Wellcome Museum

The Wellcome Musem is home to the personal object collection of Henry Wellcome, a turn-of-the-century pharmaceutical rep who collected medical objects from around the world. He also founded the Wellcome Trust, the second-largest medical charity in the world. This museum is not for the faint of stomach and I will spare readers a detailed description of what we saw there and stick to posting pictures taken in the lobby.

 Entrance to the exhibit on brains.

Cool lighting in the cafe.

The light fixtures are frosted beakers that slowly change color from purple to red and back again.

National Portrait Gallery

London's National Portrait Gallery is the kind of place that reminds you of every textbook you read in high school (those of us who went to high school, anyway). It seems that they have all the most famous portraits of all the most famous people in history. They also made me put away my camera fairly quickly (even though I was NOT using a flash), so I only caught a few pics.

 Bill "the Bard" Shakespeare, with cool-dude earring.

Kitty Fisher, a somewhat celebrated 18th century London courtesan. Note the rebus that alludes to her name.

Mordu and one of the pasty old men he studies.

On the 7th of April, 1778, William Pitt, the first earl of Chatham, delivered a lengthy harangue to parliament urging that they make peace with the rebellious American settlers at any price—short of independence. (Well, we know how that worked out.) Shortly after his speech, the Duke of Richmond called for a vote that Parliament grant the American revolutionaries independence. Chatham rose to rebut the Duke, but before he could do so, suffered a heart-attack and collapsed backward; he would die a month later. American painter, John Singleton Copley, captured the moment on an absolutely gigantic canvas. Who said Americans have no class?

Close-up of the earl in the throws of his heart-attack.

Cadbury McFlurry

It's a little past that season when Kelly gifts me with my yearly allotment of Cadbury Creme Eggs (they were delicious, thank you!), but I still thought some might get a kick out of this recent abomination confection from McDonald's UK.

Chag Sameach

We are all cleaned up  and burned up around here. Chag kasher v'sameach to all!

 Cleaning kitchen window.

 Eating up the chametz.

Smoking up the chametz?

Our growing windowsill collection of herbs and flowers looks quite holiday appropriate.

Danny's mid-life crisis car

Harrod's

Harrod's is an enormous department store that takes up an entire city block. According to Wikipedia, it has 5 acres of floorspace which house 330 departments. It is the only store I've entered in which a greeter offered me a map booklet (more of an atlas, really).

Exterior.

 Avant-garde window display.

 Teas 'n' things.

 Produce.

A whole department devoted to stuffed animals! Or, as they put it, "soft toys."

Display of stuffed paddington bears.

Kensington Gardens

Another lovely garden in the middle of downtown. Everyone was out enjoying the fine weather and watching the swans on the lake.

 Early daffodils of spring.

 Playground envy! You can actually climb up into the crow's nest of this ship. On the downside, you have to wait on line (!) to get into the Princess Diana Memorial Playground. I took this picture through a fence.

 Kensington Gardens lake.

One of many preening swans.

Nice of the crown to provide lawn chairs.

Natural History Museum

London's Natural History Museum is housed in a magnificent, Victorian-era building across the road from the Victoria and Albert museum. I particularly liked some of the detailing in the architecture - lots of fun animals crawling all over the place.

 The building is so large it's hard to find the right angle for a photo. The museum takes up an entire city block. 

 Dinosaur on the window ledge? Not sure what this creature is (picture taken on maximal zoom), but I like 'im.

 If you look carefully, you can see lots of animals perched around the perimeter of the roof.

 Just inside the main entrance.

 Monkeys swinging around the ceilings.

Monkeys climbing the walls.

Glyptodon. Now extinct about 10,000 years, these guys are cousin to the armadillo and the ostrich egg.

Models of dodo birds made by a 17th c. man who actually saw dodos. They're surprisingly big! It stands to reason, then, that this is not he exaggeration I always though it was:

Alice and the Dodo Bird, original drawing to go with Lewis Carroll's classic.

Entrance to the exhibit on earth science (volcanos, etc.). You get to ride up this escalator through the "earth" globe which glows all coppery. Very glitsy, not terribly substantive.

Portobello Road

Those who remember the lyrics to the most memorable song in Disney's 1971 flick Bedknobs and Broomsticks might recall these verses:

Portobello road, Portobello road
Street where the riches of ages are stowed.
Anything and everything a chap can unload
Is sold off the barrow in Portebello road.
You’ll find what you want in the Portebello road.

Rare alabaster? Genuine plaster!
A filigreed samovar owned by the czars.
A pen used by Shelley? A new Boticelli?
The sniper that clipped old King Edward’s cigars?

Waterford Crystals? Napoleon’s pistols?
Society heirlooms with genuine gems!
Rembrandts! El Greco’s! Toulouse-Lautrec’s!
Painted last week on the banks of the Thames!

etc.etc.

That about sums it up. Mordu was especially amused by the "vintage" sign for the London 2012 Olympics - pre-corroded for your convenience. Unfortuantely, I didn't take a picture of that. But I did take a few others.