Oh, London

All of us have been lingering around the city praying for the return of the ridiculous hot-flash that was last weekend. I further suppose that we were rather disappointed by the pissing down rain, the chilliness and the weak rays of sunshine that rarely bobbed out from below the clouds, like my head from under the blanket on a Sunday morning following a decent weekend. London weather seems more like a dirty tease at the moment, some heavy petting and then a total let down. But fear not. I have found a way to make all of us get over our momentary disappointment and fall right back in love with this gorgeous city, and forget all about it not putting out for once. 

The Museum of London houses the Galleries of Modern London from May 28th until 31st of August with free entry. Absolutely awesome. Starting somewhere in the mid-17th century all bits and bobs bring us up to the present day city we all know and love. If features all sorts of cool interactive technology, for example you can tap on the water-fountain complete with sensors to learn what kind of crap is floating about the sewers. Totally gross, but also great fun. If you live relatively central, you can find your neighbourhood down to the house on an 18th century colour-coded map of wealth and crime distribution. Apparently the part of Camden where I live, which is definitely is not the nicest at this point in history, featured as upper middle class with low levels of crime, while my friend living in Marylbone was semi-middle class. Urbanization bites. For my lovely hood anyway. 

It is a very interactive and personal space. There is fashion, industry, royalty and diversity. One of my favourite parts was an interview montage of what I presumed was to represent the changing attitudes and atmosphere of London. The few sentences from each participant were moving, funny, thoughtful and insightful. The one that had me snickering was one not poignantly relevant to London, but had a more universal appeal. A boy in his late teens-early 20s, from the mid-60s, was having the following (approximate) conversation with the invisible interviewer:

'Do you think girls have to be virgins?'

'Well yea, yea I think so.'

'Why?'

'Well, because then you don't know where they've been.'

'Do you think guys have to be virgins?'

Pause. Sensing a trap maybe?

'Erm, no man, no.'

'Why not?'

'Well that's different, innit, I mean you see it's different. Don't you think? ... It's different, innit?'