We visited the Imperial War Museum today, and I felt like a complete and utter child staring up at the ancient Spitfire that takes up about an eighth of the central space of the building. The building has an eclectic mix of architecture: on the outside, it is extremely imperial with long imposing columns and two huge guns poised on the lawn. But on the inside, a quirky central space rises up in the middle of five floors of exhibits, filled with hanging aeroplanes and bombs and other strangely satisfying contraptions. I'm not quite sure why the Spitfire should have had such an effect on me, because I hate war, and I hate the idea that it was a vessel of death, basically. I've had to watch through many a History Channel "Dogfights" program because Billy enjoyed learning about that stuff, and so it's not as if I have a naive perspective of the concept of air warfare. But for some reason, that Spitfire captivated me. I dislike the feeling of being indoctrinated, as does everyone - you know when you're being told something, and you're not sure that you're being given the whole picture? That's what I felt like, a little bit, in that museum. I genuinely felt, then and there, that Britain was all the things that traditional, glamorous Britain makes Britain out to be. I would have wanted to fly that spitfire if I'd been given the chance way back in World War One. And I don't like the fact that that's exactly the reaction that the curators wanted to elicit when they positioned the plane at that precise angle, waiting to impress its immensity upon you as you walk in. But regardless of whether I wanted to feel like that or not, that was how I felt. That machine, though battered and dull, is a thing of great beauty. Imagine all the thought and creativity that went into designing it, and building it, and flying it. I suppose if you can take the human empathy and the tragedy out of war, it becomes something that can be as strategically beautiful as a game of chess, say. But I don't want to think like that!
After the museum wanderings were complete, we separated and I made my way back along the route to the station - without my map! MAPS OVER APPS! My new slogan. I had seen a few cafes (two) on my way from the station, so my plan was to settle down in one for a while and work on my history essay. I walked down the opposite side of the road so that I could see as much of little old Lambeth as I could, and I was, probably irrationally, happy because it was raining and I was able to use my umbrella! I don't know what the poor people walking past me must have thought, but I did talk to it a little bit because it is rather frail and needs some encouragement every now and again to help it to stand up to the wind and the rain, which are determined to make the poor brolly scrunch up like a leggy spider when you blow on it. Eventually Brolly, Big Heavy Bag, and I spotted the coffee shop I'd had in mind and went in.
Pleasant people make all the difference in a coffee shop; I never thought I'd say this, but the quality of the food or the coffee should, I think, come second to the quality of the staff. Beaded earrings dangled from the lady behind the counter's ears, and though I didn't particularly like them (they were square beads, and I have never liked them: if you look in my bead box back home, you'll find lots of square beads left over - not because I wanted to keep them because they were special, like some of the sparkly ones, but because I couldn't find a place to put them, and I didn't like them) I thought they looked lovely on her! I was just going to treat myself to a cappuccino, but then I saw it. Or, rather, it saw me.
A ginormous carrot cake on a plate twice the size of my head gazed imperiously out onto the world. If carrot cakes lived in a carrot cake kingdom, this one would have been God. Even in this world, I would place this carrot cake, and the authority it commands, on the same level as the Pope. I have been able to say no to may things I really didn't want to say no to before, but not to this carrot cake. I was transfixed. It had me in its clutches. I felt as if I was staring a reincarnation of Queen Victoria. I tried to resist for a while, and, honestly, I wouldn't have been surprised if a voice had boomed out from the center of the plate - or the cloudy heavens - and said, "Sarah. Stop fooling around. We are not amused." So I caved. I obeyed orders and bought a slice of carrot cake. Right to the end, it had the upper hand: I couldn't finish it. I had to pack the last eighth into my sandwich container and take it home. I still think that the carrot cake back at Cafe Nush is the best carrot cake ever, but no carrot cake has ever treated me in such a manner before, so superior!
I searched some catalogues for research books for my history paper, and then I set off towards the station, intending to go to the Paul Mellon Center and do some more work. When I was almost at the station, I remembered that there was something I'd wanted to buy in the museum shop, which I'd forgotten to do. So I turned around and went back and bought it, and emerged, once again, excited, because I needed to use my umbrella! From there, I used my eyes and my brain and the delightfully ubiquitous, helpful London Underground signs to navigate my way all the way to the Paul Mellon Center. Not once did I have recourse to my phone! I sat in the library there for a blissful hour, paging through books about monuments. There were four other people there, one of whom looked like a classic academic: his skin was leathery and lined, in what could be a projection of all the old books he's read, and all the ones he's written. Do you think if you read the same sort of looking books for long enough, you might start to look like them?
We were kicked out at five, so I just came home and made supper and then made a time plan for this evening. My vlog is done, and is uploading, and now this is almost done too, and then it's reading, then bed! We have to be up early tomorrow because we're booked on an early train to Bradford, where the Bradford Media Museum (I think it's called) is.
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