III(a), with a Souvenir

[squirmelia]

I leapt out of my office building and stood outside swirling my cat-shaped phone around, to try to make the compass on it work.

I decided to attempt "III. (a) Travel to or from your workplace one day using a completely different route to any you've ever used before."


I live to the west of my work place, and to the south of my work place, that much I knew, so I decided to start walking west. The developments at Victoria Station made it hard for me to go west to start with, but eventually I got walking, past the cathedral and past office blocks:





I pass Hobart Place. (I always think of Celia Hobart from Vurt as opposed to Hobart in Tasmania, when I see "Hobart".)

I pass a plaque on a building saying that Lieutenant General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers (1827 - 1900), Anthropologist and Archaeologist lived there, and I assume that must be the same Pitt-Rivers as the museum in Oxford is named after. The museum that has witches in bottles and sympathetic magic and strange instruments in it.

I peer into some gardens with shiny sculptures in.

I see the chimneys of Battersea Power Station in the distance, and then I am in Chelsea.

"It's okay," a woman wearing sunglasses says to a baby.

"It takes ages and it's boring," a man in a back to front baseball cap says.

"It's fascinating watching the changes," I hear someone else say.

I pass Peter Jones, the department store which I visited during Open House Weekend.

"Oh, you wild lady," a woman's voice says.

I am then on King's Road, and I know that on King's Road there is chewing gum art by Ben Wilson, so I keep my eyes peeled, but I don't see any this time.

"Fucking TFL!" a man in a suit exclaims.

I cross the road as I see an ice-cream place, but it is closed. There are little fountains though, and on the ground is a map: "A survey of His Majesties private road - from London to Fulham".



I leave King's Road as I realise it's not going due west. I walk up Elystan Place, Sprimont Place, Ixworth, Pond.



I am a 9 minute walk from the Victoria and Albert Museum, according to my map, so I decide to detour, as I found there is a V&A Late on, as part of the London Festival of Architecture so the museum is open until 10.

I stop at Wafflemeister on my way to the museum and eat a nutella ice-cream.

When I reach the museum, there's music playing and I am given a brochure. On the front are shapes and it says, "New Architectural Shapes." Wando, chumnei, storps, bradge, fince, flooge, woob, and so on.

I see a mass of rubbish and people rifling through it. It's an event held by the Spanish architecture collective, Basurama. I go past the barriers and ask if I can participate. I am given a plastic bag and then start rifling through the rubbish. It's mostly bits of paper. I find negatives to do with the wiring of the museum. I find post it notes, leaflets from past exhibitions, bits of polystyrene, cloth, gauze, abandoned cups, photos of cupboards, and then: a keyboard. I tear the keys off and put some on in my bag. A little boy and a girl try to tear off more keys, but they are not strong enough and ask me how I get them off. I tear some of the keys off for them.



I find a note that says, "Mannequins. Aargh!" and put it in my bag.

I finish filling my bag with bits of paper and polystyrene and bits of cup and gauze and keys from a keyboard, and at the desk they seal it. I now have a souvenir from the museum.





I buy a book in the sale: Interplay: Interactive Design by Lauren Parker. It's from 2003 and I wonder how many of the websites mentioned in it are still there.

I then leave the museum and wonder about how to get home, and conclude that as I usually get trains home, this time I must get buses. I get on the 430 to Roehampton.

I see West Brompton Cemetery from the bus, gravestones behind a fence.

I get off the bus at the Empress State Building, and wander briefly to look at it, next to Earl's Court Exhibition centre.

Brymay sign:


While I wait at the bus-stop I am asked how to get to Chelsea Hospital. I don't know, but find it on the sign on the bus-stop so point at that, and tell the men that they want the 328 or the C3 or the N31.

I get on the 190 to Richmond.

The bus takes me past the Rylston pub, which I once visited for the only actually west occurrence of Computer Anonymous - West London group.

I pass another Brymay sign, and a shop selling "Best quality foo & wine".

I see a sign on a shop saying, "Moth wars."

There are a group of women talking loudly on the bus. "There were girls dancing on the bar. I think that was Twickenham," one of them says.

The bus goes past Entwistle Terrace and Prebend Mansion.

The bus seems to go slowly and it's getting dark, but eventually I reach Richmond, and then I get another bus, which takes me home.

Map: Flan: The long way home.