London; Eye On You.

Eyes Are a Window to the Soul.

Due to an imminent departure from England looming and a friend from abroad visiting the country, I decided that it was high-time I took a look at the landmark that is the London Eye. Since its construction in 2000 I’ve always wanted to ride on the Eye and see out across the scapes of London and I was a little surprised, yet lacking in shock, to now see that Coca-Cola had plastered their branding across it. Checking out the website, it was nice to see that even in the logo, the name of the landmark was physically smaller than the company making money from it. Yes, money makes the world go round, but this wheel was literally a cog in the works of some hefty profit-making.

Fortunately for me, ticket booking wasn’t nearly as wallet-raiding as I had expected it to be; after looking up the prices for online booking: 1 adult ticket for a midday slot and entry to a 4DX Experience was £20.70 – or the equivalent of a meal and drinks after a day at the British Museum, or Tate Britain Gallery. With a journey time of 30 minutes, this definitely wasn’t the best cost-to-time ratio of a good thrill, but didn’t quite have the shame of more loin-based services. The purchasing experience was pretty painless and I chose to have my receipt e-mailed to me so I could grab a ticket on arrival, the same day. To collect my ticket, I was told that I would require my card used for payment; the e-mail receipt of purchase and a photo ID. I also wondered if they would want my National Insurance Number, fingerprints, blood sample and favourite colour. Yes, this was of course probably for security reasons, but by being just a little bit of evidence short of a background check, it was a little annoying; gee, thanks, terrorism.

Arriving at Waterloo Station on a Friday before a bank holiday weekend and whilst in the midst of the school summer holidays, I used the tourist information maps en-route to find my way towards the waterfront of the Thames. Wading through the crowds of families, tourists and young people I eventually found my way to the ticket building that lay opposite the Eye itself and, accessing the array of queues for ticket booking/collection/payment, chose the lane that corralled me to the collection counter. I was offered a map of the skyscape for £1 and thought: ‘Yeah, that sounds useful.’ Essentially, I paid for a physically disabled frisbee. At least one small light in the darkness helped to add some cheer – the toilets in the building were free and I felt obliged to go and receive my money’s worth.

So pretty and yet, so disappointing. The reverse side shows the sky at night.

The time slot for my friend and I was 12pm, which we managed to make, even with the inflated queue size and to be honest, regardless of the time on the ticket, it seemed that the slots were more of a crowd staggering device than a hard-and-fast binding.

The queue started in the background and crossed a walkway to the foreground of the picture. School holidays can be hell for an introvert.

The website stated that being on-site at least 30 minutes before your allotted time would be required and it actually was pretty spot-on. Waiting in the shadow of the Eye gave us time to admire the flags that appeared underneath the belly of each capsule – adding plenty of colour to the otherwise monotone structure.

Before we could taste the air inside a capsule, there was a bag check and my friend had the pleasure of getting her backpack x-rayed before having to collect it back herself so that we could move on with the queue. A small shack provided last-minute snacks for the journey and then it was onto the loading platform to ride the great wheel of marketing.

Loading into the capsule was the easiest part of the preliminary process and sure as hell gave the London Underground platforms something to aspire to. The capsule had about 20 people inside when the doors shut and we began the circuitous journey back to the starting position.

The gradual incline of the pod is slight for the most part and unless you catch a breeze, your feet aren’t too troubled by the movement of the floor beneath you. Inside the capsule, you have a 360 degree view to the outside; an oval bench in the middle of the floor; a metal rail around the sides; computer terminal displays and air conditioning which actually make the whole experience quite comfortable as long as you aren’t afraid of heights, or claustrophobic,

 

 

 

 

The London Eye gives you great views across the city and especially of Westminster and Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) but for the most part I found the view a little lacklustre compared to some of the cityscapes I’ve experienced from abroad. It may just be the envy of having the Shard looking down at me even at the peak of the capsule’s rotation, but I was underwhelmed from the variety of buildings and found trying to shuffle between tourists a little tiresome after the first few attempts to photograph through the glass of our enclosure. The curved glass makes for a great look but when trying to photograph through it, the level of reflection is infuriating, unless of course you can get a camera lens to smooch the window.

