Pollocks Toy Museum
After much research over the previous two days, we set off for our day out in London. Refreshingly, we spent the first half of the day doing things we'd never done before and this made the whole day much more interesting and exciting... even though we went to Pollocks Toy Museum which was neither.
Okay, maybe that's a bit harsh, but really it isn't. Set over 3 or 4 floors (depending on who you listen to) the museum is a right jumble that looks like it needs a serious overhaul. Like many museums it seems to think that shoving everything you've got out at once is always the best policy, but it really isn't. Better to show less 'well' than cram everything in and claim 'value for money'... which again at £7 a head is debatable.
It seems like not much has changed in the museum in the last 80 years, someone obviously popped in in the 70s and donated their Matchbox cars, their Rubics Cube and their 'Simon' but apart from that most of the exhibits date from the late 1800 / early 1900s, with a few post war teddies and dolls houses making up the numbers. Oh and one completely random 4000 year old Egyptian mouse, and one even more random iPad exhibit featuring the 'Pollocks Choir'... a bunch of dolls singing Carl Orff's 'O Fortuna' from Carmina Burana. You can't miss it, the sounds of these 'possessed' dolls permeate every square inch of the building from the moment you leave the entrance hall.
(NB, in the room where the dolls houses are, make sure you don't miss the painting on the wall called 'Hands Instead of Stairs' which sound like a surrealist masterpiece... but is actually utter sh*te).
From here we headed to the 'The Fitzrovia' which was at the end of the same street (Whitfield Street) and offered a perfectly serviceable Scampi and Chips for a very reasonable price. As ever we made sure to arrive in a timely fashion so as to beat the rush, and indeed the pub was almost empty when we arrived and the service was friendly and brisk!
With nary a glance at the itinerary, which by now was burned into my memory, we crossed back across the road to visit 'Heals' for the first time in (we estimate) twenty years! What a revelation this place was, everywhere you look there's fantastic things, some of which were very affordable (brightly coloured candles £3) and some of which are not so affordable (designer decanter £4000!).
The 'Infinity Mirrors' in the Designers Lounge were very cool, in fact that whole room was like the best pub in the world... if only it existed.
In our blissful ignorance, we weren't aware of the 'significance' of the 'Heals Cat', but we came across it on the staircase (we saw a sign pointing to it downstairs)... I must admit when we saw it we weren't entirely sure that was it, it was very much a case of 'is that it?'. Ah well.
The staircase was pretty cool and the light fitting was EPIC!
They also had a lot of really cool glassware, mugs and lighting fixtures, including some that span around silently and some really nice candles for Christmas. We will definitely be back again...
From here we took the Northern Line out to Chalk Farm (somewhere else we'd never been before) to visit the Zubludowicz Gallery. We found out about this place when we watched a TV programme about Gordon Watson (Four Rooms) who was trying to sell the owner of the gallery some £2000 chairs (we notice the original yellow plastic chairs were still in situ).
The gallery was easy enough to find (it sticks out like a sore thumb frankly) and it is free to visit (always good). On this occasion the gallery was hosting a multimedia exhibit by Shana Moulton. It started off okay, with a pink tower filled with TV screens each showing a separate video... some of which were more worthwhile than others, admittedly.
And this Dali-esque sculpture on the back wall, which was quite cool.
Then there was a smaller screen in the corner showing another (odd) video and then you visited another room where another video was playing. This room was quite immersive and satisfyingly surreal, and probably the best part of the exhibition. The final room showed a much longer video, which really tested our patience (I was quietly anticipating the moment when Rose would tap me on the shoulder and say 'This is Pollocks'!) and we probably only watched about a third of it before we decided to push off.
Back in the reception area we found a door leading to a separate exhibit where you were able to create your own 3D sculpture while wearing a VR headset. Neither of us had ever tried VR before so it was quite interesting, though our 'sculptures' were pretty dismal I'm sure. You start with a 'ball' of wire that you pull into shape and then 'wallpaper' with 'textures'.... Rose couldn't actually summon the wallpaper, and I did but I kept dropping it and only got about 1/3 of my sculpture covered before I gave up on it altogether.
And so we headed off down towards Camden High Street, ostensibly looking for a shop (or shops) called '4 Feet' which sells shoes by Ruby Shoo. We eventually found one of them, and Rose tried on a pair but decided they would hurt her feet. We were rather taken by another brand of shoes called 'Irregular Choice' which are completely bonkers!
More on those later... we then got the Northern Line back to Goodge Street Station and stopped off to pick up a (hefty) candle from Heals before heading off down Goodge Street and finding our way to the top end of Regent Street. Time was knocking on now and we were trying to make sure we got ourselves to the London Cocktail Club behind Niketown for when it opened at 4:30pm.
We crossed over Oxford Street and made our way down to a side street where we could access Carnaby Street. Here we found 'Irregular Choice's' own store and we marvelled at the array of unbelievable shoes on display. It's not even as if they are cheap... one pair Rose picked up were £109, and many of the shoes in there were Christmas themed, which seems a bit 'specific' to say the least!
I actually thought this shop sold 'Ruby Shoo' too (because Ruby Shoo's website led me to believe it did) but it didn't, so we headed back to Regent Street and scooted down past Hamley's to check out Kate Spade. There were some cool things in there, but nothing particularly exciting and hardly any novelty bags.
We made it back up to Oxford Circus with time to spare and headed down the stairs to the London Cocktail Club bang on time. Though similar to Kuckoo in Chester, it definitely felt a little grubbier and not quite as 'special', that place is quite something though and it sets a high bar. The welcome was friendly and we got free salted popcorn, which I'm still not entirely sure about... while we decided which cocktail to try.
I made my choice straight away (Pina Colada) but Rose took longer trying to find a long 'fruity' drink (of which there were surprisingly few), eventually she settled on a Candy Shop Collins. Needless to say the Happy Hour 2-4-1 offer only applied to the same drink, so if we wanted to take advantage of that we had to drink two drinks each... which didn't seem like a great idea, although maybe next time we will because there was a LOT of ice in our glasses and not that much drink.
I manage to damage my straw poking at the ice cubes and so had to drink the last 1/3 of my drink without one, which wasn't great as my ice kept hitting me in the face! The cocktails were nice, but definitely not as good as Kuckoo's cocktails, maybe we should try somewhere else next time.
From here we walked down the streets behind Oxford Street until we came out just past Bond Street station and headed up to the TAG Heuer boutique.
With the recent glut of releases there was plenty to try on including the new Heuer 02 Monaco, the Calibre 12 'Final Edition' Monaco the green Formula 1 Calibre 16, the Carrera Calibre 16 'Fangio' Limited Edition, the purple dial ladies Carrera and the blue wavy dial ladies Aquaracer. Unfortunately Aneta had just left for the day, but we saw Chau who told me about some upcoming releases.
Finally we headed down Bond Street to Richoux where we enjoyed a bowl of chips (half warm, half cold!) and a carrot cake and a chocolate fudge cake. On reflection the fudge cake would have been better warm and was very rich... maybe in future we should just share a carrot cake?
The plan was to go on to Harrods from here, but as the time ticked relentlessly towards 7pm we thought better of it and decided to start our journey home. This took longer than anticipated, since the trains home were delayed (as the train in the morning had also been) and we ended up catching the 7:15 train at about 7:50!
It was a very long, tiring day, but a good one... it definitely pays to do something different rather than just doing the same old things time after time.
