A Mascot-y trip round London

We went into town today to meet my dad, we had originally thought to head to the Tower of London but we were torn because a new exhibit had just opened in Tate Modern and we had still yet to see the newly opened Tanks at the Tate as well. So we met up at the Tower of London anyway first, if anything to see the Olympic rings on Tower Bridge (which are pretty wow).

And where we got to spy on an outside broadcast of USA Today (ooh American reporters are a little more glam than ones on the Beeb). We walked past as they were also filming some crowd shots, Girl Lacer is very impressed that she may just possibly be on American TV and that very possibly an old (American) teacher of hers might see her.

We also got to see where the kids’ ancestor by marriage (Thomas More) got brought into the Tower of London (Traitor’s Gate) to have his head chopped off, which Girl Lacer was extremely impressed by but then we decided (after lunch) to head to Tate Modern instead of going into the Tower. We decided to head there by boat (even though it’s within an extremely walkable distance) and to be honest by the time we’d bought the ticket and then waited for the boat we could have walked there a lot quicker and a lot more easily, but it was fun.

Tate Modern was cool, after an initial hmmmmm about the new Turbine Hall installation, a performance / interactive piece by Tino Sehgal, I really liked it.

It may look like a bunch of people standing around but actually most (difficult to tell apart the performers from the visitors) are performance artists who stand round and tell you stories. One of them tried it on my dad, my dad ran a mile. For a while I thought that was it and it took some explaining to the kids, who although are normally massive Turbine Hall fans, were a bit bemused by this one. But then the light flickered out and at first we thought their lights had just failed, they came on again and we thought nothing of it and then they started fading in and out and then something happened which was rather magical and well, you’ll just have to see it (don’t want to ruin the surprise) but the kids went from bemused to impressed (well, I think at least Girl Lacer was).

We also went to see the new display space The Tanks, which were fantastic. Basically The Tanks are where they used to store the oil for the turbine and they have now converted them into a space for performance related art (dance, film etc) and it’s perfect. The all enclosing concrete, with the lack of natural ligt is womb like and it allows you to be really enveloped into the piece. We saw some experimental ballet rehearsals which were a bit hmmmm but then we saw some short films and they were fantastic, not so much the films themselves but how they were displayed, in darkened rooms with some excellent sound systems. I particularly liked the two larger rooms (linked by a glass wall in part), they displayed several screens with different films and little areas of soft carpet and weird things to sit on and odd things propped up against the walls, I loved it, the kids loved it.

But they particularly loved all the mascots we bumped into.

Damien Hirst

Will someone tell the weather it’s May, it’s freezing today – again. It was an INSET day today, so I took the opportunity to take the kids to Tate Modern to see the Damien Hirst exhibition.

It was really interesting, seeing one of Hirst’s first spot paintings (spots all over the place, dribbles of paint) in the first room and then seeing them progress as we went through the rooms (the last spot painting before the exit, is monotone and very pale, Boy Lacer noticed that one and pointed going “That’s funny, there’s something wrong with that one”). Showing a range of his work over the years, you could definitely see running themes (helped by a great little video that tied a lot of the pieces together), boy is Hirst obsessed with death, with the medical stuff (including the giant statue outside Tate), all the dead animals, flies (as in actual buzzing around flies in a box with a great big hunk of meat), butterflies and lots of cigarette butts (most disgusting thing in there, forget the flies and the hunk of meat, it was a giant ash tray filled with cig butts, it stunk). And flies weren’t the only living thing there, part of the butterfly theme was a room literally full of flying around butterflies, in that room there were blank white boards on the walls, with chrysalis on, like a living art work, however the painted over butterfly wings in another room, although very pretty (reminded me of church windows) was a bit macabre (strange, dead farm animals and sharks didn’t bother but painted over butterfly wings . . .).

Separate to the exhibition, in the Turbine Hall, was a black, covered room, which contained the infamous diamond skull (which you could get into to see for free), that was pretty special to see, the room was pitch black, with just the skull, lit subtly in the centre. Very much felt like a bit of an Indiana Jones moment.

