Museum of London - London, UK

4th May 2013 - Free

"Leave it, you slag"

Apples and Pears. Ronnie and Reggie. Snooker loopy. Terry meets Julie. Step in time and I was at Violet’s funeral. It’s time to doff one’s top hat to the Bow Bells and snort jellied eels at a pop-up restaurant till the war’s over by Christmas. I don’t know what I’m saying. Welcome to London. 

(n.b. for this blog I’ll be making up my own rhyming slang)

London’s tectonic (plate/great). It’s big and smelly and glorious and fun and dirty and expensive and different and exciting and waaaaay too busy and that’s why we love it. Sure, it rains like a jungle, but who comes here for the weather? 

Them city walls are keeping no 
one out

I may be biased, but would it churlish to nominate London as history’s most important city? Athens is our cradle, Rome was eternal and New York can’t get to sleep, but London’s been a burning plague pit for thousands of years and shows no signs of stopping. The Russians and Arabs may be buying the city’s soul piecemeal, but this old town’s still ours. 

Standing in the post-blitz, dystopian mosaic of Clerkenwell, the Museum of London puts the Big Smoke on a plinth far from it’s beauty spot. St. Paul’s is just down the road, but it’s notably turning the other Dante’s (Peak/cheek). The building itself is all right angles and white tiling, typical of the 60s urban development the museum seems to conveniently gloss over. 

Prehistoric London (Plowonida)

What Texan bars would look like if they
believed in evolution

There was a time when houses by the river were made of wattle (sticks) and daub (water, piss and cow shit), but enough about the naughties. I’m hilarious! We start with the ancient creatures that once roamed these parts. Apparently, there were lions, elephants, rhinos, hippos and bears and you know what, there still are, it’s called London Zoo, idiots. It was all well and good but the lack of an intelligent design perspective meant the issue was addressed with a glaring lack of balance… BBBBAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! I couldn’t say that with a straight face. Nah, they stay well clear of that bullshit. 

Much of the empty wall space is filled with bespoke poems, nothing wrong with that, but there’s just so much of it. Does it effectively galvanise the artefacts? I love poetry. I love museums, but I’m not sure they make a great cancer (scare/pair). Some of it was by their “poet-in-residence”. How do you land that gig? If the Globe needs one, I’m your man. Though, I’m not sure the poetry here sets the scene like they’d hope: 

“Here plants were gathered, animals hunted, seasonal camps reestablished and chance friendships renewed”… 

4/10 - See Me!

Rome (Londinium)

Fagin's gang

I have to congratulate the Museum of London: it’s hard to fuck Rome up but, by God, I think they’ve managed. When the Romans founded “Londinium”, our glorious capital could finally get some serious history done. As if to emulate Rome in its pomp, half the gallery was under construction but I get that it wasn’t built in a Marvin (Gaye/day). The problem is that it’s so pedestrian. If a lion was the mascot of the thirteenth legion, the Museum of London’s would be a lamb - I get it, the Romans were trailblazing merchants and had some unique domestic practices, but they also did things that echo deafeningly through history like gladiatorial battle, slavery, and massive orgies.

There’s a ton of writing, but to be fair it’s well written and they’ve tried to spice it up where they can. A video shows a Roman Britain rap composed and performed by local school kids. Now, I know I’m definitely not the target audience here, and the piece itself was accomplished, but I think if you’re having to dress the Romans up like this to get ‘the kids’ interested, you’re doing something wrong. I’m all for the multi-platform delivery of stories, but something here’s achingly try-hard. The Romans had bacchanalias in which people wore each other’s heads as hats and they’re showing me MTV Bass? Ant (& Dec/Heck)!

Medieval London (Lundenwic/Lundenburg)

Now we’re in Blue (Christmas/business)! The museum really comes into its own after the Romans scarpered and London became the de facto capital of Angle-land. Here, history starts to race at quite a lick and, before you know it, the black plague’s hitting the piss-stained cobbles of old London town. A pant-shittingly unsettling video details the spread of the disease like a miasma across Europe. Unfortunately, this creepiness dissipates somewhat when the narrator whispers the chain of infected cities as “Paris, Antwerp, Amsterdam… Weymouth”. No offence to any Weymouthians out there, but he who is bored of Weymouth… has been.

Old St. Paul's... the new one's better

It’s important to establish a message in era specific displays, and if this Thames-sodden tat is anything to go by, medieval London was totally Gangnam (Style/vile). 

