The A-Muse-ment Arcades: Culture on the Cheap

London never sleeps,
It just sucks
The life out of me
And the money from my pocket…
- ‘Londinium’, Catatonia

God knows, London is a dear place. It continually tops lists of the most expensive cities of the world. So I’ll try to give some tips on how to conserve your funds.

ATTRACTIONS
As outlined above, London has some truly marvellous museums. And unlike most of their international rivals in other cities, these are in the main free to visitors. I have detailed two true international greats in the British Museum & British Library, a national great in the Imperial War Museum, and a very interesting local attraction in the Museum of London. Alongside these you could add the National Gallery (a worthy rival to the Louvre or the Uffizi) on Trafalgar Square and its neighbour the National Portrait Gallery. There is more art in Pimlico’s Tate Britain and the eye-catching Tate Modern on the Thames in the eye-catching former Bankside Power Station (connected to St Pauls by the Millenium Bridge). South Kensington’s ‘Museumopolis’ comprises the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Victoria & Albert, the latter devoted to craft & design. These are all free (though there may be a charge for temporary exhibitions).

TRANSPORT
Though you will never hear a Londoner admit it, they actually have a very good public transport infrastructure. This is not surprising. The government spends almost £700 per inhabitant on transport in London, much higher than the national average (for comparison they spend less than £300 per inhabitant on transport in Manchester). Furthermore, the various networks are integrated so that tickets are transferable from underground to bus.

It is much wiser to use public transport than to drive. There is a congestion charge for those driving into central London. These charges subsidize the public transport network. You might not think this while looking at a ticket machine in a tube station. £4.00 for just a short journey? Well, I’ll let you into a secret – no Londoner ever pays that. That is just a ‘stupid tax’ to catch tourists and infrequent visitors. If you will be staying in London for any length of time, do what the locals do and get yourself an Oyster card. These are pre-charged swipe cards that can be bought from practically anywhere. There is a £3.00 for the charge, and then you can top the card up with however much money you want. It can be recharged at any tube station at any point in time. To use it you simply swipe it over a scanner pad when entering the underground and again when leaving; I believe you do the same on buses. And unlike £4.00 per journey, you will be charged only £1.60 as long as you avoid rush hour (6.30-9.30 and 16.00-19.00 Monday-Friday). And unlike you enjoy being crushed into a businessman’s armpit you’d probably want to miss the morning slot anyway! Moreover, there is a price cap on how much an Oyster Card user can be charged in one day. In central London (zones 1 & 2) you will at present be charged £5.10 for a day’s travel (or £6.70 if you travel within those ‘peak’ times). Trust me, it will almost pay for itself after just one journey. (NB if there is a group of you, will will need one card each; you cannot swipe multiple people through on one card).

For more details on public transport and the Oyster card system see www.tfl.gov.uk.

If you are determined to act like a tourist, you can even walk from place to place – it’s best to invest in a map / guidebook if you want to do this however. This seems to be quite alien to the majority of Londoners. Much like New Yorkers they don’t seem to understand why anyone would walk more than 5 minutes to get somewhere when there are plentiful taxis around.

ACCOMMODATION
This will be your biggest expense. And there’s not much you can do about it. Sorry. I’m lucky in that I have a network of friends I can crash with, so I have never used a London hotel. The biggest tip I can give is, don’t get hung up on staying centrally. With the transport networks as far-reaching as there are, look towards staying further out in some of the less fashionable neighbourhoods. Check rates for places like Premier Inns, Travelodges and Ibis. Okay, these may not be the most wonderfully atmospheric hotels in the world, but if you book in advance you can get (for London) some decent bargains.

