Today I had a
work meeting in an office block/work space close to Tottenham Court Road. The
building is relatively new, open plan, light and free, unlike the concrete,
claustrophobic buildings of earlier decades. The meeting took place on the 10th
Floor and the view was incredible. Looking down upon the ocean green, glass
roof of the British Museum, was breath taking. The dark, formal buildings of
the City of London could be seen huddled together and from another view, the
London Eye was staring back. Sights like this always make me extremely happy to
live in London.
Having not been
to the British Museum for many years, that is where I headed. A stroll along
Bloomsbury Street and you are suddenly removed from the hustle and bustle of
Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street, taken away from the construction work
going on at Centre Point and transported to the peace of tranquil old English
streets, with picture postcard shop fronts. A right onto Great Russell Street
and I had arrived at the British Museum.
Before going
in, I took a diversion to the Camera Museum, on Museum Street. It is not really
a museum but a café, with its basement room dedicated to cameras through the
ages. Mounted on the walls are cameras ranging from 1907 to present day. It is a quirky little place, definitely one
for camera lovers and the cameras are indeed interesting but the soup needs to
find some serious flavour!!
On to the
British Museum, with its splendid Roman temple style pillars. As I queued to get in I couldn’t help but think
of Ferris Bueller and his mates when they go to the art gallery – the sense
that type of big, slightly stuffy, public museum can bring. There was an
exhibition called South Africa The Art of A Nation, which didn’t set my pulse
racing and cost £12, so I went into the Ancient Egypt section, a free area,
which I can remember taking my kids to when they were little. It is fascinating but either I wasn’t really
in the mood for it, or perhaps it just doesn’t do it for me. Three thousand
year old Egyptian artifacts are pretty impressive though.
Reemerging into
today’s bright sunlight, I was back in peaceful old London town before swinging
a right and a left and transporting myself back to 21st century
noisy Big Smoke, on New Oxford Street. Crossing the road took me past the
building where my morning meeting had been held, before I weaved between the
traffic in front of St Giles in The Fields church, then headed up Denmark
Street, frozen in time with its numerous guitar shops. There are always two
worlds in London - the old and the new and both live side by side. I took a
short walk up Charing Cross Road turned left and headed down the steps of the
newly reconstructed Tottenham Court Road tube station, before disappearing into
the bowels of the city.
