By morning, I purchased a few souvenirs for family and friends. By early afternoon, I had some great ice cream. By late afternoon, LH & A and myself went to a building called The Enchanted Manor where we were mystified by all of the Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Pirates, Doctor Who, and else they fit into one building. We paid 4 pounds to go through the two upstairs floor where we had a dragon egg challenge to do and work study(14 year olds) to meet. Of the eggs, there were 35 and a pirate riddle involving Treasure on the HMS Vampyrica, of the 14 year olds they wanted to work in various aspects of film. I was impressed by the detail such as the LeMarchand Box- and the slight name changes to avoid copyright. We won the dragon challenge: I became a broomstick flyer expert, A became a cackling witch, and LH the green witch understudy. We have certificates to prove it!
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| MaTiLDA. Oh, I know what you're thinking, but they gave theirs a different name! |
By evening, we watched a performance of As You Like It performed at the Royal Shakespeare Company. As I have processed the show, I have liked more elements of it. It was in traditional theatre in the round, making all seats good seats. The stage used simple elements to give us a change of scene and great costuming choices to place us from the palace to the forest, a much more freeing world. The acting was good- though their Rosalind was almost too eccentric- and the technical effects(such as lighting) were stunning.
Today, we had a behind the scenes tour of the Victoria & Albert, or V&A. There are several section, composed of desks and researchers, computers and printers, shelving upon shelving, and more. The library, we were told, is 150 years old. It holds many arts related items, including fashion magazines such as Vogue, and focuses on al aspects of art and design. It sees about 30,000 visitors(truthful as we saw today) and the collection has attentive cataloging so that it can be found online, as some of the materials are untouchable. The hours are reasonable as well, Tuesday through Saturday 10-5:30. At the moment, they have a camera available but would like to go over to safer scanners that don't harm the spines. They passed us a packet today telling us how their training for handling books goes- something done very 18 months. Many of the rooms do not have air conditioning because they keep an eye on their economic climate. Of the storage facilities, they too are monitored because pests and vermin are just as common here. Checked quarterly, using traps to prevent them, as is the OCEAN system for testing humidity. At present, there are 11,000 periodicals and 1,000 are current. Nowadays they are not bound together. All items are arranged by size- I am sensing a trend here- and in a house classification system. Objects storage containers change depending on the year, here you can see grey folders or red boxes with a metal pull. After a few more rooms, one of which contained the majority of staff(cataloging) we were given the real treat- old books we could view up close. My favourite was the Leonardo DaVinci Codex because of its coded language and small illustrations. A fascinating man, the book is small and pocket sized. It was purchased from Italy in 1992 and made around 1493-1505. The ink within changed between black and red- this might be due to age- and makes me very curious. Other items in this viewing included a book of Parrots(the first of its kind), a Picasso illustration set, and a Book of Hours.
Tonight, I am joining GOP & AG to head over to Leicester Square for the premier of The World's End, a new Simon Pegg film. While we won't be getting in til next week, we will get to stand on the carpet and get autographs of the actors. For the event, I purchased a canvas and permanent marker- best artwork ever. I do hope I can get their signature! What a splendid month this is turning out to be! And we haven't even gotten to Scotland yet!
UPDATE:
After posting this, I decided to go with two friends to The World's End premier, as I mentioned. Soon there will be a picture to accompany this, but I managed to get most of the cast, the director, and cameos to sign my canvas. There is actually a photo tagged(on my friend's facebook) of my canvas being signed by Simon Pegg. THe first to sign it was actually Simon Pegg's brother, Mike Beckingshire, and Simon signed below. Bill Bailey, Edgar Wright, and others are all on there. Martin Freeman was not there as he is in New Zealand filming for The Hobbit, but that's acceptable terms. Overall, the experience was wonderful and we had perfect standing spots to see, sign, and watch the large screen with sneak peeks and intervewees. After having gone to this event, it dawned on me that if anyone asks the illusive "what was your favourite part of the trip?" I am going to have a very difficult time answering. I have been so fortunate, thus far, in my academic and social time that I do not know what the best part is. Just that I am still singing with triumph about my uber cool canvas.
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