{"id":1928,"date":"2013-05-06T09:28:17","date_gmt":"2013-05-06T09:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/?p=1928"},"modified":"2013-05-06T09:28:17","modified_gmt":"2013-05-06T09:28:17","slug":"banking-on-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/?p=1928","title":{"rendered":"Banking on it"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nothing new has happened.\u00a0 This is a Good Thing, there was far too much new stuff earlier on this year.\u00a0 Although we have been away, to glorious Perthshire (Blair Atholl with the Mincers and Dunkeld by ourselves) and to London.\u00a0 I think we maybe pushed the envelope until it burst when we went to the Smoke, we were very tired when we came home!\u00a0 We caught the 09:30 to King’s Cross, arrived around 14:00, caught tube to hotel (daylight robbery btw; if you do not have requisite degree in applied maths you will register epic fail to comprehend the Oyster card pricing structure and yes, Boris, this means you). Orientation tour after that, i.e. Cecil Court<\/a> and Tesco Covent Garden, then tea time, then our first play, The Audience<\/a><\/em> with Dame Helen Mirren.\u00a0 The play was terrific, it is being broadcast live at local cinemas soon and I would recommend it.\u00a0 Walked round Piccadilly Circus at night with several hundred thousand other happy tourists.<\/p>\n

Next day, we went to the Ice Age Art exhibition at the British Museum<\/a>, a most handsome building which we had never before visited.\u00a0 Then to the Manet retrospective at the Royal Academy on Piccadilly,\u00a0 which may well also have been a handsome edifice but was so full of punters that it was impossible to tell.\u00a0 In the evening we saw our second play, Peter & Alice<\/em> with Dame Judi Dench and the bloke who plays Q in the Bond films, Ben Whishaw.\u00a0 Another great piece, very different in tone from the previous one, it made you think ….<\/p>\n

Next day, amongst the preparations for Thatcher’s funeral, with helicopters overhead, police presence everywhere, stationary vehicles being checked etc, we went to the Museum of London<\/a>, which has a jolly nice caf\u00e9, and an eclectic selection of artefacts, including costumes from the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, Bradley Wiggins’s yellow jersey and Tom Daley’s trunks.\u00a0 But we were there to meet my hero, who has been venerated here already, Mr Spotty Dog.\u00a0 He did not disappoint, picture below, and I was delighted to find that he keeps good company: Jenny and Baby Woodentop, Andy Pandy & Teddy, and the frankly scary Bill and Ben.\u00a0\u00a0 The museum had an oversized couch, set in front of a wee black and white tv screen, playing some Watch with Mother <\/em>programmes on a loop.\u00a0 We spent a delightful time there by ourselves, and for a few minutes I was back in the Shieldhill living room, at quarter to two in the afternoon.<\/p>\n

So, we then hopped back on to the train and the nice people brought us copious draughts of tea and coffee until we reached home.\u00a0 That reminds me, no thanks to the grumpy commuter who assumed that just because someone is carrying a suitcase, they are a travelling idiot.\u00a0 The doors on the ghost train* are extremely difficult to open and they do NOT all work.<\/p>\n\n

*ancient old rolling stock currently leased by Scotrail to supply extra services.\u00a0 Also known as the Hogwarts Express, although having seen the real thing, I can vouch for the dissimilarity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nothing new has happened.\u00a0 This is a Good Thing, there was far too much new stuff earlier on this year.\u00a0 Although we have been away, to glorious Perthshire (Blair Atholl with the Mincers and Dunkeld by ourselves) and to London.\u00a0 I think we maybe pushed the envelope until it burst when we went to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,28,29,13,22,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-after-8-mince","category-birds-wildlife","category-family","category-kirsty","category-theatre","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1928\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}