FOOD
Screw it. Splurge. Despite what the French and Americans might have you believe, London has great dining for all budgets. It also has a lot of dross; the trick is trying to separate the two. In general, if it is right next to a major attraction such as the Tower of London or Oxford Street it will probably be overpriced and bland. So read more widely on IgoUgo, and use the internet to check up on reviews. As well as the most famous and reknowned restaurants (often located in high class hotels, and often with a ‘name’ celebrity chef attached to them) there are also wonderful ethnic eateries drawing from the many many different cultures that have immigrated to London. On my last trip I was there for four days and didn’t have a bad meal (though I was guided by local friends), and my meals ranged from a Sunday pub lunch in Marylebone through a Thai meal near Canary Wharf to a Japanese in Soho. Hell, after one session in the pub I even had possibly the nicest Turkish kebabs I’ve ever eaten too!

One of the greatest things about London is that it houses the treasure trove that is the British Museum.

It’s somewhat hidden away in Bloomsbury. It’s a five-minute walk from Goodge Street, Russell Square, Tottenham Court Rd or Holborn Tube stations. It certainly looks the part – a huge Palladian arcaded building, aping the Parthenon. It truly is a museum, a temple to the muses.

Inside there are over 90 rooms, and you can easily spend an entire day here, as I did on my first visit. I am writing this after my second. This meant that I could home in on my favourite areas. Even so, skimming over the chief exhibits as I had a train to catch, I spent three-and-a-half hours here, and missed out lots.

There are a good selection of displays relating to the early history of the British Isles, as you might expect. These keep being added to year on year. For instance the stunning twisted gold-and-silver torcs of the Snettisham Hoard were only discovered in 2002. Located on the first floor in the south east of the complex the highlights here include treasures from the Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo. The star exhibit here would be the ‘Noggin-The-Nog’-style helmet, complete with eyebrows and a rather neat toothbrush moustache. Additionally there is a mosaic from a church in Hinton St Mary in Dorset – it is believed to be the oldest known representation of the face of Christ in the world. Heading north if you are lucky you will find the Lindow Man, a 2000-year-old human body found preserved in a bog. I found him rather hidden away in a corner on my first visit; currently he is on loan to his ‘home-town’ museum in Manchester, where he is displayed just as poorly in my opinion! Further north again, and we find the Vindolanda Tablets, writing tablets from a Roman fort on Hadrian’s Wall. Shopping lists, party invites, leave requests and intelligence reports on the activities of the ‘Britanculi’ (a disparaging diminutive name for the ancient Britons) give an intriguing picture of a town on the very northern edge of the Empire. Sadly Room 41 was undergoing renovation on this visit which meant that the remarkable Lewis Chessmen were not available for view. These are quite spectaular 12th-century walrus-ivory chess pieces found out at the very limits of the British Isles in the Outer Hebrides.

Having travelled to Egypt since my last visit here I found the Egyptian galleries like old friends – a rose granite statue of Amenhotep III, like that in the Luxor Museum, a statue of Menkaure, one of the great Giza pyramid builders (the pyramids being the only remaining standing Wonder of the World of course), another bombastically-sized colossus of the vainglorious Ramses II. Even a bronze cat donated by a certain Major Gayer-Anderson. The prime exhibit is the Rosetta Stone. This provided the first means of translating the history of the pharoahs. Upstairs there is more on domestic life in Egypt. Children will be fascinated by the mummies. In particular there are wall paintings from the Tomb of Nebamun, a priest buried near the Valley of the Kings opposite Thebes.

Back on the ground floor I was lucky enough to note that there would be a free ‘EyeOpener’ tour of the Greek collection. There are several free tours touching on one particular aspect of the collection or other through the day. If I’d been more clever I would have looked out for these advertised at the entrance. Anyway, for the next 50 minutes I listened as we were introduced to the myths of the Greek gods, showed the evolution of sculpture and design, and ended with the three-dimensional horsemen and Olympians of the Parthenon Sculptures (better known as the ‘Elgin Marbles’).

Other Greek highlights are the Nereid Monument a spectacular reconstruction of a tomb from Xanthos in Turkey. You have to crane your neck to look up at it. Another tomb to feature are statues and friezes from the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, one of the original Wonders of the World. A third Wonder would be the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, and again the museum displays a carved column from said temple. Once more, Greek exhibits continue upstairs. Here too you find the Roman galleries.

