Thursday was an up-and-down day. I had been thinking it would be good to get some music-related stops in. Our passes offered free admission to the British Music Experience, which sounded a bit like a UK version of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The BME was located in something called “The Dome,” or O2 entertainment complex, which Jim Hendricks had mentioned, so I was a bit curious. And the Maritime Museum was just a short bus trip away.
So we were up early, had another fine breakfast, and took the tube to North Greenwich, arriving a few minutes before the 10 a.m. opening of the British Music Experience. An overheard bit of “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen seemed portentious.
It wasn’t.
Scenes from the O2
The O2 was like something out of Star Trek. It was big, expensive, garish — and deserted. We saw only a couple of workmen doing maintenance, plus some security folks and a random individual apparently late for work yet still in no hurry to get there. The same few songs kept looping on an animated display overhead. After about 15 minutes, we decided we would leave with the next loop.
And so we braved a double-decker bus for the first time and headed for the Maritime Museum. That was great.
The Maritime Museum
The Naval College across the street
You could easily have spent a lot of time there really taking in the displays and detail. The school tour groups were a bit of a hassle but they came and went quickly. And we realized that the observatory was just up the hill. Our guide book hadn’t mentioned that — probably because there is no offer made to London Pass holders — but we mentally added it to our list of must-see sites.
Some hours having passed, we decided to attempt the British Music Experience again. That’s a 15-pound admission. Our London Passes covered it, or I would have been a lot more perturbed about what happened next.
The venue was finally staffed and open, and we found ourselves amongst a small group of visitors. We quickly found that the hype was hollow. I sew, and could immediately spot problems with the “worn by” claims. Mark was finding questionable claims about gear. And, it seems, the big focus is on playing and recording — a “play time” studio experience. But Mark is a recording major and is already working with the real thing — a mock experience didn’t hold any appeal for him. Still, some of the displays were nicely presented, and we were just beginning to have a look around … when an alarm sounded, and we were instructed to leave by any exit we could find. It’s mostly rather dark, so that was a bit of an adventure, but eventually everyone exited and milled about in the outer walkway.
The staff themselves seemed flustered and could offer neither an explanation of what had happened, or a target time for readmission. So we waited a bit more. After about 15 minutes a staff member advised us that we might as well go get something to eat and come back later, as they still had no information to offer.
We’d already done the “go away and come back later” thing once, and decided to treat the mis-occurrence as time returned to us. There was still time for music! So we headed back into London, to the George Frideric Handel House.
The Handel House
Don’t let the lack of photos fool you. The Handel House was pretty darned cool. It’s still very much alive with activity and music. There were friendly hosts with informational hand-outs in various languages for each room, and a quartet of young folks in the front parlor practicing for a concert. There was even a wall with photos devoted to one-time neighbor Jimi Hendrix. It’s in an old, pretty neighborhood near Hanover Square — not a part of London we’d have been likely to explore, otherwise.
We’d hoped to see the HMS Belfast but arrived a bit too late for the final admission. We’d covered a lot of ground by then and wanted rest and food. Cait suggested fish and chips. (She eventually was to down a LOT of fish and chips, though once was enough for Mark and myself.) We’re in London, I thought — how hard can it be to find fish and chips? But nearly all of the “true” places are take-out — no tables — and we needed rest as well.
The quest took longer than we planned. Cait suggested The Anchor, a site we had spotted the day before near the Golden Hinde replica. And so we walked …
000
The Belfast, the London and Tower Bridges, modern architecture
Unfortunately, the Anchor’s fish and chip shop was closed for a private party. So we set off again, and finally decided simply to hit the fish and chip shop near the Italian restaurant in Bermondsey that we had eaten at the night before. There was a nearby park area with benches, so even though it was a counter shop only, we could get off our feet.
And so we did. It was no doubt authentic (Mark noted that bugs kept landing in his open food paper), but we had found what we were looking for. Having consumed some fish and chips, we headed back to the Docklands for a good foot soak in a bathtub full of water, followed by sleep.