DAY OUT: London (Tutankhamen: Immersive Experience & Vogue: Inventing the Runway)

When we planned this day out in London we unfortunately did not know about the FA Cup semi finals being played... but we soon found out when we arrived at the station and realised there was more than the usual amount of twats on board the train. Luckily we got a seat, but there was a bunch of arseholes standing up in our carriage drinking and being generally twattish. At least it was only an hour, but it did rather throw our plan to visit O Neill's for lunch into a cocked hat, since that's just the sort of place a load of football fans would head for...

Arriving in London we set off up the side of the station and headed for 'Lightroom' where we had tickets to see 'Vogue: Inventing the Runway'. We got there a little early and decided to have a look around the shops and market in Coal Drops Yard. There was a classic car thing going on and we saw a bunch of nice old cars, some minis and a classic black Porsche 911 Turbo.

We also visited the nicest toilets of the day here and began scoping out potential places for dinner since it was becoming clear that O Neill's was a bad idea. As we headed for the Lightroom we checked out the restaurants and there looked like a couple of possibilities, though the 'Lighterman' looked a bit wanky. 

I wasn't exactly sure what Vogue: Inventing the Runway was going to be all about, I kind of assumed it was going to be largely about 'Vogue' magazine itself but it was more about the history of fashion shows. It is an 'immersive experience' projected onto three of the four walls of the room and was pretty enjoyable actually, the only problem was that the seating was a bit crap (just seats with no back support) and after 45m or so it was a relief to get up. That aside it was very good, particularly the parts about Karl Lagerfeld's amazing shows for Chanel.

On the way there (and back) we passed some incredible appartements called the Gasholder Triplets. This is a complex of 146 living spaces, each costing £7.4m (or so it seems from the 'KnightFrank' website. 

After the 'Vogue' show we headed back to a burger brasserie place, but when we stepped inside they told us they were only serving 'brunch' (it was 12pm) and they didn't start serving 'A la Carte' until 4pm. Okay, so no then. Irritated, we decided to head towards O Neill's anyway and see if by some miracle it wasn't rammed out with football fans.

Of course it was, and not only that there was an ambulance and a police wagon outside for good measure. Then I had a brainwave, why not head to the city and The Alchemist where we had eaten last time the pubs were full of football enthusiasts, and so that's what we did.

We headed over the road into St Pancras and took the Metropolitan line to Aldgate and then walked back up to The Alchemist. We ordered two lots of chicken in a basket, but without the basket and sat back and enjoyed the quiet comfort that had so far eluded us.

The chicken was a bit weird. It was very pale and very un crisp. But unlike last time it was very hot and frankly it was edible. The fries were also hot, and rather nice... the coleslaw was utterly rank though.

When we left The Alchemist I noticed these three weird sculptures over on the other side of the road...

Now we were heading for Liverpool St station so we could get the Elizabeth line to Canary Wharf. We walked up past SHIOK! but it seemed to be empty, so it looks like we won't be going back there after all. Then we spotted this cool sculpture outside the station!

We got to Canary Wharf and promptly got lost in Cross Rail Place, ultimately rocking up in the reception of a BUPA hospital by accident and then struggling to get the lift to respond. Thankfully there were two lifts and we eventually managed to get back to street level and find Canada Place (where the shops are).

We went to Penhaligons first in the hope of scoring another sample of Fortuitous Findlay, but alas all they offered was a circle of card doused in the stuff. Booooo!

Next we looked in Watches of Switzerland and discovered they had the new Formula 1 Solargraph. But alas no one was free to serve us, so we walked on and then tried a bit of chocolate in Laderach. It reminded me of the 'Swiss Chocolate' M&S sell. Quite nice, but hardly worth £10.50 per 100g!

Then we went back to Watches of Switzerland and I tried the watch on. It was okay, but I don't like the case, or the matt finish.

Now it was time to head to EXCEL for the Tutankhamen Immersive Experience. Parts of this were really good and some of it was a bit lame.... inevitably there was quite a lot of reading text off of walls, because of course there was!