Maybe Greek, Egyptians and Romans pall because of their familiarity. I think my favourite exhibits would have to be those of other Near-Eastern cultures. You mustn’t miss Room 6 which is the doorway to the Assyrian exhibits. Literally – flanking the Balawat Gates are gigantic bearded and winged bull gate guardians. Legendary names from the 8th-century BC like Nimrud and Ninevah, Ashurbanipal and Sargon are bandied about here, and I’m ashamed to admit I know little of their history. Though having had my appetite whetted I have resolved to learn more! I want to put these fabulous exhibits in context.

Upstairs once more to find other Near-Eastern cultures – Babylon, Sumeria, Persia. In particular one case holds the Royal Standard of Ur – the first known depiction of wheeled transport – and the frankly gorgeous ‘Ram in the Thicket’. Fashioned of lapis lazuli and gold leaf it depicts a goat climbing into a tree, much as you still see in parched Mediterranean lands today. This beauty dates from around 2600BC!

The exhibits from Babylon and Persia may be missing if you visit soon. The major exhibit upon my visit was ‘Babylon: Myth and Reality’ (£8.00), which shows until 15th March 2009. It will then be replaced by ‘Shah ‘Abbas: the Remaking of Iran’ (£12.00) from 19th February to 14th June 2009. To put on the latter there is a ground breaking exchange of exhibits between the Museum and the Iranian cultural authorities.

Paying £8.00 I ascended the curving staircases to the exhibition. You start by entering into a room framed by the glossy glazed-blue brick reliefs of the main processional way of Nebuchadnezzar II’s Babylon. Snarling lions and sinuous mushhushshu dragons are depicted thereon. Here stood a further Wonder of the World – the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. This is the only Wonder where we do not know precisely what form it took, or where it was located. And it is thought that the great central temple with its towering tiers of stone reaching up some 80 metres was mythologised into the Tower of Babel. This is where myth and reality become blurred. It turned out that I knew more about Babylon than I thought I did and that the Bible is a pretty good guide to the history of Babylon; the exhibition relates the truth behind stories such as the Tower of Babel, the sack of Jerusalem, the ‘Babylonian Captivity’ of the Jews (apparently by the rivers of Babylon they did sit down and weep when they remembered Zion!), Daniel, and the ‘writing on the wall’ at Belshazzar’s feast. Finally, the Cyrus Cylinder is the Persian laying down of the law to the conquered city. In promising religious tolerance it is possibly the very first statement of ‘human rights’ in the world.

I think the most interesting aspect of the exhibition was the relation of the myths of Babylon to contemporary culture – whether it is medieval paintings of the fall of Babylon, the beliefs of Rastafarians, or the state’s reappearance in music from Bob Marley, The Ruts, Boney M, or David Grey. Basically ‘Babylon’ is shorthand for two things – depravity and licentiousness, and oppressive authoritarianism. This latter thread stretches from the captivity of the Jews to the beliefs of the Rastafarians, into reggae, thence into punk. And this is why the word ‘babylon’ is street slang for the police!

Glancing at my watch, my time was almost up as I had a train to catch. There was one room in particular I did not want to miss as it had been a huge favourite on my first visit. Room 27 is devoted to the heritage of the Mayans and Aztecs. The best exhibits here (in fact, some of the best in the entire museum) are the glittering turquoise mosaic mask of Tezcatlipoca and a double-headed snake.

This is but a very small overview of a massive and constantly changing collection. The best thing to do is to free a day and wander at leisure and find your own favourites. Or even just pop in for an hour or so whenever you are in the area –entrance is free, so there is no penalty for breaking the collection down into manageable chunks like this!

The galleries are open 10.00 to 17.30 daily, though some are kept open on a rotating basis until 20.30 on Thursday and Friday evenings – see www.britishmuseum.org for further details.

