Weekend: British Museum, Odd Japanese Film, etc

On Saturday I managed to fit in a visit to the British Museum's Babylon exhibition (thanks to techbint for booking the tickets - as we all know, I'm rarely that organised!).

The exhibition was really interesting and had a wonderful collection of artefacts (I can't believe I've never seen a cuneiform tablet before!). However, the exhibit space was too small for proper viewing of some of the paintings, and there were just far too many people in there! There was one painting in particular that I could see that there was some interesting stuff at the top but that I couldn't make out either the lighting was wrong or it needed a good clean (or both). I broke down and bought the book that goes with the exhibition, and it's all wonderfully clear in the reproduction.

I would say that I recommend it if you can find a less crowded time, but that is likely to be impossible.

As the shop was as crowded as the exhibition, I failed to see the book on as-yet-undeciphered languages which nasrat purchased. This is just as well, and unlike the exhibition book, I can probably pick it up online somewhere when the book pile in my room gets less oppressive.

We also took in another temporary (but free) exhibition in the Egypt section - 3000 year old paintings are well cool! Failed to see anything else in the museum, partly due to lack of energy but mostly because the British Museum is just way too crowded on a Saturday. Will be back when I can start taking time off work again. I was last in the British Museum when it was still the 80s!

Following the museum trip and a truly stupendous curry courtesy of The Tiffin Tin in Hornsey, we watched an odd Japanese film called Death Note[1]. A young law student finds a book belonging to a death god in which he can kill off anyone in the world by writing down their name, and starts killing off all the criminals in the world. It manages to be silly yet subtle and deep at the same time. And how they were not sued by Tim Burton over the matter of the animated death god, I am not sure.

Was off line all weekend - have had a quick skim of my flist, but if there's anything you think I need to know, drop me a line!


[1] That's the first live version, not the anime, not any of the sequels or the TV series.

Today

Have used my second-last full day of annual leave to take it easy today. I have achieved remarkably little, even by my standards, but my body was giving my unsubtle hints that some rest would be a good thing.

The man came to give the boilers their annual service this morning. As they're getting pretty old I asked about replacements and he said that despite their age they're in good condition and should keep going for quite some time. This is what passes for excitement in my life.

In order to get to the central heating boiler in my study, one of the big bookcases has to be moved. This is a bit annoying but it's forced me to start having a go at cleaning that room up! Stuff piles up in here something awful, then gets shoved into corners when people come to stay, & repeat. Have decided the Harry Potter books have to go because they simply take up too much room, and it's not like I'll have difficulty getting hold of them if I ever decide I want to re-read. So far, bookcase looks much better, rest of the room looks worse.

[books 2009] Call the Midwife

10. Call the Midwife: A true story of the East End in the 1950s by Jennifer Worth

Account of being a trainee midwife in the East End in the 1950s - the author came from a middle class life and moving to the East End was a real eye-opener for her. This is probably the most balanced account of pre-dock-closure East End life I've read yet - Worth has a real affection for (most of) the people she lived and worked amongst, but doesn't get all rose-tinted-spectacles about them. She is not afraid to highlight issues like domestic violence & how brothels and prostitution transformed Stepney into a living hell. She shows that there was a fair income spread in the East End - skilled occupations such as river pilots paid very well, but due to long working hours they still had to live in the area, and that the vast majority of people were hard-working and obsessed with "respectability". Some of the stories are angry-making, some really heart-warming. Worth also writes a lot better than a lot of authors in this genre.