Carta lay not only in what it actually said, but in what later generations claimed and believed it has said.” This exhibition brilliantly demonstrates this.

Christie’s Lates: Out of the Ordinary

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To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Christie’s in South Kensington, the auction house is holding a series of regular late-night openings. These are free events designed for interested viewers to come along, view some of their items and listen to specialist talks about the collection. I attended one such event called Out of the Ordinary, exploring some of the more unusual items they have up for sale. Unusual, they certainly were.

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Creepy mask/model
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Crown from a then 15-year-old Kate Moss’s first ever modelling shoot
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Unusual biscuit tins
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Vintage Louis Vuitton travelling case
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Tom Cruise’s suit from Mission Impossible
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Crocodile ornament
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Hippo coffee table
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Miniature ivory furniture
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Roger Bannister’s four-minute-mile shoes

Bannister’s shoes eventually fetched 220k when they went to auction. All of the items here were available for sale: not being a millionaire, I was unable to bid (though I was rather tempted by the hippo coffee table) but it was still fun to be able to see this unusual collection of objects.

Carsten Höller: Decision – Hayward Gallery

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Carsten Höller: Decision is this summer’s blockbuster at the Hayward Gallery, an experimental and interactive exhibition with slides – slides! – coming out of the gallery’s roof. Intrigued, I booked a ticket for the Bank Holiday weekend.

The show is structured around the theme of “decisions”, allowing the participant the chance to choose for themselves how they will approach a particular work, and experience mind-altering sensations.

The first work, Decision Corridors, apparently had different entrances but I didn’t notice, being too concerned with getting inside. It was formed of numerous tunnels, pitch-dark inside with only occasional pinpricks of light to show the way. The photo I took later on shows just how winding these corridors are. Walking through them, with no way of seeing where I was going, was incredibly surreal.

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Decision Corridors, seen from above

Later works included Half Clock, “the most complicated clock in existence”, and the Pill Clock, which drops a single red and white capsule onto the gallery floor every three seconds. As you can imagine, a considerable pile has sprung up by now. You are offered the chance to swallow your pill and I did so, Alice-in-Wonderland style, not really expecting anything to happen (it didn’t).

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Pill Clock

Another work, Flying Mushrooms, incorporated models of Amanita muscaria (fly agaric mushrooms) which are red and white hallucinogenic mushrooms, famous in folklore. Here, the models have been halved and placed back together the wrong way round, and you have to push the sculpture around to move it.

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Flying Mushrooms

The Forests was a dual-screen video with a 3D headseat and earphones, with which you could experience a snow-covered forest at night. It was surprisingly calming. In the same room were Two Roaming Beds (Grey), which sounded brilliant: “These robotic twin beds roam the lower floor of the exhibition like a pair of restless, insomniac twins.” However, hiring them for the night costs £500, so I think I’ll give them a miss.

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Two Roaming Beds

Upstairs, The Pinocchio Effect was something I didn’t look at but as it seemed to involve two people at a time, and Two Flying Machines looked like the most fun exhibition but as the queue was an hour and a half long, I didn’t bother. The Half Mirror Room and giant dice (or die) was disorientating.

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Half Mirror Room

The Upside Down Goggles in the same room were bizarre to say the least. Without a friend to hold on to I felt odd walking around.

The final part of the exhibition – and the highlight for me – were the Isomeric Slides, “a sculpture you can travel inside and a device for experiencing a condition somewhere between delight and madness” according to Höller. Whatever the theory, it was a lot of fun to slide down to the bottom of the gallery.

I had a great time here, although I was disappointed at the number of exhibits where it seemed to be expected that you had someone else with you – what about us solo exhibition-goers? Nevertheless, it was good fun.

 

Coral Reefs: Secret Cities of the Sea – Natural History Museum

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Overview of the exhibition space

Recently I visited the exhibition Coral Reefs: Secret Cities of the Sea at the Natural History Museum. The exhibition aims to explore the world of coral reefs, the variety of life that exists within them, their history and the threats they are under today.

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Coral specimen

The exhibition was interesting and informative, particularly when examining Charles Darwin’s theories of how coral reefs form, something I hadn’t previously been aware of.

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Terrifyingly large fish

Unfortunately, the exhibition wasn’t as rich and colourful as I had hoped. Obviously the NHM can’t very well transplant the entire Great Barrier Reef to London, but most of the specimens on display are dead and subsequently rather grey and dull to look at.

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Living coral

It’s only at the end of the exhibition that we get to see a tank of living coral – a mesmerising spectacle. This exhibition was always going to be a difficult one to pull off, and while it was worthwhile, it wasn’t as fascinating as I’d hoped.

Revelations: Experiments in Photography – Science Museum

Revelations: Experiments in Photography is an exhibition at the Science Museum which looks at photography with a science theme over the last two centuries. Scientific photography influenced art, but was also valuable in its own right, as it was able to capture images and phenomena invisible to the naked eye.

My favourite work was Ori Gersht’s Blow Up (2007), which captured a still life in the act of exploding, a magnificent and beautiful work. However, the one with the best title was undoubtedly Chickens, scared by a torpedo (c. 1878), a picture by the photography of movement pioneer Eadweard Muybridge. Early images by photographers such as William Henry Fox Talbot were shown, alongside works by modern artists such as Harold Edgerton and Hiroshi Sugimoto; I particularly liked the former’s dynamic Bullet Through Lemon (c. 1955). However, overall I preferred the older photographs, and was sorry to see that most of the pictures in the exhibition were comparatively modern. Admittedly this is a personal preference, and the exhibition is certainly worth seeing if you have an interest in the subject matter.