Overall I don’t often pay to see the exhibitions at Tate Modern, normally contenting myself to see the free stuff, but it was worth it, the exhibition was large and comprehensive and for the first time (I’ve seen plenty of Hirst pieces individually before), I really got a sense of the overarching themes of his work. The kids seemed to like it to (although I think one of their most favourite things was the little exhibition guide that they seemed obsessed with, although Girl Lacer particularly liked the diamond skull to). The exhibition was a little macabre and I wouldn’t recommend it to overly creeped out children or those particularly scared of butterflies but for most kids, I really think Hirst’s work is right up their street.

 

The Obliteration Room and a quick mooch round the V&A

I am aware that the above title makes it sound like The Obliteration Room is at the V&A, it’s not, it’s currently at Tate Modern, we popped into see it this morning before heading to the V&A to see my dad.

For those that don’t know about The Obliteration Room, imagine a small white room clad completely in all white Ikea-ish furniture, then imagine letting a bunch of kids loose with stickers.

If you’re interested in going, it’s on until I think something like 18 March (don’t quote me on that) and it’s worth asking information where it is once you get into the gallery because it’s not immediately obvious.

We then headed out to the V&A.

Over the ex-wobbly bridge and past St. Pauls.

Me (and Boy Lacer's legs)

Getting on the tube at Mansion House.

Once at the V&A and dad met, we went to get some food. Now there are always queues for the cafe at the V&A and the food ain’t exactly cheap but it’s worth it for this (and the food is by Benugo, my favourite museum caterers, so it is nice).

Some cafe right?

We then went and had a look at the upper floors of the V&A, places which I don’t normally go to (I have my firm favourite route through the V&A which is as comfortable as an old pair of slippers). There was a lot of gold and I’m not that particularly impressed with too much bling and I felt more like crowd control for my two anyway, but still, it was nice getting out.

And it’s the Autumn half term arty trip again . . .

Autumn half term pretty much always coincides with a new installation in Tate Modern‘s Turbine Hall, something which the kids are usually pretty fond of (although they weren’t impressed with last year’s sunflower seeds and they are desperate for the mythical slides, that they were too young to see, to return), so I always try and make time for that in this holiday. ‘Unfortunately’ this particular half term holiday is incredibly busy, so today (Monday) was the only day we could do it (and I wouldn’t normally dream of a trip out to central London on the first day of a holiday normally, you need to let them chill a bit, but needs must).

So, as well as Tate Modern I decided I might as well fit in something else as well, whilst we were in town, so despite my two being surprisingly not that keen on the V&A’s Museum of Childhood last time we were there (which was relatively recently), they had a new exhibition on about Magical Worlds and as this holiday is very Halloween dominated this year, I thought it only apt.

So we went to the Museum of Childhood first, getting our priorities right we went straight for the food (we love the Benugo cafes), then straight up to Magical Worlds and it was definitely worth the journey. Both kids seemed to like it, there was more dressing up and (as it was half term), a roving magician which absolutely entranced the kids. Girl Lacer even played the part of magician’s assistant at one point and the look of delight on her face at the culmination of the trick was priceless. Boy Lacer was also very taken with the little videos of magic tricks they had, so it was nice to see him interested in something that isn’t a computer game lol.

Girl Lacer in the Magical World's exhibition

We did also go and see the other displays again, where the kids’ discovered more dressing up opportunities but again I just get the feeling this is not their absolute favourite museum but I definitely think I’ll be keeping an eye out for further exhibitions they have, as the Judith Kerr retrospective we saw last time we were there was also a hit. I think the difference between the special exhibitions and the rest of the museum is that when comparing the two, the whole set up of the rest of the museum does feel a little dated.

Anyway, we then went on to Tate Modern, going straight to see the new Turbine Hall exhibit by Tacita Dean (via the kids following the now filled in crack down the Turbine Hall ramp, now that was an exhibit they were fascinated by when they saw it). With the Tacita Dean exhibit, the Turbine Hall is pretty much blacked out, specially the far end, where they’ve set up a giant film screen showing Dean’s analogue film. The kids’ made themselves comfy.

And very happily sat through all of it, both being full of praise when I dragged them away as the film looped round again. The film is very abstract and it sort of reminded me in a way of those weird films they show on Teletubbies, where they show brightly coloured shapes, close ups of apples and eyes and things just looking a bit odd, not that my two have watched Teletubbies in a long time but I guess they’ve grown up on it. Boy Lacer in particular liked it, Girl Lacer liked it to but still hankers for things you can climb over.