The Houses of Parliament with the Elizabeth Tower clockface on the right.

Profile of the wheel.

Once down from the wheel, the fill of tourists and crowded places had been had and the 4DX experience was skipped for the less-travelled path towards the Tate Britain, to see free exhibits and to have something to explore and marvel at.

Overall…?

If I had been new to England and unaware of the delights that lay in far-flung cities, I’d have loved to be riding on a giant carousel wheel in the middle of London, however, I wasn’t an attraction-craving, temporary tourist to the city and I’ve seen a handful of capitals in various corners of the globe. Despite the costs of the tickets, the crowds that swarmed its base and the lack of intrigue when reaching its apex, the wheel was worth seeing. Not for the ride, or air-conditioned chambers, but for the sheer fact that the London Eye itself is a beautiful structure that makes for some great photographs and at least has green areas where you could sit – enjoying a picnic to the sight of its rotation during a sunny day is a rather calming prospect. So what can the Eye tell you about the soul of London? It is overpriced, tourist-filled and has a questionable effectiveness to its functionality; however, deeply ingrained in its core is a sense of astounding beauty, that cannot be denied or diminished.

Bart’s Bizarre Bazaar

Bart’s Bazaar: Macabre Market, A Public Event for Anyone Uninitiated.

The Bart’s Pathology Museum is a catalogue of disease and death for a huge range of living creatures located on the 3rd Floor of the Robin Brook Centre, within the grounds of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. Although the space within the museum can be used for lectures and events, it isn’t usually available to members of the general public and it is only through rare open events like this one that we can gain a glimpse of the curiously horrific delights inside.

Through the Eventbrite website and Facebook event page notices and tickets could be obtained for free – however, for the first event of the year (held on August 22nd from 12-5pm) ticket and non-ticket entry were allowed. The idea behind the event was to showcase the items on display within the museum and allow market stall sellers to sell their death-related/morbid wares to the public, which was actually a pretty novel idea from the curator of the museum, Carla Valentine.

Entry to the museum was made a lot less of an ordeal for those who had bought a ticket beforehand, as instead of queuing in the painfully slow line to the left of the stairs for all 3 levels and out of the entrance to the building, you could join a much faster and shorter queue on the right that snaked its way up to the museum entrance. It was around a 25-minute wait with tickets when I arrived shortly before 1pm; but alas, for a friend who rocked up at 2pm without tickets, the estimated wait was 2 hours, according to an update on the Facebook page. Now, normally you’d think that people would just have to stare at their mobile phones and tough out the social interactions that may be involved with having to stand next to hordes of strangers, but with an outside temperature of 30 degrees Celsius and an indoor temperature of at least 28 degrees, the experience was more like travelling through the fiery gates of hell, except that no cold, inner core awaited us wayward souls. Whatever hope of circulating air being available may as well have just been a mirage in the desert – even with every single window along the stairwell for all three floors opened, they might as well have been ACME windows painted onto the walls and I just may as well have been fanning myself with a Chinese fan composing of lit candles. Interestingly enough, there were people there using handheld fans to help keep themselves cool, but with no air movement through the building, it was like using an oven to cool a kiln. By the grace of our Lord saviour, the ‘toilet’ sign, I was able to divine the use of a chilled water dispenser en-route through the labyrinth-like path to the third storey toilets.

Once inside the museum room, however, the sight of the traders and the mezzanines full of specimen samples elevated my sullen mood and the excitement within my face was clear to see.

You Say Poor Taste, I Say Hilarious. 

The quality and variety of items being sold was pretty damn amazing – from books and cross stitch pieces to edible art and taxidermied animals. I’ve picked three sellers that caught my attention and their facebook pages are included under each image.

Firstly, this card was perfect for that annoying friend in  your life:

The seller can be found here.

Another stall that impressed me was a rather sweet take on anatomical organs and scientific symbols:

These cookie-cutters can be found here.

The last seller to really impress was the maker of these wonderfully attractive pieces:

These beautiful creations can be found here.

Whilst the punters were admirable for their ability to have curiosity greater than the inferno of the room temperature, the traders were unsung for their ability to withstand the blaze and remain genial to customers.

What’s Behind Specimen Jar Number 3….?

