What Mark did

One of my great failings on here is that I constantly jaunt off somewhere and never get around to actually describing the experience. Not that my life is exciting enough that anyone would want to live it vicariously, but a few more details wouldn't go amiss. And besides, I had a good weekend and I'm in the mood to share.

Saturday began with a visit to the Palace of Westminster in the company of Kathryn, friend, colleague and kind provider of accommodation for the weekend. More specifically the destination was Westminster Hall, the oldest part of the building which housed Parliament once upon a time, but is now a cavernous and mostly empty space (a slightly incongruous gift shop took up one corner in which I purchased some olde parliamentary chocolate coins). The reason for the visit was to sample an exhibition on Guy Fawkes and the infamous plot to destroy Parliament. It was only a small exhibit, but interesting none the less and greatly enlivened by the presence of an actor playing the role of Fawkes recounting the plot from his perspective. Not only were the details interesting, but he played his part superbly, querying the audience in order to divine if any heretics were present before throwing himself into his performance.

Moving on, we sauntered along the South Bank for a while, our next destination being the Clink Prison Museum. We stopped for a brief while along the way to take in the Tate Modern, a building I have some fondness for, particularly since Olafur Eliasson's Weather Project. We didn't have time to move beyond Turbine Hall, but I enjoyed the experience anyway. Rachel Whiteread's Embankment consists of 14,000 plastic boxes cast from cardboard boxes in which personal items belonging to the artist were stored. The boxes are arranged in a variety of configurations, evoking city streets and snow bound landscapes and the public is free to roam amongst the structures. It's not quite as engaging as the Weather Project - which was remarkable as for the effect it had on those viewing it - but it evoked a similar sense of wonderment. Strangely I felt rather differently about it after discovering that parts of the artist's history were literally torn apart in order to construct it. It seemed a little more solemn and a little less playful after that.

The Clink Prison Museum isn't an experience I'd recommend on the other hand. In someways it embodies the worst qualities of those sorts of museums, being a slightly tacky attempt to recreate the prison experience of times past replete with worn looking manikins in shackles. To be honest though, that can be fun sometimes, but what really put me off it were some of torture instruments on display, the worst of which appear relatively innocuous but which can be used to inflict the most horrific pain and injuries. I can't conceive how anyone could conceive of such devices. It was a vivid reminder of just how far society has come, and how low it can sink.

After that we headed back into the center of town, almost getting tangled in the Lord Mayor's Parade along the way, to catch Ducktastic, a play concerning the age old themes of love, magic and... poultry. A comedy believe it or not, and a splendidly silly one at that, and with tickets only £10 at the moment, rather good value too. It's filled to brim with genuinely groan worthy puns, some rather deft magic tricks and a surprising amount of simulated nudity for a family show - not that anyone seemed to mind of course. It's closing in a few days time, but it's well worth a look if you find yourself at loose end one evening.

Anyway, that's the bulk of it, and quite enough for the moment. I really need to get some sleep as I've an early start to get to the nearly finished flat tomorrow. It really is nearly finished now. I'm even going to be moving in this weekend, but that's another story...