There were also a lot of 'artefacts' which largely turned out to be replicas because of course they are! All the good stuff is in Cairo, they aren't going to be sending their most famous Pharoah's death mask anywhere are they? Oh it's like deja vu!

The immersive part of the exhibition was good, as was the first VR thing, but the hologram room was a bit wank and Rose's headphones didn't work at all. The first VR thing had you waking up as the Pharoah and travelling to the afterlife, on the way being assessed by judges and flying over pits of lava among huge Egyptian God statues. I must admit the VR here was very impressive, at one point it was so up in your face that you wanted to duck.

Unfortunately the second VR thing wasn't really as good as it consisted of 20 people in a room with headsets on stumbling around a very blurry VR scene, cackling insanely as if it was the funniest thing in the world ever. It really wasn't. 

After that we read some more texts off the wall and then decided it was time to go home. So we got the Elizabeth line back to Liverpool Street and then the Northern line to Euston and inevitably had to wait 30 minutes for the train.

There were some football fans in our carriage, but they were pretty quiet (thankfully) it was the small children that wer doing our fucking heads in. Thankfully we took iPods with us so we could at least distract ourselves a little bit with our headphones.

GIG: VADER (Birmingham)

 

Once I decided I was going to go and see Vader I spent a solid week and a half listening to a 'presumed' setlist on my Shuffle and once I arrived and the band took the stage I was glad I did. I think all bar one songs played were on that shuffle which really helped me enjoy the gig more than I would have done had I not done that. Even so, some of the faster songs were challenging to pick out despite a good, clear sound... especially at the start of the gig. I must admit tracks like 'What Colour is Your Blood' worked better than the really fast, brutal stuff live, but it was an enjoyable evening and I'm glad I made the effort to go. 

I thought 'Wings' would be the encore, but in actual fact it was the fifth song played (followed by 'The One Made of Dreams' - also from the album Litany) so it was cool in a way that they got it out of the way and I didn't spend the whole evening hoping they were going to play it. It seems like Vader's setlists are very random, they seem to really mix it up from one show to the next with no fixed encore.

The band were really good, though I'm not really sure why they need three guitarists. The drummer was killer though, and his sound was heavy as fuck. When I got there he was sound checking and the bass drums were like a punch in the face! All in all, really good, and listening to those Vader songs really helped me enjoy the night but also helped me enjoy Vader more than I have (beyond 'Litany') previously.

FULL SHOW VIDEO!

ESCAPE ROOM: The Perfect Egg (One Way Out)

Another visit to 'One Way Out' and another very enjoyable hour solving puzzles... we only have two rooms left to complete at this site, guess we'll need to start looking for another Escape Room somewhere not too far away soon.

LEGO #13 Red Bull Formula 1 Car

 

GIG: Motley Crude (Nuneaton)

After the relative disappointment of Rammlied at Nuneaton's Queens Hall a couple of months back, this was a distinct improvement. The band were competent and the singer emulated Vince Neil's vocals pretty much perfectly. The setlist was pretty good too, the bulk of it taken from the the 80s albums with only three or four songs from the 90s and beyond.

This was Motley Crude's 10th anniversary tour and so we got a full 2 hour show, which was perhaps a little long... especially with the weird floor at the Queens Hall that always makes your feet hurt no matter where you stand, and to be honest they could have cut the set down a little bit just by editing some of the pointless waffling and the repetitive 'Fuck Yeah' nonsense... which really started to grate by the end of the night. 

The crowd loved it though and I honestly think my buzzing ears are less to do with the volume of the band and more because of the crowd response, which was exceptional. Definitely one of the best cover bands we've seen, right up there with The Devout and Mentallica. 

MEAL OUT: The Grey Goose (Gilmorton)

Another trip to the Grey Goose, this time for Rose's birthday (which inconveniently fell on a Sunday). As always we opted for the fillet steak, which as always was cooked to perfection and for pudding we shared a Biscoff Cheesecake... though I could also have gone for carrot and walnut cake! The service was a little sketchy, but they were stacked out with customers and the food was perfect.

LEGO: #12 The Great Wave