Information Vegetable, Animal, and Mineral

You might recall from previous discussion that Heather, our long-time friend and short-time hostess, was a practitioner of the botanical arts, which are actually sciences.  She had botanized at Kew, and by the time of our arrival, she was botanizing at the Natural History Museum in London (the purveyor of  informations vegetable, animal and mineral to which our adventure owes its title).

Outside of the Natural History Museum

Roof of Natural History Museum

She was on vacation for the majority of our stay, but she had to get some work done before she (and we) shipped out for Ireland, so on Tuesday she went in to work and we came too.  It was like a happy little "bring your Yankee to work day" that only we were celebrating.  She showed us around for a bit and then sent us on our merry way while she went up to her office to do that voodoo that she do...es best.

Our merry way took us through the museum, which was pretty neat.  It was pretty similar to our native Smithsonian in some ways, though it appears that they had way larger collections in a lot of categories.  The British Empire was pretty extensive at one point, a fact which I suppose helped a bit in the collecting.  A lot of the behind the scenes work at the museum is all about cataloging all of that stuff.  Taking really hi-res photos, figuring out and encoding where on the planet it actually came from, etc.

They have a pretty cool dude supervising it all:

When they needed a statue to overlook the main hall, they naturally selected Charles Darwin

The building architecture was kind of a fusion of styles.  I'd classify it mostly as "old school," with a little bit of "epic," and a small but noticeable influence from the "cool" camp.  On the whole, it worked.

More arches

The main hall

Stairs and gargoyles

Gem Hall

Not a bad museum as they go.  Got to see some cool stuff, but even walking through the building with none of the exhibits would have been worth the trip.

Following the recommendations of several folks we'd run into, we moved on to the adjacent Victoria and Albert Museum for some unnatural (man-made) history.  They weren't as cool about photographs, so you'll have to trust me on the details.  They had paintings, sculptures, tapestries, weapons, iron works, and I think on the third floor they had the holy grail, but I'm not sure because we didn't have enough time to see everything.  What we did see was pretty neat.  When it comes to history, Britain just has more of it than the US does.

We didn't have enough time to seek the holy grail in the V&A because Heather was wrapping up at work and it was time for her regular knitting club meetup in Hammersmith.  Compared to the average member of the knitting club, I was significantly more male and significantly less of a knitter.  The club members were welcoming enough despite my pair of minor disabilities, but I took my leave for a bit anyway to search for food and drink.  It was actually a pretty perfect opportunity for me to pursue some more of my pub tourism.  While Heather was pretty tolerant of my pub-lust, I feel like she probably didn't get much enjoyment out of it.  In any event I'm sure that she preferred the knitting.

I found an excellent pub nearby, although I must admit that my sole criterion for "excellent" at the moment was "within site of the coffee shop where the knitting club met," as I didn't have time stray too far if I had hope of returning before the knitters were done.

The William Morris Pub in Hammersmith

The pub turned out to be more excellent than I had thought it would be.  Pretty inexpensive food and drink, free internet and a proper British newspaper left on the table by a previous guest.  They were even about to have an Ale tasting, though not for another few days (it was set for St. Patrick's Day, which I had every intention of celebrating in Dublin).  I drank in the English atmosphere, my phone drank in the free wifi bits and my liver drank in the English ale.  Life was good.

After the pub and the knitting, we walked home from Hammersmith to Putney, fought off a bit of the sleepies, and rallied for a trip to the local pub with Heather, Chris and Patrick (brother to Heather and acquaintance of mine from back in the Virginia days).  The occasion for the pub visit was that Everton was playing Liverpool in footy, which is football, which is soccer.  That and the Coat and Badge was Heather and Patrick's local pub and we wanted to see it before we left for the Emerald Isle.

The Coat and Badge is named after the prize that is awarded to the winner of a prestigious boat race down the Thames.  To qualify you must be a waterman, which means a long apprenticeship and probably some other stuff besides.  Back in the day, they needed a ton of watermen in London to get people from the one side of the Thames to the other (they had a bridge, but apparently it was always falling down).  It's kind of a proud tradition and if you won the race, you got a coat, a badge, and your name written on the wall of the pub.  If the number of names on the wall of the pub were any indication, they'd been running the race for many a year.

Dinner was bangers and mash, which is English for "sausage and mashed potatoes," washed down with Doom Bar Ale, which is English for "Doom Bar Ale."  The football game turned out to be pretty entertaining and the pub was nice and cozy.  A fine end to another fine day in London.