Dancing and a Day Out

I should really stop procrastinating and write more. I'm rapidly falling behind. So, where did I leave off?

Ah yes, last Friday. Nearly a fortnight ago. Oops. Well, after purchasing my hula hoop, Laura and I finally gave in to Robin and Ellie's frequent invitations to join them, and we shuffled over to somewhere near Gloucester Road for the purpose of dancing.  Well, I say 'we'. Laura certainly came with me but, having somehow crippled her feet for the second time in a week, she struggled to walk as far as the venue and was in no position to actually dance. So, she watched and did some audit/tax-related homework whilst I had my first encounter with Ceroc. 

Ceroc is probably best described as a kind of Latin-style ballroom dancing. As a woman, it seems to largely involve being led around by the male partner, only vaguely remembering the moves and trying not to fall over as you are spun round and round again and again. It pretty fast-paced once you get going, not too complicated, and relatively easy to pick up (for the woman, anyway; the men have to learn all the moves properly, which a few seemed to struggle with). I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it, even if some of the music sounded like it had been stolen from the DJ on a SAGA cruise liner. I was a little concerned that I'd have a problems with being in such close proximity to strangers, particularly given my recent return to personal space issues, but it was generally okay. That said, some men could do with an friendly explanation as to the location of the waist on taller girls.
Still, it was good fun and I think I might adopt it as a hobby.

Skipping forward to Tuesday, it was both the remarkable (in many ways) return of the Boyd, and Laura's birthday. Slightly cash-strapped, she received from me a hula hoop of her own in pink and lime green, which I then decided to coat in silver glitter with Pritt Stick. This wasn't the brightest of moves, of course, as the flat is still covered in a dusting of the stuff. But never mind. I wrapped the thing in a whole roll of red paper. She opened it by smashing it over my head. 

There were also balloons, strawberry jelly in shot glasses, the latest Sherlock Holmes film, and a jaunt to Muswell Hill to fetch fish and chips from the rather excellent Toff's. On the way back I got heckled for driving too slowly by a cockney on bicycle with “Come on, my son!”. What a cockney was doing in north London, I'm not sure.

I actually ended up back at Toff's on Thursday night with Ellie, Laura, Nick and Robin. We went to a Ceroc class near Muswell Hill this time, and as it was a little nicer than Gloucester Road (and much closer) it looks like we'll be making a habit of it. Laura managed to join in too, and despite her initial misgivings, has proclaimed it to be 'The Best Fun Ever'. Then again, she does say that about quite a lot of things. Regardless, we raced up the hill en voiture afterwards for fish and chips, where we ate until nearly 11pm with some of us sat on a low wall, and others just on the pavement. We are quite classy sometimes.

On Friday morning I sauntered down to the Job Centre for my fortnightly chat and was pleased to find that the person I have to talk to is much more understanding and helpful than the one from last summer. He spent five minutes scrolling through a list of local jobs before declaring that I would not get any of them if I did apply and sending me on my way. I appreciate his efficiency. 

 

From there I headed immediately to Paddington and jumped on a train to Oxford. Enroute I passed a steam train, which saw me pressing my face against the glass like a child in a sweet shop.

I found Simon under the arrivals board, thoroughly distracted by a large pasty. A brief amble later and we found Leeanne curled up on a windowsill reading in the Classics section at Blackwells, having previously utilised the location for a nap. From there we went for lunch before visiting the Ashmolean Museum for japes. I would like to tell you about its contents in detail, but as I was in one of those moods where you just walk around looking at things without reading anything, I hardly feel qualified. I'll just say tthat the highlights for me included some Greek pottery I recognised, a copy of a statue that I got over-excited about, Lawrence of Arabia's clothes, a weaving game for children that had Simon enthralled and, most importantly, impressively tall automatic doors that went all the way up to the high ceilings over four metres above us.

When they kicked us out (we just about managed to refrain from sliding under a closing shutter whilst reaching back for our imaginary fedoras) we paid a visit to Jamie Oliver's restaurant nearby and were very impressed with the results. The price was reasonable, the food was delicious, and the service excellent (which probably explains the sizeable queue that was forming outside the door when we left). If you go, do have the chocolate brownie with raspberries and amaretto biscuit baked in. It's wonderfully decadent.
I sadly had to depart for my train at this juncture, but I had a lovely afternoon, and it was very nice indeed to hang out with my two very good friends. I look forward to the promised Nottingham barbecues when they move house.

 Once back in London, I went straight on to a pub near Mornington Crescent to rendezvous with Henry and Rose-Heather for an evening of German-orientated goth/rock/metal music. I will confess that I'm not terribly up on the German stuff, but it was still pretty enjoyable, even if it was a poor turnout and I initially felt a little out of place wearing no corset and no black at all. Ah well. It was great to catch up with the pair, and I'm hoping to hassle them more often now that they live quite close to me.

To finish the evening, I made friends with a Rastafarian man on rollerblades as I walked to get my bus home at 1am. He said that he liked my attitude, saw zeros everywhere, and was on the way to his 'office', which was apparently the entirety of Camden. You do meet some interesting people in London.

Museum Trip

I can not decide what colour to make this wretched blog. This is starting to irritate me massively. Please bear with me until I make up my mind. Also, if the background image makes things hard to read, or is not tall enough, please can somebody tell me.