(I liked it to, by the way, there’s something bewitching about the massive screen and the way how the light washes over the viewers).

I particularly liked this image

After that we finally got a chance to play Tate Trumps, an iPhone game where you download an app and then following it’s instructions, go round the gallery looking for the seven best artworks that feature your particular theme. We chose the artworks that would be good at fighting theme (I was keeping it simple) and we went round, for the most part, picking the sculptures that looked like they could whack you one or smother you. Once we had chosen our seven, we then played the actual trumps, with me and the kids absolutely slaughtering the opposition, who had all chosen paintings. Definitely worth a go.

Related articles

• Exhibition in focus: The Unilever Series, Tacita Dean at Tate Modern (telegraph.co.uk)

Sunflower seeds and The Museum of London

Today has been the last day of the half term holiday (the kids had an extra day as it was a training day at school today), although the ‘holiday’ still continues for Boy Lacer tomorrow as he has another chest infection, a chest infection that hasn’t stopped him going to Kew, the cinema or into central London, over the last week mind you, as apart from the most horrible sounding cough ever (which is particularly prevalent after he’s been running or at 4am in the morning), he is perfectly fine within himself. Anyway he’s on antibiotics now, so hopefully he’ll get better soon because despite Boy Lacer being perfectly well to do all the half term activities he’s done over the last week, if I send him to school, one coughing fit and they’ll send him straight back again.

Anyway, today’s pry my kids away from a screen activity was a promised trip into central London, I have decided to try and find different places to go to, as I’m certainly not doing the queues outside the Natural History Museum / Science Museum again, not until we leave a long enough gap of time anyway, in the hope they might actually change some exhibits (they never do, as I think I said when I blogged about my last visit to the Natural History Museum, when we went to see the Human Body exhibit, it was unchanged since when I was a kid visiting it, now I know the Human Body doesn’t exactly change, but I think there’s been some advances in museum display in the 20+ years since I was a kid (oh god, am I that old?) ). We’ve also done Tate Modern and V&A a bit too much (for the kids anyway, I could happily spend much more time in just the medieval gallery of the V&A). So today’s trip was yes, Tate Modern (but only a quick pop in to see the Sunflower Seeds, which we hadn’t seen), followed by The Museum of London, which the kids have never been to and I’ve only been to once, years ago and whilst I was still recovering from a foot operation, so as I spent most of that visit walking round the museum in pain, I don’t think I took that much in.

Now normally if you’re going to The Museum of London, there are loads of nearby tube stations, but none of the nearby ones were particularly accessible for Boy Lacer and his buggy, so we had to walk from Southwark tube station, which is accessible (as long as you pray to the god of working lifts). Southwark tube station is across the river from the museum and is about a 25 minute walk, but it’s a nice walk and you can detour via Tate Modern and walk across the Millennium Bridge, with it’s stunning approach to St. Pauls.

Guess who’s got an iPhone again? (After 5 months of having lost my phone and still never finding it, a combination of some very good fortune (which at the same time makes me feel a little sad, as once again an older relative has helped us out in way that I can personally never see myself being in a position to do when I’m one of the ‘older generation’) and some very nice people at O2, let me upgrade early, so I now have an iPhone 4 and I am extremely paranoid about losing it.) I had planned on taking more photos with my actual camera, but the weather has been very foul today and I think the kids would have garroted me with my camera strap if I even dared make them stop so I could faff about with my camera, so a quick snap with the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone, which I missed so much (both the app and the phone), had to do. I can see a solo photography trip into London coming up for me when I’ve got some time to spare and some nice(r) weather.

Anyway, by showing you my St. Pauls photo I’m getting ahead of myself, it should be the photos of Al Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds first.

My opinion? Now I normally love any of the Tate Modern Turbine Hall exhibits, they’re fun, mostly exciting and engage people in art who may never normally get engaged in other more traditional forms, so I always think the vast sums of money that get spent on these things are worth it but (you could so hear the ‘but’ coming couldn’t you?), I am not sure about this one. I think if we had been allowed to do what the artist had intended for this piece (walk on it, touch it, roll around in it even), it would have been a lot better, but as it is, it really is just a lot of porcelain sunflower seeds, I still liked it, but I’ve seen a lot better in the Turbine Hall. (And I couldn’t help but think surely couldn’t they have tested the seeds beforehand, maybe make a smaller batch, get loads of people to walk on them and check what happened, before completing the project? – For those that don’t know, it turned out walking on them created dangerous levels of dust).

