After stumbling out of bed on a slightly overcast Saturday morning it was off to the Borough Markets (the weather wasn't quite good enough to trek up to Primrose Hill). I took the tube down to Moorgate and walked down accompanied by a friend from work. Admittedly, heading to the Borough Markets wasn't quite my idea... but a good idea nevertheless.
There always seems to be drama on my way to go see something. Bizzare. Last week it was wedding busses, now this week it was Nike leggings advertisments. On the way from St.Paul's towards Tate Modern (along the Millenium Bridge) there was a reasonably attractive lass jogging up and down on the spot, holding her hair up. Odd. She then stopped, rolled up her top to ensure that her midrift was exposed and did it again. Something was clearly not right. I continued walking across the bridge, and it all became clear. A cameraman was filming - I just didn't see him as he was behind a light shield (I didn't know it was one of those light shields until I focused on it properly). Below is a quick snap that I took of the situation.
After a stroll eastwards along the Thames from the Millennium Bridge we finally hit the Borough Markets. It was quite obvious that we had arrived based on the fact that there were umbrellas with the words “Borough Markets” emblazoned across them. Another good indicator besides the glaringly obvious was the mass of people milling about the banks of stalls inside three large connected pavilions. The stalls inside sold plenty, as variety seems to be the name of the game. Goods on offer included things such as cheeses, vegetables, cakes, seafood, wine, bread, olives … even plants!
One thing about the Borough Markets is that it isn’t all that big. There are just the three pavilions and everything is packed in fairly tight. You could easily do the entire circuit inside of an hour. Having said that, there’s definitely plenty on offer! I didn’t end up buying anything – with the exception of lunch. As it was roughly lunchtime I settled on a Bratwurst Roll with Sauerkraut, Ketchup, and Mustard. A decent feed, albeit a bit pricey.
There were a few things in the markets that were a bit more appealing than my lunch. The first notable item was a cheese stall. You could smell this stall from a mile away, and there were quite a few people queued up to sample the stall's wares. The interesting thing about this was that they had a block of cheese held in place under a flat rectangular prism heating the top of the block of cheese. Now, it was open for people to see so you could see the cheese ripple and bubble as it cooked. Looked quite tasty!
Another set of items to note was a pyramid of giant meringues. I’m not exactly a meringue connoisseur, and I’m not exactly sure how big they are supposed to be… but these things were massive. Each were a great deal larger than a fist! The stall that housed these meringues were at one of the extreme corners of the markets, so it didn't get alot of foot traffic. Several people did stop by and sample one though! Picture below.
A couple more shots from the markets:
On Saturday afternoon, after all was done with the Markets, I headed off to the British Library to see the Magnificent Maps exhibition. I decided to round out some sight seeing with some culture. The exhibition was great and is really something to see if you’re nearby, as it closes on the 19th of September. If I’m a bit of a nerd for visiting the exhibition, so be it. I used to love looking at the Altas when I was a young kid, and my relatives always used to quiz me on the geographic details when I was younger – “What’s the capital of Venezuela?” and “What’s the highest mountain in South America?” would be prime examples. Alas, age has stripped this information away from me.
Anyway, back to the reason why I enjoyed the exhibition. The exhibition appealed to me as it brought maps into perspective. In the modern age, we just take maps for granted and they effectively are a vehicle of factual information. If you want to find out where you are – a smartphone with GPS can tell you where you are and directions on where to go (if you so wish). In a not so intelligent sense, the maps scattered around London city provide a similar function.
Maps in ages past were used as items of prestige, a way for monarchs and aristocrats to display to guests the vastness of their dominion or estate. Maps were also prime vehicles for propaganda – something that isn’t immediately obvious in the modern age. Also, you get an understanding of knowledge at the time the map was created. For example in the Fra Mauro World Map of 1450, Earth was viewed as the centre of the universe!
Alas, no photos allowed inside the exhibition. Maybe it was no flash photography, but I was busy reading all the plaques and scrutinising details of maps, in anycase.
Finally, on Sunday evening it was the finale of the London International Animation Festival. I actually stumbled across this as I was wandering around the local shopping centre – and I must say that it was a pleasant surprise. I’ve never really been to an Animation Festival before, so I didn’t know what to expect. I’ve watched Anime (Japanese Animation) before, but I imagined that this would be quite different… and it was.
By the time I found out about the Festival it was just about over. That’s not an issue though as the very last session that had an available ticket was the “Best of the Festival” session at 7pm. Nice. Why sit through hours of both good and bad clips, when you can just see the good ones. Genius!
The show had an assortment of clips sourced from the competition as a whole. Some of it I didn’t enjoy – things like abstract computer-generated pieces, and sketch films that literally went all over the place. I’m sure from a technical standpoint they were great, but entertainment value was not really up to the mark. However, for every one that I diliked there was one that I thoroughly liked.
One of my favourites was a cute little animation from Canada about a runaway train, where the runaway train hits a steep hill after smashing through a bridge. In order to keep going they needed to burn items for fuel. Compounded by an exchausting supply of coal, the passengers reverted to burning clothes and part of the train itself to continue to struggle up the hill. An entertaining part was when money bags from the first class carriage were being passed to the back of the train, in exchange for clothing coming back to fuel the fire at the front of the train.
The other couple of clips that I enjoyed included a rebellious (read not-PG) clip where the oppressive state (represented by orange) struggles to contain a movement led by a man in a blue Gordini (sports car), a psychologically profound clip of a violent father from the perspective of the father’s son, and a somewhat dark/depressing wood-carved animation about a grandfather who passes away wanting a nice coffin in a poor ration-based state.
Clearly a busy weekend!
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