I’m actually a little bit ashamed that, nerd as I am, I had never before visited the British Library. Hived off from the collections of the British Museum, a new building on Euston Road between the major rail termini of Euston, Kings Cross & St Pancras stations it must be the easiest attraction in London for anyone from outside London to see. It is predominantly an academic institute, busy with students and researchers checking in bags and picking up reading cards to consult the 19 million volumes in the stacks. However there are several display spaces to exhibit some of the Library’s more precious and historic artefacts. For instance, there was a small exhibit celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. Having attended the same college at university as Darwin, and having just read a very interesting book about him (‘This Thing Of Darkness’ by Harry Thompson) I found this pretty interesting. I didn’t get a chance to browse ‘The Sound And The Fury’, an exhibition on public speaking featuring some of the Library’s collection of audio recordings. Just this week it has been in the news that they are to start a new major exhibition on Henry VIII, having secured the loan of a love letter from the king to Anne Boleyn from – of all places – the Vatican archives.

The main treasures of the collection are on display in the darkened Sir John Ritblat Gallery. In the literature section you start off with an early manuscript copy of Beowulf before pressing on to 16th century Shakespeare folios, Jane Austen’s diary, handwritten notes by Joseph Conrad (one of my favourite authors), and a scrawled poem by Sylvia Plath among other important documents. Adjoining it the Music section contains exhibits from Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks, . Mozart’s wedding certificate, Beethoven’s tuning fork, and handwritten lyrics for several Beatles tracks such as Lennon’s ‘Help!’ and Mccartney’s ‘Yesterday’. There are aged maps of the world and pages from Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook, written back-to-front by the great man himself between his sketches. Other historical documents include the log book of HMS Victory from the Battle of Trafalgar noting the death of Admiral Nelson at the moment of victory, and the last page of Captain Scott’s diary. General Haig’s April 1918 Order Of The Day ("With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end") is also exhibited.From their own archives they have a reference letter asking for a library card. Despite the false name used, this was actually from a certain Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin.

There is a printed Gutenberg Bible, but it is not as outstanding as the Library’s collection of illuminated and sacred texts. These range throughout all of the world’s major religions. Certainly works that caught my eye include an exquisite Qur’an made for Sultan Baybars of Cairo, and Jewish texts in Provencal dialect hailing from the Comtat Venaissin in southern France, where they were more-or-less protected by the Papal authorities. However, obviously it is Christian works that take centre stage. Chief amongst these must be the exquisite Lindisfarne Gospel. It boggles the mind to think just how long it must have taken Eadfrith to illustrate and colour this massive book. Still, I suppose there wasn’t a great deal else to do in 7th-8th century monasteries stuck out on islands off the bleak coast of Northumbria!

Less visually impressive, but almost definitely more important historically would be the Codex Sinaiticus, carted off from the Monastery of St Catherine at the foot of Mt Sinai. This is a 4th century copy of the Greek Bible and the British Museum now holds 347 pages after it paid £100,000 raised by public subscription in 1933 to acquire them from the Soviet government. The question of how these pages ended up in Russia at all is much more dubious – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Sinaiticus for details. Regardless, as I myself saw on a visit to the monastery in November 2007, the monks really want the Codex back!

Even more precious though – to a Brit at any rate – is Magna Carta. Kept in a separate side-room this document dates from 1215 and is the basis of English law. Magna Carta (never the Magna Carta unless you want to be laughed at by constitutional historians) was consented to by King John under duress to halt a baronial rebellion. To be honest, it is less a sweeping political tract then a shopping list of individual grievances – the placement of fishing traps on the rivers Thames and Medway for instance. Out of its 60-odd clauses only three remain legally valid today – the freedom of the Church, the rights and liberties of the City of London, and the right to due process in law. Reading between the lines, it set down in writing the notions of habeas corpus, and that the monarch, whatever their royal status, was subject to the rule of law in the same as any other individual. Essentially Magna Carta set a precedent for limiting the divine right of kings almost six centuries before the French had to break out the guillotine. Of course, after attaching his seal to the document John immediately was on the hotline to the Pope to get it annulled, but that is neither here nor there.