Then, via the Tate Modern shop which I never can resist, this time the kids got two beautiful books, I tried to psychically push Girl Lacer into choosing Neil Gaiman’s The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish, but I don’t think my psychic powers were quite up to scratch, she didn’t even glance at it, the quite dark art work (literally dark) in it is not yet to her taste I think, I think I may have to buy it for myself one of these days. Girl Lacer ended up buying A Walk in New York, which admittedly looks a pretty cool book to, we have a family fascination with New York, me and Mr. Lacer both adored our visit there and we have a giant picture of the Flatiron building on our living room wall, so it’s somewhere the kids are very aware of to. Boy Lacer chose another one of those books where you have to find something that’s hidden in the picture somewhere, like Where’s Wally? (which both kids adore), but this one is looking for cake. Boy Lacer also has another similar book (also from the Tate Modern shop) where you have to look for Eric, who has gone missing in a seaside resort (sorry for being totally useless and not saying what the names of the books are, both are in the kids’ room and they’re both asleep). And whereas I have to admit Boy Lacer approaching me with a Where’s Wally? book in his hand leaves me a bit cold (in fact me and Mr. Lacer have banned Where’s Wally? as a bedtime book, as it makes bedtime too long, the only book(s – we have more than one in the series) to have reached that distinction, I love the finding Eric at the seaside story (not the title by the way), as it has way more story in it (even though only one or two words a page) than a Where’s Wally? book.

Anyway, sorry I got distracted by the mental memory of all those gorgeous picture books, we then went on the The Museum of London, via a quick “Oh look, that’s St Paul’s cathedral”, as we walked past.  We had a nice lunch at a very nice, but extremely eye wateringly expensive cafe there and then went and explored. My favourite was the London before London exhibit, but then again I am really loving A History of Ancient Britain on TV at the moment. The Roman section was also good with some lovely tiny models of Roman buildings, full of people doing Roman stuff, which the kids adored. The Medieval section had a medieval house whose real purpose seemed to be to let the kids going round the museum to let off steam as they reached the approximate half way mark. The newer stuff (1800s onwards) was less interesting but that was very probably just me, although the shopping street with mocked up shops was fantastic. And all free to, I approve of free (for museums anyway)! (Sorry, no photos, it wasn’t the best of places to get a decent photograph).

We then walked a very cold and very wet, more direct route back to Southwark tube, this time we walked over Blackfriars Bridge, which is a hive of industrious activity at the moment, with the building of the new station. I fact nearly all of that part of London, both sides of the river, seemed like a busy building site (plus with the already very impressive looking Shard in the distance – check out the video in that link, it’s like a building from a sci-fi movie has been transplanted into London). So we had fun looking at all the cranes and all the great big shiny new buildings (Boy Lacer said in awe at this point “It’s like a great adventure” awwwww).

Owl Puppets

When we went to Tate Modern last week, I couldn’t resist these cut out and make owl hand puppets by Alice Melvin. I made the puppets up a few days ago and embroidered the front of a little bag to keep the puppets together (as anything in a group round here, is bound to get separated) and finally sewed the bag together today.

The owl bag is based on the big owl, I had fun interpreting the design and doing different stitches,

The completed owl puppets have been living on my sewing table for the last few days, whilst they waited for me to complete the bag and the kids, particularly Boy Lacer, have loved playing with them. I keep coming back to my sewing table and finding the owls standing in different positions and Boy Lacer going “Look, they’re having family hug”.

Not having a family hug

This little family of owls has reminded the whole family of one of our favourite stories, Owl Babies, so of course the owls have now taken on the Owl Babies names; Sarah, Percy and Bill (the littlest one) and there has been lots of reenactment of the story.

Decode

It’s half term at the moment, so I took the kids into central London. I did give Girl Lacer a choice what she wanted to do and she very firmly said she wanted to see How It is again at Tate Modern and the Decode exhibition at V&A.

