On Sunday, Mummy and I went to London! Tilly didn’t want to go because she’s turned into an “awful teenager”, so it was a Mummy-and-Vinia day instead of a family one 😉 We went to the Tate Modern, the National Gallery, had lunch in Leon (a new and delightful experience XD), and saw many “strange” Londoners in between…
First we caught the train in the late morning, which got us to London for just before lunchtime. We walked to the Tate Modern, where we looked first at the lower floors full of “modern art”. I hate to say that on many occasions I completely disagree with this title.
Some of the things we saw included three sheets of blank paper; a blue square; some leather hanging up on a wall; a turned-off TV; a multi-coloured pole; a drawing made of grit; and a lobster on a telephone. Other times we saw something that wasn’t so silly (!), like Picasso’s and Dali’s and (sometimes!) Pollock’s pieces 😉 However, there were no strange Londoners until a little later on…
We were walking up to the National Gallery after a delicious lunch of Sicilian chicken meatballs in Leon (it was delicious!) when we decided to go across the bridge over the River Thames for a better view. As we walked over the bridge, we saw a homeless-looking man busking there. He was singing “No Woman No Cry” by Bob Marley, surprisingly enough, and as we walked past he did this: “No, wom—oi! You! Yar! You!” and started pointing to some random, normal-looking man who happened to be walking past in the crowd. The man turned round slightly and then kept walking. “Yar! You! Wanna talk to you!” said Bob Marley-man. But the other man, quite understandably, hurried on. So Bob Marley-man said, “You! Yar! Come! Wanna talk to you! —an, no cry,” and started singing again. It was rather random.
When we go to the Gallery, we looked at a lot of the paintings we had been learning about; Bosch’s, van Eyck’s, Cimabue’s, Giotto’s, Holbein’s, and more. In there we also saw two things that weren’t paintings—they happened to be some very strange Londoners—or at least one of them; the other appeared to be French.
The first was a security guard in one of the rooms. Excuse me, but I believe he may have been a little of what one might call “special”. He kept muttering and whispering to himself; but the odd thing was, when somebody asked him where so-and-so was, he’d say in a completely normal voice, “Oh yes; we have two da Vinci’s, one in room 51, the other in room 53… oh right… of course… I’m terribly sorry, it must be on loan… yes, no… actually I think that one was on loan from Paris, and now it’s moved back again… apologies… all right… well, enjoy your day… yes, yes… thank you.” But the most peculiar thing about him was that in a very large room full of people—he didn’t try to hold it in at all—he farted very loudly! So that when I got up a little later and whispered to Mummy through clenched teeth, “Mummy, that man just farted really loudly in front of all these people,” she was very shocked, and said quietly when he had left the room and swapped shifts, “Was that a—? Not a—? I thought it was someone dropping something, or something like that—no!—really? Him? The one that’s just—? And I heard it from all the way over here—?” It was quite funny, I have to admit.
The other “strange Londoner” was actually French. She also was in the National Gallery, but I doubt she would want to be seen dead breaking wind, whether breaking wind while dead is possible or not. At first, I just thought she was a bit of a chav posing in a rather peculiar way for a photograph, but when she turned round I realised she was not a bit of a chav at all. She was dressed in a skirt made of brown tissue paper, a red cap on her short-haired, curly head, and a black leather jacket with some French words on the back. That was it. She was wearing no top—no bra, I realised in horror and disgust—although she did wear about five-inch high heels on her feet. She was strutting around like she was on the cat walk; one hand continuously reached up and twirled the curls on the back of her head, while the other was either on her half-exposed hip or the turned-up collar of her jacket.
In short, it was repulsive. Even the security guards were laughing at her as she strutted past.
When we had finished in the Gallery, we caught the tube to the train station and went home. I was exhausted, but it had been very fun and—to say the least—interesting.