Only four copies of the original 1215 Magna Carta survive – one at Salisbury Cathedral, one at Lincoln Cathedral, and two on display in the British Library. In display here on my visit was a fire-damaged copy originating from Dover Castle. A better preserved original was downstairs in a major exhibition on the evolution of Britain’s freedoms and rights entitled ‘Taking Liberties’. There are warnings on the posters: ‘In some countries you would not have the right to visit this exhibition…’ This was a very interesting, interactive gallery. It traced the journey through the UK’s political evolution by looking at various themes such as the rule of law, the primacy of parliament, the right to vote, the union of the disparate countries that form the UK, human rights and freedom of speech and belief. There are recorded vox pops from politicians, lawyers, philosophers, activists and members of the public alongside historical artifacts. These artifacts include the aforementioned magna Carta, Charles I’s death warrant, the Bill of Rights and Act of Toleration from 1689, 1706’s Articles of Union, the 1832 Great Reform Act, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which celebrated its 50th birthday last year, and all the way up to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. But as I say, it is interactive. On entrance you are given a barcoded wristband. As you progress through you can scan this to ‘log in’ at terminals and give your thoughts on political issues such as thr role of the monarchy, whether it is ever right to break a law to change a law, DNA databases, the right to die, and censorship. You can then compare your responses to those of other visitors. Rather to my shock, I found that I was the not the pinko Guevara I had always seen myself as being, but rather centrist. I am not as far over on the Freedom versus Control axis than I expected myself to be. In fact, checking my results revealed that out of the 21 questions I voted with the majority (or at least a plurality) of voters on 13 occassions (and opted for the least popular of the four options only three times). But then, you would assume that people coming to a research institution and paying attention to an exhibition on the evolution of political rights would probably be students and / or have a more libertarian bent, thereby skewing the data somewhat.
Check out their rather snazzy website http://www.bl.uk/takinglibertiesinteractive/ - warning, depending on where you are in the world access may be blocked!

The British Library has something for everyone. For the scholars among you there are great documents and works of historical importance. For the activists there is the opportunity to explore your rights and liberties. How fortunate London is to have a place like this.

Entry is free, as are the cloak rooms. It is open daily from 9.30 until 18.00 (until 20.00 on Tuesdays, but only 11.00-17.00 on Sundays). Nearest tube stations are Euston (Northern and Victoria lines) and Kings Cross-St Pancras (Northeern, Victoria, Piccadilly, Circle, Metropolitan and Hammersmith & City lines). Images of many of their rare and precious (and, let’s not forget, beautiful) books and documents can be seen on their website – www.bl.uk.

Despite its out of the way location – gasp! - south of the river!, the Imperial War Museum is the museum in London I have visited the most. Originally created as a testament to the Great War of 1914-18, the IWM has moved with the times, and is now a chronicler of 20th century war. It is located equidistant from Lambeth North and Elephant & Castle tube stations. You cannot miss the museum itself, situated in a grand domed and pillared grey bruilding. Rather fittingly, the museum of war is based in ‘Bedlam’ – formerly the Bethlehem Mental Hospital.

You enter into the main hall. Tanks crowd the floor, a rocket stands to one side, and overhead dangle warplanes. Galleries lead off on four floors, all free to view. The only exception are major temporary exhibitions. I had been lured by the prospect of ’For Your Eyes Only’: an exhibition on Ian Fleming and James Bond. This was £8.00.