So, we took the train to Waterloo, walked from Waterloo to Tate Modern via the story book Konditor and Cook (bakers of very pretty cakes), went into the giant black cube that is How It Is, where amazingly, we managed to get Boy Lacer (who is afraid of the dark) in it, twice. The first time was funny, once in the cube it is very, very dark and we were walking along, Boy Lacer in the pushchair, Girl Lacer holding his hand to comfort him, when suddenly Girl Lacer goes “Oh! You’re squashing me!” I had no idea, because it was so dark, that we were slowly walking into a wall and sandwiching Girl Lacer between it and the pushchair.

After the giant cube, we popped into the gorgeous Tate Modern shop; the mother-in-law had given the kids spending money, Boy Lacer blew all of his on a giant book, one of those ones where there’s lots of little detail in the pictures and one or two words, so we had fun making up stories with that when we got home. Girl Lacer split her money equally and spent five pounds on a robot.

After Tate Modern we walked to Southwark tube and on the way there passed by a Leon (which is just behind Tate Modern near the very cool moving statue – if you’re in the area look out for it). Ever since getting the Leon cookbook I’ve been curious about going into one of their restaurants, so we popped in and the menu did look delicious, but it’s not particularly a family restaurant, well, not if your children are fussy and you’re on a budget it isn’t. But we broke the budget on two large oat and raisin cookies, which were rather nice, will have to look and see if the recipe is in the book.

Anyway, once we got to Southwark, we got on the Jubilee line to Westminster and then the District line to South Kensington. Now throughout my journey, up to this point, apart from some giant gaps between train and platform (which freak Boy Lacer out), it was step free, thanks to the lifts that have been installed over the years, perfect for Boy Lacer and the pushchair, but of course, not South Kensington. Now I know South Kensington is an old station but why haven’t they installed a lift? Goodness knows how anyone actually in a wheelchair and is dependent on public transport gets to the museums and as for all the mums and pushchairs I saw struggling up and down the overcrowded stairs, you’d have thought the first station they’d have tried to put a lift in would have been that one, for a start, take away the small children and pushchairs struggling up the stairs and you’ve eased congestion a bit! But no, thanks to lack of lift, I had to fold the extremely heavy, oversized special needs pushchair up and struggle up the stairs whilst Girl Lacer encouraged Boy Lacer slowly up the stairs himself, clinging with both hands to the banister and slowing everyone behind us. Even forgetting his mobility difficulties, just the crowds at South Kensington tube are daunting enough for him.

But we made it to V&A in the end and we went in to see Decode, which is an exhibition of digital art. You go in through this darkened alley of bushes of light sticks and down corridors of various screens showing digital art work, some interactive through either touch or sound (the sound one was particularly cool). Girl Lacer in particular loved it and I liked it to but was disappointed to see that at least three artworks were off display, out of order, including the eyeball that moved, which I was particularly looking forward to seeing.

We then, due to the unseasonably nice, one off of a day weather (it was raining cats and dogs on Tuesday and is raining cats and dogs today), went and had lunch in the V&A courtyard, which was gloriously sunny. I love the V&A courtyard and sitting on the steps by its pool and drinking bitter limonata, surrounded by the V&A’s glorious architecture, made me feel, if I squinted by eyes off the sun shining on the pool’s surface, that for the moment I was in Venice.

In the pool currently is another piece of art work, which I think is also part of the Decode exhibition, a series of panels that reflect images of people standing in front of them.

After lunch we went into the V&A shop, which is always gorgeous but probably the most over crowded part of the museum, so that Girl Lacer could spend the rest of her money, which she was determined to do on just about any old rubbish (the V&A, I think had shipped in loads of pocket money toys in, just for half term) but she couldn’t find a combination of stuff she wanted for exactly £5, which was infuriating, as me and Boy Lacer were wondering round after her, well I was trying to follow her, squeeze in with the pushchair and keep an eye on Boy Lacer, who was at that point walking, but more like in a world of his own instead of following.

After we finally got out of the shop, we popped into the new Medieval exhibition, where of course, the lift wasn’t working and then we struggled all the way home again.

But there was one last treat of the day, when we popped into Konditor and Cook, we did buy something.

They’re called magic cakes and are very sweet, so my sugar light-weight children couldn’t manage more than a few mouthfuls. I had one to (a cool star with gold leaf) and managed to eat it all and it was rather nice.