THE DESIGN MUSEUM
After a leisurely breakfast and ritual bag-packing I headed to the design museum .

I have always been fascinated  overhearing small snippets of conversations as you walk by someone on the street or bus etc. On the way to the Design Museum this ‘Londoner’ walked by, chatting to what I presume was a male friend when I heard him say “I just saw this fit ass bird, wow, she had these tight jeans and sweet boots”. It cracked me up. For all you not in the know, what he was actually saying was “well, I have just had the good fortune to witness a most beautiful girl who was passing by, she was most fine”.  Too funny.

“The Design Museum is the world’s leading museum devoted to contemporary design in every form from furniture to graphics, and architecture to industrial design. It is working to place design at the centre of contemporary culture. The Design Museum’s mission is to celebrate, entertain, and inform.”

The Design Museum was OK, although a little disappointing, not because of the exhibition content or the way it was choreographed but for a totally different surprising reason. There were several exhibitions showing. One was work by product designers who were all winners of the ‘Brit Insurance Design of The Year 2010‘ showcasing the best in product design form the last few years. The other was titled ‘Sustainability’.

The design competition was in general a fantastic exhibit showcasing everyday products that have been reinvented often revolutionizing our everyday lives. So what was the problem I mentioned earlier. Well, I had seen most of it before (about 75%) online on blogs that I follow on a regular basis. Five years ago when I came to London the Design Museum was a real treat as not many galleries focus on just design. But as I am online a lot more these days and follow the same interests in the digital world it was as if the Design Museum has become (for me) a ‘physical blog’ in a way, a strange experience  indeed.

There was a third exhibition ‘Urban Africa’ which was one man’s travels of Africa. He was born an African and has traveled to every country over the last ten or so years. He broke down the structure of his exploration when he went to each city to exploring where the civic architecture is, where the commercial architecture is and where the residential architecture is and photographed what he found. As you entered the show there were large (8 feet) cutouts of the shape of Africa, but each one showed a different slice of African information, from population, flags of each country to land type in that region. These were fantastic, large, graphic and informative – by far the most interesting element of the exhibition. In another room he had hundreds of 4×6 photos from each city based on his predetermined criteria. I found this very boring in a way and very overwhelming, it would have been great to break up the monotony with some of his hero images enlarged nice and big.

My favourite element of this show was some copy on the wall explaining his approach to his travels. It read “After the complex logistics of organizing travel arrangement and documents to get to a city, on the eve of the trip I approach each city without preconception. I want a naivety, I  want to be surprised. This volatile position allows me to look more precisely”.  This really spoke to me and I really like this approach for part of the time when we go on our global travels. I think some planning and seeing some attractions is a good idea, but to have some cities or even countries where we know little or nothing about may be fun and exciting. That said, to do some research to make sure they are safe to be traveling through especially with a young one would be advisable but to be free to explore once we arrive sounds freeing and fun.

TIME FOR FRIDAY BEERS
After hooking up with my next set of hosts, my good friends Matt and Ellie we went for early beers on a Friday. It didn’t take long though for the pub to soon fill up. I tried three local London brews, ESB, Bengal Lancer and London Pride. As I am writing this a few days later and have had a pint already tonight I’m afraid my memory for fine details has eroded substantially– so no detailed descriptions of each pint I’m afraid. What I can tell you is that they went down well, had good flavour and all with a medium hoppy taste. Very nice  indeed.

This was followed by an English Friday tradition, especially after several pints of beer. Yes, you guessed it, we went for a curry. Not your usual cheap and nasty curry but a rather nice and fancy one called Babur in Forest Hill near to where I was staying. As soon as you walked in we were slapped sensually by the amazing curry smell, not too hard, not too soft, but a perfect slap wanting you to enquire further. Enquire we did. The poppadoms came with three different chutneys, a  garlic one, a mango curry and cardamom chutney – so yummy. I had a medium spiced lamb curry washed down with a glass of traditional Indian Kingfisher beer. Wow, I am glad I didn’t order the hot. The flavours were rich and left me thinking that the ingredients were of high quality and were made with passion in the kitchen. More expensive than I would normally pay for a curry but well worth it as the food, interior, service and atmosphere were well above the average curry restaurant.

SEE IMAGES ON FLICKR:
part 1, part 2, part 3 & part 4

Leave your response!