The display introduces you to the man behind Bond. Fleming was a womanizing, globe-trotting individual who found himself working for the secret services during WWII. Indeed. The exhibition is full of gadgets. A computer screen allows to you turn pages of a book from Fleming’s ‘library’ introducing you to his friends and associates. In a room devoted to Fleming’s work with the wartime Naval Intelligence Service a screen shows files popping out and maps unrolling to illustrate some of the operations he had a hand in. In the next room you can roll a roulette wheel to reveal some of the individuals that may have provided inspiration for Bond. And a display case holds artefacts from the Cold War intelligence battle; touching the glass above these pistols, poison-tipped umbrellas, dead drops, and samizdat Russian copies of Bond novels prompts more information to be revealed.

All this was good tech-y fun, but a little dry. But turning a corner revealed the final section of the exhibition, devoted to Bond himself, and principally the films we all know and love. Here you can learn more about the villains, see set designs by the legendary Ken Adams, and see some of the actual props and costumes, from ‘You Only Live Twice’s ‘Little Nellie’ gyrocopter, to the bikini worn by Jinx in ‘Die Another Day’, from ‘Goldfinger’s nuclear bomb to a blood-stained tuxedo and shirt worn by Daniel Craig. It was this, rather than the earlier displays on Fleming that had the fan-boy in me giddy. A monitor showing that moment at the beginning of ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ when Roger Moore skis over a cliff and tumbles, tumbles, tumbles, before fnally popping a cheesy Union Jack parachute, had me almost cheering as the Ba-da-ba-DAA! Bond theme played! Magical!

Gee’d up with spy-mania, I went back to the free galleries. ‘Secret War’ is the story of Britain’s secret services. Having studied intelligence communities at university I didn't learn anything new here. The exhibits dated principally from the Second World War and earlier. Though it is always impressive to see an Enigma code machine! Disappointingly, this seemed purely a celebration of the secret services. You end by passing a video of the SAS assault on the Iranian Embassy. It was more like a recruiting tool than an objective exhibition. No reference is made to the forged Zinoviev Letter than brought down the 1924 Labour government, no criticism that during the interwar period all Britain’s intelligence agencies were focussed on the USSR rather than Nazi Germany, or that in the 1990s they were so obsessed with Irish terrorists that they didn’t monitor Islamic ones. Touch-screens allow you to pull up files on the heads of the secret services, notable agents, and important operations. As I am currently rehearsing for a play (’Breaking The Code’) based on the life of Alan Turing I was interested to see what these screens revealed about his story. He is heralded as a genius whose work helped to decrypt the German Enigma cyphers; no mention is made of him having his security clearance stripped away following the war when his homosexuality became known, or his resultant suicide.

The downstairs galleries devoted to Field-Marshal Montgomery, World War One (with an interactive ‘Trench Experience’), World War Two (likewise with a ‘Bltz Experience’) and wars since 1945 (which seem to stop at Bosnia, with no reference to Kosovo, Afghanistan or the invasion of Iraq) continue what I see as a slightly out of kilter tone. War is a horrid business. Comments such as those on the sinking of the German battle cruiser Scharnhorst which state that out of a crew of 1968, only 36 survived, just seemed to be glorifying battle a bit too much.

This tone does not gel with other exhibitions. Principally, the Imperial War Museum is home to Britain’s Holocaust exhibition. This is a thorough and detailed look at this chapter in history, as good an overview as I have come across. Personally I believe that every schoolchild in Britain should come here – though you are warned that it is not suitable for those under the age of 14. It starts with the strains of anti-Semitism in European life. Germany is then looked at in more detail, focussing on the policies that the Nazis put in place to cut off Jews from mainstream society (and not just Jews, but also Gypsies, mixed-race children, and the mentally handicapped – I found the disection table from a mental hospital one of the most appalling things in here). We see the struggles of Jewish families to escape Germany, and the Evian conference where the other states of the world agreed that these refugees had to be granted asylum… just not in Britain / America / France / Palestine etc.