Not that I really do much at the moment besides crafting increasingly outlandish covering letters, but I suppose I'm due for a update.

The highlight of these last few days has, I suppose, been my jaunt to the British Museum to see the Renaissance drawings exhibition and my interview with the British Museum's publishing company afterwards. One thing at a time.

On Tuesday lunchtime I trundled down to the BM and finally gave in to my urge to get a membership. For a moderate sum of cash, I now have free access to all the exhibitions no matter how many times I choose to visit, invitations to members' evenings, invitations to lectures, free use of a members' room in the west wing, and, of course, the obligatory tri-annual magazine. Lovely. I've put in a little extra too, so that I can haul a guest along for free to all events. Now I just need to find a friend who's interested.

(There's actually a members' evening on Monday, which I'm quite excited about as the lectures sound pretty interesting and I've managed to get one of the lats tickets to the one I'm most interested in. But I digress, I'll tell you how that goes once it's happened.)

Immediately utilising my rapidly dog-eared receipt (my membership card will hopefully show up in the post in the near future) I bypassed those queueing at the door to the Italian Renaissance Drawings exhibition on my way in. The current transformation of the circular reading room is pretty impressive. If you don't know what it usually looks like, here it is. Yes, I have borrowed this for my background.

For the exhibition, however, the desks have been covered by decking to form a new floor, the windows blacked out and a number of walls erected to hang stuff off. It's eerily quiet, except for the shuffling feet of those with audio guides, and the lighting is almost atmospheric (this is somewhat ruined by the result being that you need to be a lot closer than you would usually to see the items). The domed ceiling looms unlit in the shadows above. It's a nice setting for the content, bar some of the lighting. But perhaps a bulb or two had blown.

The drawings themselves are ordered to demonstrate the move from the Gothic period to the Renaissance, though not necessarily chronologically. There are a couple helpful video projections telling you about techniques, materials used, and such. I think I have a soft spot for silverpoint. Anyway, I obviously can't describe the pictures, but there's enough in there to keep you occupied for an hour or so if you're reading everything. I definitely would recommend trying to go when it's quiet though. I was there at around 12:30 on a Tuesday, and I was having to wait for people to get out of the way to look at things. Perhaps it's the aforementioned lighting, or the average age of the visitors I saw, but a lot of people seemed keen to stand with their noses a couple of inches from the glass for overlong periods of time. I get that they wanted to appreciate the detail, but so did I, and it's tricky when somebody's head is obscuring the entirety of a small sketch.

Bizarrely, the thing that most caught my eye was a very dark drawing by Benozzo Di Lese - 'Totila's Assault on Perugia' (c.1461). I have likely seen it before, as it normally lurks in the lovely Uffizi in Florence and I did spend some hours wandering its corridors back in 2008. Perhaps that's why it caught my eye. Apologies for the quality of the picture, but there seem to be no images online so I have photographed from the paperback catalogue that officially accompanies the exhibition and tweaked it to make it more intelligible. It's better in real life, of course.

Unfortunately, my mother rang me halfway round so (being intimidated by the library-esque atmosphere – well, I suppose it was in a library) I had to breeze through the second half of the exhibits in order to return her call. I intend go back to finish the tour in the next couple of weeks.

From there I made my way out of the north entrance to Russell Square and the British Museum's publishing company. I applied for the 3-month, part-time, September-start, sales/marketing/publicity/rights internship a week after the deadline, so I was surprised to be offered an interview. Yet I was, and I had quite a pleasant half-hour taking to a couple of ladies about how I was so keen for the experience that I'd probably gnaw my left foot off to get it. I did, of course, express this slightly more eloquently, and was told that they'd be in contact to let me know if I'd gotten through to the second round of interviews. I thought it went pretty well. I usually struggle to express my enthusiasm for things in interviews, but in this case I probably looked like I was taking personality tips from Mr Bingley. Excellent publishing experience + working for the British Museum =  Hell yes.

So, off I skipped to hassle other people for work (including a part-time job with a literary agent that would compliment an internship like that perfectly).

Well, perhaps my luck is changing, because I've just had a phone call. Apparently they liked my foaming-at-the-mouth verve. Never mind round two, they've offered me the thing! YES! And apparently, it might yet be extended to four months to start in August. I am quite keen for this. Admittedly, I'm probably going to have to flog myself to a pulp in some part-time job for three days a week (with three at the BM) in order to have enough money to live, but I suppose I can man up and deal with that. I am pretty happy.

I have another job interview for a marketing assistant position next Thursday. Knowing my luck, I'll get it and have to choose between a paying job and something that I'd love to do. That would really suck and probably be just my luck. But we'll see. Fingers crossed.

Well done, by the way, to all of you who've finished your degrees! You all seem to have great results – I hope you are celebrating appropriately! Pimms and barbecues ahoy!

Charlie's coming to visit for the weekend tomorrow. I am excited about this, but the flat is disgusting and everyone else is out (Boydy is at terminal velocity somewhere in Spain, and Laura is in South Kensington with her beau, despite maiming her feet in a way that makes her walk like an Igor) so I guess it's up to me to tidy up. Damn.