It Must Be Art

Then suddenly, family! My family!

You can tell where I get my rougish good looks from.

(I blame Latin class for my frequent impulse to adapt "Suddenly, pipe players!" to every situation.*)

My dad and my younger brother came to visit, and we spent a few days touristing in London, walking around, cycling in Hyde Park, and visiting the museums. I also drank more coffee than was good for me because my dad was paying, which counters the effect coffee usually has on my wallet, but not, apparently, on my brain. I seem to remember that London is made of wibbling and feels like dizzy.

Hi London!

It's lucky we decided to visit the Natural History Museum as it opened, because even by the time we left, there were queues out the door for the exhibits. I'm glad that other people also think dinosaurs are awesome, but I wish they'd find some other time to appreciate them.

Glad we cleared that up.

Looking like this T-rex.

We started off our visit to the Science Museum with a look around the latest art exhibition, which none of us could make sense of, even with the help of two English degrees' worth of making stuff up between us. It took us about five minutes to decide that all our serious frowning at pictures wasn't going to make them make any more sense, and we headed for all the button pressing rooms instead.

"I don't get it. It must be art!"

Art.

Art faces off, science faces ON.

The big downside of the button pressing rooms is that apparently they're mostly for kids. I know, right? On top of which it was school holidays, so all the children in the world were there. Except for the ones who were looking at dinosaurs instead, I guess.

As with the dinosaurs, I have nothing against kids liking science. Science is awesome! Kids should like science! It's just that loud noises and crowds and high-pitched voices send me into a state of shutdown and I have to sit down quietly in a corner and not talk to anyone until the madness stops. Luckily, Em's the same, so we sent my brother off, found a bench, and consoled ourselves with the fact that at least we weren't as sad as Sad Man, who was regretting his life choices watching his kid with a sadder face than anyone should ever have to bear in a room full of buttons and science.

And I didn't even get to press the buttons because apparently it's bad form to use superior size to get a turn with the fun sciency things. Fine.

These horrified faces brought to you by the Department of Never in a Million Years.

We spent an evening catching up with my old friend Nick, and the next night we went to the theatre to see Shrek the Musical, where the songs were good, the comic timing poor, and the audience lacking in theatre etiquette

Then suddenly, Emilie Autumn!

Em and I dressed up in the limited cool and alternative things we managed to scrounge, and went to Camden Town, where we were still the most conservatively dressed people in the very long line to get in. Unfortunately, we were also near the back of the very long line because we decided to arrive fashionably late, which meant that we had to stand fashionably at the back and couldn't see the stage. We watched most of the show through my camera until the battery died, and then the rest through the occasional gaps between the tall people.

Well, the back of this guy's head is great.

The next morning I took the train to Guildford to visit family, and then my dad and brother and I took a roadtrip back to York. It turns out we're all too competitive to play Yellow Car, but I had great fun yelling "The NORTH!" every time we passed a sign and trying to convince the others to join in.

I can't resist shouting ALLCAPS. Also, the North is pretty great.

THE NORTH! (Yellow car.) (Source)

We did a bit more touristing, which gave me a chance to show off my continued total lack of any sense of direction when it comes to the York city centre. My brother was disappointed that he couldn't convince either his claustrophic dad or his claustrophobic sister to accompany him up the York Minster tower, but he exacted his revenge by dragging my dad around the York Dungeon instead.


Tragically, I had work to do then. What a pity.


We also went out for sushi with my Crazy-Haired Man, with everyone given a list of safe conversation topics and under strictest instructions to play nice ("Turns out my dad's a Tory, so we can't talk about politics. Acceptable topics are whiskey, the superiority of the South of England, and how awesome I am."). 


I'm not controlling. I just like to be prepared

Nice was played, and no one tried to kill anyone. Hooray! To be fair, my dad's never tried to kill anyone I've dated, but there's a first time for everything. Luckily, this was not it.


Which just goes to show that everything works out for the best when people play according to my rules. (I'm assuming that this is the moral of this story. I've long suspected it's the moral of most stories.)
 
*Also "Nevertheless, dormice."