From here we progress to the Wannsee Conference and the ‘Final Solution’. An org chart shows just how many people were involved in this, from Heydrich and Eichmann, to the signallers who organised train timetables. You progress through one of the rail carriages that transported Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz to a scale model of the death camp at Birkenau itself, stretching on and on. There are items on loan from the museum at Auschwitz - cases of shoes, spectacles, dolls… Thankfully there are not the cases of human hair that shocked me at Auschwitz. The entire wicked machinery of the Holocaust is laid bear here in rooms silent but for the occassional hushed oath.

For me, this exhibition, while uncomfortable, and certainly not a pleasant way to while away a hour or two, is probably the most important museum display in Britain. It is not as far away or as long ago as we like to think. In particular it is book-ended by two quotes which I would love if every person in the world took to heart. Firstly the 19th century German Jewish writer Heinrich Heine: "Where they burn books, they will ultimately end by burning people". Lastly the 18th-century British political philospher Edmund Burke: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil, is that good men do nothing".

This humanism, where the loss of every life is a tragedy, is carried into the first floor World War One exhibition ’In Memoriam’. Unlike the rather militaristic displays in the basement, this focuses on the experiences of individuals. Here the words and experiences of private soldiers and sailors are as important as the ‘great figures’ of history. Though famous names do appear – General Haig, Baron von Richtofen, the German flying ace, Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty who later served as an officer on the Western Front, the words of a young American artilleryman by the name of Harry Truman, the poems of Owen and Sassoon and the paintings of John Singer Sargeant. Having made a special study at school and university into the career of H.H. Asquith, British Prime Minister 1908-1916, I was particularly taken by a simple wooden cross that marked the grave of his eldest son Raymond who was killed at the Battle of the Somme. The Prime Minister’s distraught words are recorded beside it ("I can honestly say that in my own life he was the thing of which I was truly proud, and in him and his future I had invested all my stock of life. That is all gone, and for the moment I feel bankrupt.").

At the end of the gallery you can also search for your own ancestors who may have served in the Great War, a nice touch that adds a further personal aspect to this impressive display.

As I say, I didn’t find the sensitivity and humanism displayed in In Memoriam and the Holocaust exhibition carried across uniformly throughout the entire museum. But then, it is a large collection, and renovations take a long time to prepare. However, the Imperial War Museum is a very good museum, and I hope they note that the most touching and affecting dsiplays are actually those that stray the furthest from the institute’s jingoistic founding.

In the heart of the City of London, the gleaming headquarters of bankers, lawyers and accountants hide the darker history of this city. The free Museum of London seeks to answer the questions of why London even exists in its present location, and how it evolved to form the sprawling metropolis that at one time governed an the largest empire the world has ever seen.

To be honest I was not aware that the Museum of London existed. The roll-call of great London museums includes the British Museum, the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum, the National Gallery, the V&A… yet somehow the Museum of London is not counted among that elite coterie. Perhaps it is because it could be seen as parochial; whereas the aforementioned museums draw their collections from across the world, the Museum of London draw theirs from a region no more than thirty miles square.

This is a shame, because it is the very specificity that makes this museum interesting. The character of London tends to emerge here. Sadly not the whole character – the lower floor is currently being renovated for re-opening in 2010, and so the story of the city seems to abruptly end in 1666. But what I did see intrigued me enough to want to revisit in future and continue the story.

The first part of the tale of London’s growth starts with the first settlers in ‘London Before London’. The Thames was once a very different river, a mere tributary of the mighty Rhine, until the map of Europe altered. As selected skulls, horns and bones show, the Thames valley was populated by elephants, lions, rhinos and cave bears. Early settlements dotted the landscape. One lies underneath the runway at Heathrow airport as a diorama shows. One body found, that of the Shepperton Woman, has been reconstructed. Paleoforensic investigation reveals intriguing hints about her life story. For instance, a high level of lead in her teeth suggests she originated from Derbyshire. What brought her down here? As the iron age kicked in you can see decorated weaponry, elaborately fashioned and then thrown into the Thames as an offering. You can see a horned helmet and a reconstruction of the Battersea Shield that sits in the British Museum.

