h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

innit. I had my NHS meeting this morning which was surprisingly entertaining, and have just spent a nice hour looking around the National Portrait Gallery. My primary motivation for going, the Vanity Fair exhibition, was 0„510 to get in so I couldn't afford it if I also wanted to get my friend a souvenir for her birthday. So I went in the shop and flicked through a book instead.

But anyhow I saw some stunning portraits in the meantime. All the usual Royal supects, religious figures - but some very arresting images in their midst, too many to remember. Ben Jonson, George Stephenson, Aldous Huxley, Laurie Lee, Amy Johnson. Stunning statuary of the likes of Tennyson and Darwin. Photos of Joseph Conrad. A bust of John Betjeman that made him look like a bit of an old tree. Plus, a self-portrait by my great-great-great-uncle, Sir Martin Archer-Shee.

Off to meet closer family this evening, after I've done some more touristy nonsense and gone to Forbidden Planet.

Wow! When you'd mentioned it earlier, I looked up the Vanity Fair exhibition website, and they said admissions were only £10. 510 is quite a bit more!


Meanwhile, I loved the Run DMC photo at the Vanity Fair exhibit web site. I should see what's going on at the MCA and the Art Institute this month and during May, before the weather turns crappy.

What's Forbidden Planet?

Forbidden Planet is a shop for all manner of cult horror and predominantly sci-fi toys and fun and stuff. I got you a present from there, though I'll have to take it out of the box before I send it, it's a bit big. It was a shit box anyway. Don't know why the 'net cafe's system turned a £ into a 0„5 but it was only £10, and still too much for me at the mo.

Had a nice few drinks with my cousins, and second cousins whom I'd never met. Interesting folk, lots of fun.

FP - comic shop...on Denmark St? (There's also a branch in Glasgow).

NPG - my favourite pieces are the TE Lawrence 'of Arabia' portraits (Guide Entry pending). There's a drawing by Augustus John, a model for his sarcophagus - but best of all is the one of him as Leading Airman Shaw* in Aghanistan. He looks *exactly* like Morrissey! Judge for yourself:
http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/portrait.asp?search=ss&sText=lawrence&LinkID=mp02655&rNo=7&role=sit
http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/portrait.asp?search=ss&sText=lawrence&LinkID=mp02655&rNo=6&role=sit
I last paid (ahem) homage this time last year.





* Hell of a story! Led an Arab insurgency. Reperesented them at the Versailles conference. Got disenchanted. Offered various professorships. Instead changed his name to Ross and enrolled in the Tank Corps as a private. Got found out by the newspapers. Changed his name again to Shaw (after GBS's wife) and enrolled in the RAF. Paid an Irish Guardsman to spank him.

Dirty monkey.

That does look like Morrissey. I felt silly looking around the gallery and seeing all sorts of lookalikes - John Geilgud... Harvey Keitel... Charlie Brooker... Does anyone else think that Horatio Nelson looks like Richard Dawkins?

My favourite in the short time I gave the gallery, was Ben Jonson. It just seemed so much more vivid than its contemporaries, like it was ahead of its time.

FP is on Shaftesbury Avenue, but only round the corner from Denmark Street.

Just read on W***pedia:

'[Lawrence signed his name as] "338171 A/C Shaw". Noel Coward in a letter to him asked "May I call you 338?" '

A present? For me? From a monster shop?



I found a little bitty silly present for your care package, too. Hope to post it on Saturday. Sorry I didn't get it there for your birthday.

Don't worry about it! There's still a week anyway.

Even if you've seen it all ten times before, it was a lovely day for photos (used up my month limit now though). The guy in the painting is my great-great-great-uncle.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chris-miller/sets/72157604597412012/

My great-great-uncle (the Winslow Boy) was his great-great-grandson, so it's great x 6.