The other draw of the Market of the Macabre was the human and animal samples that adorned the shelves along all four sides of the room. Rather disappointingly, though, the 2nd and 3rd level mezzanine samples were not accessible during the event – the only access to these levels was by a narrow, iron, spiral staircase that barely seemed wide enough for a single person, let alone hundreds of visitors. Once again, I was blocked by a roped-off VIP entrance.

Additionally, even though pictures of the room were allowed, pictures of individual human samples were not due to the Human Tissue Act, but unless patrons were told by the staff members present in the room not to, they would pretty much be taking photos of the samples. One item that I assumed was safe to photograph was an antique preserve of a young child that also had a QR code link next to it. Not just impressive to look at, but also having an aged, antique appearance as well, this piece was morbidly beautiful and a very fine example of preservation.

Despite the Human Tissue Act, you could still photograph animal samples and the contents of a rather horrifying display cabinet that was part of the ‘Swallowed’ segment of the museum – foreign bodies that had been found/surgically removed from patients. Each item’s story was seemingly worse than the last and this gleaming example was probably the funniest example of what to expect:

When all else fails, blame criminals.

So, Overall…? 

The event entry could have been planned a bit better and the room temperature could have been a fair few degrees colder, but overall it was certainly an afternoon out that was worth having. Even though I won’t be able to attend the next event of 2015, which will be in December, I can’t help but wonder if by then hell will have frozen over and the museum may actually become chilled to the extent that it becomes a meat locker. I am assuming that the ticket debacle will be sorted by implementing ticket-only, time-slot booking, so horrendous queuing shouldn’t be a problem, but I wonder how it will affect future numbers of attendees. Despite all of the great things inside, it is a shame that something as basic as the temperature of a room can ruin such an experience and hopefully the pathology department can afford to supply heaters by then, if not more electric fans for next summer… As the first attempt at such a novel event, I would say that only a few improvements are needed for it to be an all-out success, so watch this space, folks!

St. Bartholomew the Great, Expectations

A Hidden Church In The City

I visited St. Bartholomew the Great on a blisteringly hot summer day and this out-of-the-way building was a refuge from both the heat and the noise of the city. The church is part of a collection of buildings dedicated in name to St. Bartholomew, that are located at West Smithfield only a few-minute walk from St. Paul’s Cathedral. Although possibly falling under the category of ‘hopeless romantic’ myself, I still haven’t seen ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ and St. Bart’s was featured as the venue for the fourth wedding in the movie.

Once inside the foyer, I was greeted by a friendly member of staff that took payment for entry into the church (£4 for adults and an extra £1 to take photographs within the church) and he handed out an information sheet on the features of the church. I was a little surprised at the entry fee, but considering the age of the building, I guess history just doesn’t always come for free.

An info map on the layout of the church, the website can be found here.

One of the first installations to catch the eye once you enter through the door is a Damien Hirst piece entitled ‘Saint Bartholomew, Exquisite Pain‘. Now, some of Hirst’s pieces can be considered garish and overly extravagant, but I think that this 8-foot tall statue made from bronze and gilded in gold… proves that statement more than a little true. Regardless, the darkness of the church and the light from above definitely made this piece seem divine in its nature.

As you move further into the heart of the church, you begin to appreciate the size of the building of which you stand. The front of the church is deceptively misleading when compared to the dimensions of what awaits you inside. With the limited sunlight and glowing inside lighting, you can’t help but feel like you have travelled back in time to a medieval setting; the only thing missing would be the haunting chorus of humming or chanting.

The Tomb of Sir Walter And Lady Mary Mildmay.

Once at the back of the church, in the sanctuary, seating was offered as a member of staff played a 10-minute DVD on the history of the church. Admittedly, the film had not quite aged so well, but the information was interesting enough and the quote from the epitaph of John and Margaret Whiting was bleakly humorous in itself:

She first deceased, he for a little tried.
To live without her, liked it not, and died.

I didn’t have too long to stay and appreciate my surroundings as it was soon off to another venue within West Smithfield, but St. Bart’s is definitely a church that I would visit again and definitely one for those who like to take photographs.

Just remember folks: ‘Do the Bart, man.’