So settlements dotted the Thames valley when the Romans arrived, first under Julius Caesar, and then full invasion under Claudius. Pre-Roman names survive in the names ‘London’ and ‘Thames’. There is a large section showing the development of the Roman city. There are reconstructions of a street of shops, impressive hoards of glittering gold coins, evidence of religious practices and entertainment activities (including a leather ‘bikini’ worm by performers). There is also a lovely mosaic floor that is used to show how a wealthy family’s triclinium would look. Models show what we know the city would look like (including the largest basilica outside Italy). But with London developing layer upon layer over the original Roman settlement there is a lot that is not known. The information panels admit that it is believed that there would have been a theatre and circus, but we do not know where. Also, only one temple associated with a specific individual deity has been found. And oddly, rather than a god from the Roman pantheon such as Jupiter, Mercury or Minerva, that temple was dedicated to Mithras, an exotic eastern religion. The London temple of Mithras is now one of the best known.

As you wander the displays listening to the unobtrusive audio tape in the background (woodland noises in the ‘London Before London’ display, the splash of river traffic and the catcalls of traders and curses in Latin in the Roman London section) one thing becomes quite apparent: the curators have quite a playful sense of humour. A board highlighting the growth of ornamentation on weaponry in the Iron Age is punningly entitled ‘Designed to Impress’; a view over a remnant of the Roman and medieval city wall is headed ‘All Along The Watchtower’; best of all the (disappointingly small) panel detailing Boudicca’s revolt and razing of London is made to look charred with the graffiti tag ‘Romans Go Home’ (or ‘Romani eunt domo’ as I believe John Cleese’s centurion insisted in ‘The Life Of Brian’).

When the Romans did indeed go home London was abandoned. It lay empty and overgrown through the Dark Ages and only started to grow again in the 9th century. The Medieval London section introduces you to a booming city. Wonder at the model of St Paul’s Cathedral – not the domed Wren construction we know today, but a Gothic cathedral with a towering central steeple. After the destruction wrought by the Black Death in the 1360s (in which an entire third of the European population perished) a new era of wealth hit the city. You can see artefacts from the collections of the Medieval guilds that still play a role in the life of the City today. You can also see treasures confiscated from the church following Henry VIII’s break with Rome.

The displays from the next century are the weakest part of the collection to my eyes. The most important chapter in the city’s history is shown in more detail in a separate exhibition on the 1666 Great Fire of London. I was able to join a free guided tour of this area. Kim was a bubbly young guide, if struggling slightly with her microphone pack. She explains the internal conditions on the city in 1666, the outbreak of the fire (woken to attend, the Mayor of London disparagingly commented that "a woman could piss it out" and went back to bed), eye-witness accounts of the progress of the blaze (largely the diarist Samuel Pepys), and the aftermath where culprits were looked for. One disturbed French lad did confess and was executed, but the chief culprits were put down alternatively as Catholic saboteurs, or a punishment from God for the ‘wickednesse and gluttonie’ of Londoners. I feel we can safely discount the latter theory; after all there have been no major conflagrations since… You can also see designs for the rebuilding of the city along orderly lines and wide traffic-easing thoroughfares. As anyone who has ever visted London can tell you, none of these designs were followed.

I have to say, I found the Museum of London an interesting look into the history of what has never been one of my favourite cities. When the renovations of the lower floor are complete in 2010 I think it will be well worth another visit to take the story of this most storied of cities up to the present day.

Admission is free. The nearest tube stations are Barbican (Circle, Metropolitan and Hammersmith & City lins) to the north, and St Paul’s (Central line) to the south. The museum is located in a rather awful looking 1970s concrete traffic circle, accessed by escalators or lifts. If you are heading between the Museum & St Paul’s Cathedral check out a little opening to the west of the road that leads to Postman’s Park, and a late Victorian memorial to those who died saving others. Those who have seen the film of ‘Closer’ will remember Natalie Portman’s character Alice here.