First class through a champagne glass

This past weekend, Matthias and I made one of our periodic trips to London to cram in as much big city culture as is possible in a single weekend. We picked up the habit years ago after realising that racing across the city to catch the last train home after concerts was very stressful and unpleasant, and that it would be better to stay overnight in a cheap hotel after the gig, and do other London-y stuff around it. This usually means a couple of meals out and an exhibition. This weekend, however, a convergence of events meant that it was a concert, a Cirque du Soleil matinee, two exhibitions, and multiple meals out across about thirty hours. We even managed to cram in a catch up with catpuccinotrin, who I hadn't seen since late 2019!

The concert in question was XYLØ, an unfamiliar-to-me artist who I would probably best describe as Lana del Rey in mood, but with a much less somnolent sound. The venue was a tiny little jewellery box of a club in Shepherd's Bush, and it seemed to be a former ballroom, filled with glittering chandeliers, disco balls, and other elaborate decorations dangling from a very high ceiling. I liked the music well enough, but the gig had a weird vibe — the room was only 1/3 full and apart from a pack of obsessives near the stage, very few people were dancing energetically, and XYLØ left without coming back for an encore, which I've only ever seen once in a gig before.

The Cirque du Soleil matinee was Kurios, which was, as usual, in the Royal Albert Hall (this time we were literally in the highest seats in the place, which was certainly an experience), and had a steampunk aesthetic inspired by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century cabinets of curiosities. The set itself was fantastic, and there were a couple of good acts — a great teeterboard act, a great group trampoline act in a giant net suspended above the stage, and a fun banquine finale (although I've now seen four banquine acts in Cirque shows and they really need to find new material, since the grand closing masterpiece is always four men standing on top of each other's shoulders, and it's got to the point that I know it's coming; the best banquine act will forever be the finale from Quidam, which aside from being technically brilliant is just an incredible piece of choreography and storytelling), and Cirque is really important to me, so it means a lot that I've been able to share it with Matthias these past few years.

In terms of exhibitions, we saw one in the British Library about Alexander the Great, but rather than it being a standard chronological account of his life, it was about how he was represented in culture and literature across time, and across different parts of the world. This meant things were gathered thematically rather than chronologically, so you'd have Egyptian papyrus from the first century sitting next to Malaysian graphic novels from the twentieth century, or German woodblock prints from the early modern period next to clips from early 2000s anime. I found it really impressive in its breadth, and in the coherent story it was able to tell across such a wide geographic region and spread of time.

On the Sunday morning we saw an exhibition about the interaction between science fiction and science, in the Science Museum. This was aimed at a younger audience in terms of being very interactive, with a frame fictional narrative about an alien AI wanting to find out about human life and scientific endeavour, but then most of the exhibits were of media aimed at an adult (or at least not specifically a child) audience, ranging from the big hits of US pop culture to early French and German cinema and Soviet science fiction films and novels. We had a bit of time left before our lunch reservation so we ended up seeing a couple of free exhibitions as well — one on scientific research in early modern London (and how it interwove with British economic/industrial developments, and was used to fuel empire and exploitation), and one that was just a massive collection of clocks and watches. They're well worth looking at if you have an hour of spare time and are in that part of London.

We ate a lot of great meals out, but the highlights were probably the coffee and cake in honeyandcobloomsbury with catpuccinotrin (which was so good I want to come back at least two more times, for both brunch, and a full lunch or dinner), dinner at kricketlondon before the gig (amazing Indian food with a twist, e.g. pakora, but made with samphire), and our usual train station staples of thegermangym and caravanrestaurants, which are close to Kings Cross station and very good at serving food that fits in with train departure times!

All in all, it was a fabulous (if expensive) weekend. If I can't live in a big city, having one only an hour away by train is the next best thing!