2 May: Knick Knack, Paddywhack, Give A Dog A Bone


SIR JOHN SOANE'S MUSEUM -- HUNTERIAN MUSEUM -- KENSAL GREEN CEMETERY

Sitting on a bench in Lincolns Inn Fields between Sir John Soane’s Museum and the Royal College of Surgeons, watching the world go by. The moral of Soane’s being, “Gee, isn’t it a good thing most of us don’t have untold wealth?” Sir John was a merchant prince – he was the architect of the Bank of England, among other things – and he never met a knick knack he didn’t like. The walls of Soane House are literally papered with casts of antique statuary – imagine if, instead of saying, “Hey, neat hippogriff” and going on with your life, you purchased every neat hippogriff you encountered and brought it home. Mrs. Soane’s portrait shows a wan, staring creature, clearly broken by the attempt to make a home of this 365-day-a-year jumble sale. Outside the Monk’s Parlor – oh, we’ll be getting to the Monk’s Parlor in a sec – is a flowery obituary tribute to Mrs. S., going on about how much he loved her despite her being so old and feeble and grey.

The Monk’s Parlor. On the lower level is a closed-in, uterine-red sitting room with a brown lacquered skull reposing on a shiny round table. Ah, Sir John dabbled in psychical research. To make “Giovanni” the skull more comfy, Soane had fake medieval ruins constructed in the airshaft. Some party pooper apparently insisted that the mummy of Seti I be returned to its native land – though the yellow limestone sarcophagus itself still provides a handy place to stow guests’ coats in the front hallway.

And then, amongst this pile of unutterable crap (did I mention the models of the Seven Wonders of the World, constructed of cork?) is the Rake’s Progress. THE Rake’s Progress. By Hogarth. I kept waiting to find captions saying they were reproductions or “after Hogarth,” but no, these were the real McCoy. I swooned. The ability of the artist to age and transfigure faces, while keeping them recognizable throughout the series… whew. I particularly liked “Orgies,” with the sadder-but-wiser girl wearily massaging her aching dogs during a break in the festivities.

The Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons was everything I’d imagined and more. While there weren’t any two-headed babies in jars, I did see a pelvis with a third leg coming out of the middle, Regency quintuplets, a cross-section of a baby polar bear, a panda larynx, the skeleton of the Irish Giant (who so disliked the idea of ending up in the hands of anatomists that he paid someone $300 to bury him at sea – and now what do you think of pre-need plans?), a charred rhinoceros skull (the museum was bombed in 1941 and lost three-quarters of its specimens) and a genuine dodo skeleton. I was in hog heaven. Most of it looked so fakey, it was difficult to be genuinely grossed out – it was fascinating to contemplate the exquisite complexity of life. Cool fruit bats, too. Unfortunately, they didn’t have postcards of the best stuff. Sissies.

Even though I was pretty tired, I decided to head out to Kensal Green. Of course I got lost again and ended up walking hundreds of yards extra. I stopped at a café and had a cup of tea to revive myself – it was the Model Café, to be precise. They have a babydoll t-shirt on the wall, to be signed by any models who happen by to order a quick cuppa. It’s a pretty rundown neighborhood, and I was just as happy to get into the cemetery and buy my little “guide to the stars.”

Well, remind me never to do that again. It turned a perfectly good graveyard visit into a blasted treasure hunt – in trying to find celebrity stiffs, I couldn’t concentrate on enjoying what was right in front of me. I could not get myself oriented on the map, and for a while it seemed like the Great Blondin was going to be my hottest tomb of the day. As the sky darkened and the clouds began to spit, I stood in the middle of a unweeded avenue trilling, "Annabella Millbanke! Annabella Millbanke! I know you’re here somewhere….” I did manage to hunt out Wilkie Collins, though I missed out on Thackeray and Trollope. Princess Sophia’s fainting couch in the sky was pretty cool though. But definitely it would have been more fun without the map… or if I could navigate.

Anyway, by now my own dogs were killing me and the heavens were opening in earnest, so I hobbled back to the Underground and picked up a sandwich from a very rude Italian deli guy to eat in my room later. After washing my hair, I settled down for a quiet night in front of the telly. There was a fascinating show called Panic Mechanics – it’s The Iron Chefs meet Car Talk. Two teams of two blokes are given two days to customize junkers in some particular way – the cars are then run through some kind of test or race to determine whose is better. This time, they were given Daimler hearses and told to transform them into dune buggies. Highly entertaining.

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