War, Plague & Fire: 1550s-1660s (Olde London Town)

Drinking gin during pregnancy may
effect birthweight

Things become saliently more “London” as we drift into the most underrated century in our history: the 17th one. You’ve got Shakespeare, Cromwell, Charles I & II, Wren and of course, Pepys. Now, I don’t know how you can make a living as a ‘diarist’, but I want in. You can have the one from my teenage years, I hope you like sciolism, Nirvana and whiteys. 

The centrepiece is naturally the Great Fire of 1666, the gravitas of which was diminished somewhat when I heard: 

Dad: We’re at the Great Fire now.

Son: Hooray!

They have a ‘Great Fire Experience’ display that, honestly, if that was the actual experience, a nun could’ve pissed the thing out. It was dog-eared and cheap but worst of all, got in the way of a good story. It’s hard to relate to the horrors of civic decimation when there’s some rinky-dink minutiae of Restoration London illuminated by tawdry lights in Bradford City’s colours. What am I saying? That would be Hale (& Pace/ace)!

Expanding City (The Big Smoke)

Much like the city it showcases, the Museum of London touts much more braggadocio around the 18th & 19th centuries. Things here are more in keeping with current museum fashion and even their plentiful domestic bibelot is displayed in an interesting and personal way. 

It's worth going for the prison cell
alone.

In one room, their Georgian prison cell obliterates everything The Clink tries to achieve in twenty. It’s sad and transcendent. Fey and yet all too real.

This section’s main focal points are the Georgian Pleasure Garden and the Victorian Walk. I didn't really get the former. Daft mannequins wearing daft clothes accompanied by daft projections of daft parties from the daftest of eras. It’s a surreal experience, like being in the film Amadeus if it was cast only with Hollyoaks rejects. The Victorian bit was a shade better. They’ve kitted out a street to some degree of historical accuracy, replete with tobacconist’s, barber’s, china shop, confectioner’s et al. It’s a wonder there was so much crime back then as, by the look of this lot, there was fuck all worth having. It’s all porcelain dogs and Call My (Bluff/snuff). But it’s the lack of personnel that leaves the epoch feeling under-represented. The only life is fellow visitors, and what’s the point in spending so much money transporting me to another age when the only other folk are wearing Mizuno shirts and popper pants. Where’s the cadre of gin-addled prostitutes or the well-heeled gentleman wanking off his friend in a back ally or the pock-marked urchin with his head caught in some railings as a dog runs past with sausages in his mouth? That’s Victoriana, my bell (end/friend). 

To be fair, they handle imperialism soberly and unflinchingly, so kudos for that. 

The People’s City (The Swinging City)

Creepy Old Uncle Thames

What can I say? The 20th century. The best one yet. There’s an old cinema that plays a slice of life from the good old days that did nothing more than cement my belief that the modern man dresses like shit. 

The Charles Booth survey of late Victorian London life maps the opulence of certain districts and was vaguely interesting until I found my flat. Then it wasn’t. At all. 

The Suffragette cabinet is probably the understated jewel in the museum’s Watership (Down/crown). Why there isn’t a museum dedicated to the movement is beyond me, but this one does everyone proud with their edifying and touching piece.

Apparently, London suffered a couple of wars during the 20th century, something the museum addresses with unusual brevity. And good, I say. The war was a humanitarian disaster and triumph, but we all know that. There are entire museums rightfully dedicated to these events and it’s refreshing to see here that we as a city (and a nation) are not defined by them.

World City (Oligopolis)

Things tend towards the moribund as the fall of industry is detailed, but that’s balanced with a bit of jolly multiculturalism. They don’t shy away from London’s problems either. Sure, they cover the Olympics and London’s gluttonous pop history but racism, homophobia and civil unrest are never out of Reg (Dwight/sight). 

They then ruin this delicate balance by being the repository for the Lord Mayor’s Carriage, a gaudy and obsolete crock that annually transports the only public office I know of to be elected by corporations. Well done, “The City of” London.
 

FFS

Overview

Dressterday

Maybe I’m being too cynical here and maybe a touch jaded from so many visits because the Museum of London is definitely worth a visit. Just don’t expect the world from the world’s capital. Much like the Media Museum, The Museum of London suffers from the weight of its subject: a swelling, asthmatic, history-shitter with thousands of years of back story. And yet, they still manage to cobble together some semblance of narrative. Fair play.

London’s messy, dirty and Kruger (Rand/grand) and I think the Museum of London achieves these criteria for better and worse. It doesn't speak with a cockney accent, it’s RP through and through, but fortunately, it’s less the Bullingdon Club posh, and more Tony Benn posh. 

We’ll Baker (Street/meet) again.