National Portrait Gallery - London, UK

17th January 2014 - Free

Joena Lisa, Joena Lisa 
men have named you

Britain, ey? What are we like? Well, we’re a bit like France, a lot like America, some like Germany with a little bit of Irish thrown in. In fact, name a country, we’re more like them than not. Some would say Britain's the last bastion of chivalry, galloping through the ages like Boudicca in her chariot - the most over-achieving land on God’s green. Others say we’re the result of geographic fortune in our isolation that meant a strong navy and lucky winds stopped many invasions and said ships could double up as hulking great slaving vessels, bursting with their quarry. The folks at the National Portrait Gallery have committed to showing us the faces of those who've built this ragtag, past-tense, tin-island empire that sixty million of us call home.

For reasons way too boring to bother you with now, I was up at the crack of dawn on the day of my visit and was, subsequently, the first person through the gates. I could have run to the centre of the gallery and shouted “first!” like those absolute FANNIES do on the internet, but I really didn't want to. 

Sherlock Holmes Museum - London, UK

6th January 2014 - £8

The Desolation of Smug

A new year, a new season of Sherlock, the BBC’s much-hallowed flagship drama, and it appears the seams in the deer-stalker are starting to fray. Silly motorbike chases, oh so sentimental asides (we get it, they’re friends) and a worrying lack of puzzles only a genius could solve have left a pretty special show feeling less Twin Peaks and more Peak Practice. I’m clearly in a minority over this, however, as on my first attempted visit to the Sherlock Holmes Museum the queue stretched from 221B to Madame Tussaud’s. You can sing for that, I thought, but promised that “Joseph Deeney will return!” and return he did, the day after the disastrous second episode and finally I was in league with the common man as the queue had dissipated to a manageable half an hour.