Failing At Death, And The Start Of The Red Bus Competition

Our big achievement of the 26th of November, 2012, was the successful purchasing of Eurostar tickets from London to Paris for New Year's. Because we had Eurail passes for January, somehow this made our train on the 28th of December like fifty-something pounds, rather than one-hundred-and-fifty-something. We were not complaining. 

As we were already near our old fave station, St. Pancras, we decided to check out some attractions that were nearby. We headed over to the British Library, a place rumoured to have a large number of books. Alex and Bryony like books.

Lotsa books. Old, pretty books.

The size of bookshelf we want in our conjoined future houses. 

When we got there, there just happened to be an exhibition on Jack Kerouac's On The Road: The Original Scroll, a book Tim had given Ally for her birthday that she had begun reading on that dreadful flight from Singapore. There was lots of stuff about Jack, the writing of the book, the people he wrote about, and, most excitingly, THE ORIGINAL SCROLL. The whole manuscript was written on one continuous 37m roll of teletype paper that Kerouac had cut to size and taped together (so that he wouldn't have to stop typing to change the paper in the typewriter) on a three week "coffee"-fueled bender in 1951. It's about him and his friends and their travels hitching across America and having sex and doing drugs. It's written beautifully and is quite poetic Anyway, as it was rather autobiographical and quite explicit for the time, he had to change all of the people's names and edit some scenes out (especially those depicting homosexuality) in order to get it published. On the ACTUAL ORIGINAL SCROLL THAT WE TOTALLY SAW IN REAL LIFE you can see all the editing in pencil. It was awesome. 

A photo of the Original Scroll that was totally not taken illegally on an iPhone while hiding from a guard guy. 

After this joyous experience, we attempted to go see an exhibition called "Death: A Self Portrait" at the Wellcome Collection, that we had heard about from Fiona, the lady in charge of the science department at Rosemary's school with whom we had spent the previous Thursday. We traipsed up and down Euston Road in the icy darkness trying desperately to reconcile Bryony's googlemaps with reality. After what seemed like a very long time we eventually found the Wellcome Trust Building. It was closed. Apparently museums are closed on Mondays. Dejectedly, we headed back to St Pancras. 

Our way back from the (closed) museum took almost as long. This was not because we were lost, however (somewhat surprisingly); rather, we discovered that St Pancras is even more beautiful at night that during the day, and that it is really fun to try and photograph it with your typical London red double-decker bus driving past. We had invented a Fun New Game that would not grow old for the rest of our time in London. 

St Pancras and a Red Bus.

St Pancras and a Red Bus.

St Pancras and a Red Bus.

St Pancras without a Red Bus. No points for you.

St Pancras and Alex's face. Half a point. 

Because of the time spent preparing this photographic smorgasbord for you, dear reader, we missed the last train to London Bridge for a few hours, so had to go to Blackfriars (we know where it is now, sorry random tourist man) and walk to London Bridge. Fortuitously, this meant we were able to continue The Game (ha) at St Paul's Cathedral.

It was cold and Bry did not want to pose for a photo. Ally made her. 

She got her own back.

St Paul's and a Red Bus. Traditional in composition, excellent execution.

A daring, bold take on the theme. Funky and modern use of lighting and angles. 

London is really pretty at night. We really like London.

Stiiiiill more London to come. It's a big city.