Whilst the mouse is away

This weekend my son is at a Cub Viking boat burning festival and visiting his Dad. This gave me the time to spend some time being a grown up. Or as close to being a grown up as I am able to approximate. I've been in London seeing a band you've probably never heard of unless you have spent a fair amount of time with me. If you have spent a fair amount of time with me since 1994 you will unquestionably have heard of the mighty My Life Story.

On arriving in London we went to the Embankment and, true to my English teacher soul, headed straight to the Globe theatre to hit the gift shop for Shakespeare oriented gifts to fail to entertain children with.




After that we went to Tate Modern and both scoffed at and enjoyed the works in equal measure. I was amused by one work which gave a very accurate astrological reading for me as a Virgo.












Then it was off to the gig to see My Life Story. In a lot of ways I over identify with My Life Story. For starters, I named myself after them on Twitter. In general, the lyrics of every song seem to have something to say to me about my life (yes, I know that's a Smiths quote) and finally I've been travelling Britain to watch them since 1994. I've seen them so many times I can't remember where and when. I've driven from
York to London through snow that Good King Wenceslas would baulk at to spend New Year's Eve with them. There is only one photo of me with a bloke in my living room and it's of me with the lead singer, Jake Shillingford. Suffice to say my love of this band would be dangerous were I not a well balanced human being.







Now I have a terrible confession. Today was the first time I ever went into the British Museum. This is a failing that I can barely comprehend. For somebody who loves history the way I do the fact I could have lived in the same country as the Rosetta stone for upwards of 40 years and never seen it is utterly incomprehensible. The museum is so utterly breathtaking that I honestly was overcome and borderline tearful on a number of occasions. I cannot wait to return to London with my son and show him its treasures.























The Rosetta stone







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Moshi and Mumtaz

Now, if you instantly know what a Moshi is I suspect you are a parent of a child aged somewhere between 5 and 10. Any younger they'll be into Peppa pig and Toy Story, any older they'll be into mooching around shopping centres, looking through their fringes and texting. My son is 9 and therefore right in the middle of the Moshi demographic. When on the laptop he'll be in his Moshi room, feeding his monster and completing his daily challenge. His school bag always has a wee bag full of frighteningly overpriced plastic Moshi figures. Basically, he loves it as so do all of his mates.
Today we went to the National Media museum that was about to finish its February month of Moshi activities. I like the Media museum: it has the original toys from Playschool and Rainbow. You can watch Pipkins in a pod and scare the crap out of modern kids: that programme was dark, man. I have to admit to a sense of trepidation about a day of Moshi monsters but it was pretty good.
The highlight was the clay animation workshop where my son made a Furi model and then animated it. I'm hugely impressed by his artistic vision which you can see it here: Moshi animation
He also got to do a trail based on Internet security, appear on a green screen TV animation and play on Moshi monsters. He loved it.
It wouldn't have been a trip to Bradford without a great curry and I finally (and pretty much by accident) found the legendary Mumtaz restaurant on Great Horton Road. Their food is utterly incredible: it is not even comparable with the bleak yellow slop so many British curry houses turn out. It's utterly delicious and we had a scrumptious and outrageously cheap lunch.
Moshi and Mumtaz. A surprisingly good combination.

A brief history of time

Today we went to Swanage. When I was a baby we lived here and I have flickering half memories of my early childhood. I've been going there most years ever since and always love the little town.

For the past few years Durlston Castle has been covered in hoardings whilst the Heritage Lottery fund redevelops it and I was really impressed by their achievements. Outside there is a time walk to introduce you to the start of the Jurassic coast. Inside is a new art gallery and a fabulous display called The Rock which explains the paleontological remains in a huge slab of Purbeck limestone. There's also a lovely café which serves great cream teas.

Egypt, China, Casterbridge

Today we went to the Tutankhamen exhibition in Dorchester. I've seen the adverts for this museum many times over the years but this was our first visit. My son has been studying Egypt this half term so it seemed an appropriate trip. The museum replicates the antechamber and the tomb, along with recreations of treasures such as the death mask, statues and thrones. Even though nothing originated in Egypt it was still fascinating and brilliantly constructed.

Afterwards we went to another museum which recreated the Terracotta army of Xian (or at least about 5 of them). There was a great 70s video about the first Emperor of China,Qin Shi Huang, who not only unified China, he ordered the Great Wall to be joined together and had the Terracotta Army built; whilst only ruling a unified Imperial China for 10 years. It was really interesting as it's a historical period about which I knew practically nothing.

Upstairs was the Teddy Bear museum where I got to chortle at some dreadful puns (Abearham Lincoln and Che Bearvara) and enjoy being reminded of the brilliance of A.A.Milne and Pooh's immortal view that 'my spelling is wobbly. The letters wobble and go in the wrong place'.

Finally, we sated my Hardy obsession by walking past the house that is immortalised as Michael Henchard's in The Mayor of Casterbridge.

A million is just a statistic

Today we went to the Bovington Tank museum in Dorset. I always find museums dedicated to war a difficult place to visit: I'm not sure how one is supposed to feel. Personally I tend to feel very morally conflicted and a sense of awful ambiguity in mooching around such a monstrous concept. When I was young I was a firm conscientious objector and vehement in marching against the conflicts that my country participated in during the 90s. Nowadays it's hard to have that moral certainty I had when younger. At 23 I wouldn't have visited a tank museum but at 40 I go to bear witness to sacrifice that I wish no person was asked to make. The display which chimed with me most was the awful quote from Josef Stalin 'one person's death is a tragedy, a million people's deaths are a statistic'. Maybe in visiting museums such as Bovington it gives the ability to look at the scale of death in the twentieth century and try to move from statistic to the personal.

The exhibits that chimed with me most are below: the UN Peacekeeping force's armoured car. Whatever the UN's failings in Srebrenica, Somalia and Congo the fact that the world has a peacekeeping force gives me hope. I was also interested by the recreation of Da Vinci's tank concept. My son loved Dad's Army's car.

Snow reason to moan

There is one thing that unites the nation. Disunity. Particularly about snow. As soon as it falls you will see every social network going mad with joy / horror / indifference and people posting it's here / it's not here / why on earth are you telling everyone it's here?

I think the major reason is that there is something exciting about it. We are British: we are used to wind, rain and cold. But snow is different. Even the Scots (who yawn at English snow hysteria but secretly are just as excited. I know this, I lived there) don't see that much of it. My son has been really lucky to go sledging every year from age 6 to 9.

Today was a gorgeous day: powdery snow and blazing sun and we made the absolute most of it. For the record, as long as I don't have to drive and have the right clothes, I love the snow.