Sons of Loki

“Go to London! I guarantee you’ll either be mugged or not appreciated. Catch the train to London, stopping at Rejection, Disappointment, Backstabbing Central and Shattered Dreams Parkway.”
– Alan Partridge

Well, it’s not all bad. It’s never cheap, but London is home to some of the world’s most famous museums – and if you’re wondering what to do on your trip, the best news is that some of the top attractions in the capital are completely free. Here’s a list of the best ones:

• The British Museum dates back to 1753, but some of the exhibitions are far older than that. Key attractions include the Rosetta Stone, a 5,300-year old Egyptian mummy, and ancient Anglo-Saxon treasures. Visitors can even get to handle ancient treasures like Roman coins in the Hands On sessions. Located close to Holborn Underground station and open from 10am to 5:30pm, admission is free for all visitors and foreign language audio guides are available. It can be a tad stuffy – well, it is a museum – but the sheer amount of history here makes it a must-see.
• Facing Trafalgar Square is the stately National Gallery, a collection of over 2,300 paintings from the 13th century onwards. Though small compared to some European galleries, the collection provides an unrivalled sampling of Western art. Just about every famous European painter is present in the gallery’s collection: the exhibition’s highlights include works by da Vinci, Gainsborough, Constable, Seurat, and of course van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”.
• A few minutes from St Paul’s Cathedral is the Museum of London, another top free museum in the city. Opened in 1976 and recently undergoing a £20m refurbishment, the museum covers the history of London from prehistoric times, through Roman “Londinium” and medieval turmoil, right up to World War II and contemporary London. Highlights include examples of London fashion, including styles from Mary Quant and Alexander McQueen.
• Meanwhile, running along Exhibition Road in Kensington are three of London’s top museums – and they’re all free. Fantastic for kids, the Science Museum is the fifth most popular museum in the UK. Streams of visitors come to see over 300,000 exhibits, such as the famous Stephenson’s Rocket, the first jet engine, and a working model of Charles Babbage’s famous 19th century analog computer, the Difference Engine. Recent attractions include the IMAX 3D cinema and a brand new digital technology collection.
• A short distance away is the Natural History Museum. Built in 1880, the stunning architecture of this “cathedral of nature” is almost an attraction in itself. Inside are over 70 million specimens, a world class research centre, and enough exhibits to keep your kids and adults alike entertained for hours – all for free. In the central hall stands a 105-foot diplodocus skeleton; elsewhere you can see a full-scale model of a blue whale, experience an earthquake simulator, and enjoy regular special exhibitions.
• Finally, the Victoria and Albert Museum – established in 1857 and opened by the Queen herself – is the world’s biggest museum of art and design. The V&A’s top attractions include ancient Ming vases, King James II’s wedding suit, a full-size replica of Michelangelo’ David and a stunning 125 ft plaster cast of Trajan’s Column – it’s hard to understand just how huge it is until you’ve seen it yourself. The museum itself is a beautiful example of post-Victorian architecture, with peaceful gardens outside the refreshment rooms.

You’ll probably wind up spending twice what you expected on novelty keychains and mouse mats (who uses mouse mats these days, anyway?) but there’s a breathtaking array of free museums with world-class exhibitions in every field imaginable. Don’t hesitate to drop in on one or more of the museums on this list next time you’re visiting.

I’ve been back a long time! After the initial week of sorting out all the immediate concerns, life has sort of settled into a hikikomori-ish fugue where I translate manga, to try to maintain a doggy-paddle in the sea of Japanese; pretend to be writing a novel, which will solve all my money concerns; and worry about money.

I am broke, and then some. I sent off an article to a magazine that hasn’t got back to me yet, and in the meantime applied for a few jobs. The only place that got back to me is Sainsbury’s in Leeds, but as I’m not up there yet I couldn’t go to one of their interviews. I suppose I’ll just have to try next month. In the meantime, I have pretty much nowhere to turn, unless I follow millionaire David Willett’s advice and do some volunteering. Thanks, Education Minister. That’s really useful.

Yesterday I spent the last of my money catching the coach (most cheap option, and not bloody National Express rail, but it’s National Express coach so it’s ultimately a futile gesture, but then isn’t everything in our brutish lives) to London to see my “homeslices” and many of them there were: Rob, Kanako (in London for a few weeks only so I won’t see her again until I get back to Japan, which is sad), Jameses E and B, Hugo and Emily, Kazuya (now at Sheffield for the year! fantastic) and even Ed. We went to Mitsukoshi, a Japanese department store in the heart of London, which provided the surreal experience of being a thousand miles away in Tokyo and a month ago in July as we were welcomed with いっらしゃいませぇぇぇ～～～ and browsed their bookstore. It was full of Japanese tourists – imagine coming all the way to London and then visiting a Japanese department store! – but then that’s what we did. We ate at a really expensive (by our standards) Japanese restaurant, which served up some tasty-looking katsu kare, but then I had the shoyu ramen which was … disappointing. Really, disappointing. I thought a bad bowl of ramen was impossible, but this was just … not at all what I’m used to.

“What I’m used to.” Pfft. Anyway, most of my money went on day travelcards, because the tube is ridiculously expensive if you don’t have Oyster. I kept seeing adverts on the tube for the next big novel – marketed fiction, fiction which says “You’ve read Stieg Larsson, now read this!” as if mentioning a popular novellist you may have enjoyed is enough to convince you that this other entirely unrelated novel might be a decent read. You may as well have adverts that say “You’ve enjoyed foie gras, now try cat food!”

I hesitate to take the piss out of published authors and of books I haven’t read, but there was a ad for a book so unrelentingly generic that I had trouble finding it on the web. The ad reads: “THEY STOLE MY LIFE. I WANT IT BACK. I WON’T GET MAD, I’LL GET” and then in red letters, separated from that seeming non sequiter, “EVEN” which is the title of the book, by Andrew Grant. Like I say, I haven’t read the book so I can’t comment on a novel which is about a secret agent racing against time and which has 3.5 stars on Amazon. All I’m saying is, read that strapline over again and decide if you really want to read that book. Is that the best a copywriter could come up with? They stole his life. He wants it back. I’ll hazard a guess and say that it’s rogue elements in the government or secret services that stole his life, and that he had a perfect wife and a perfect son (it’s never a daughter, is it?) and now they’re dead, I’ll postulate, and there will be a shootout and a car chase, I humbly hypothesise, and that there will be tender moments when he picks through the fragments that remain of his old life, I’ll put forward, and finally there won’t be closure, just a set-up for the next novel, but there will be a satisfying death of a minor villain, I will cautiously submit.

Like I say, I don’t like to snark, and I know airport fiction will always be this way, but I think I might have heard this plot two or three or sixty times before.

Anyway, we had a wander around Camden Town, then went back up to Rob’s where we a) ate lots of Chinese food b) played Super Street Fighter IV and Tekken 6 and Soul Calibur 4 c) watched Family Guy d) slept. We woke up. I had a scotch egg. Uh, that’s about it.

So yeah, London! It Wasn’t As Bad As Last Time. How’s that for a strapline?