London

[Nutcase]

Sorry, mostly a rant I'm afraid

Went on a day trip to london yesterday with a few friends as a birthday day out

Is it just me, or is London not what it used to be? A couple of bad experiences threatened to (but fortunately didn't) ruin the day.

Ordered lunch in the Yates on Leicester Square (yes I know, hardly a high class establishment!), it wasn't busy, yet two of the meals came out badly cooked (one with two barely cooked eggs, one with pretty much everything overcooked), and after 40 minutes two of us gave up waiting for their cups of tea (despite constant reassurances of they're "on the way". and had to wait another 10 minutes to get them refunded I've eaten in Several Yates before, they're normally cheap but edible food with reasonable service.

When we tried to complain, there was no manager available.

Then to kill some time we headed for the Science Museum. None of us had been for many years, and were all excited. What a waste of time Half of what we saw was just racks of aircraft/trains/space/etc. of which only a small amount was actually labelled with what it was and why it was important. The we went to the "hands on" areas, which whilst we're all adults, we're all big kids really, and were expecting to have a bit of fun. Nope. Half of it didn't work, and the bits that did were exceedingly dull. There were games that were a white table that a projector shone down onto, with a button and wheel for each player - except there was no instructions, the game was only very short and the drivvle in between about various subjects was presented in a thoroughly unexciting way (and unreadable anyway as the projection was so blurred). There were a lot of children in there, almost all of whom looked as bored as we were.

So we thought we'd try out the Imax in there. We had 2 for 1 vouchers so the price was ok (£3.75 each). We watched the Dinosaur 3D show. Started great, animated dinosaurs coming out at you etc. but then it went into a seriously overlong spiel about how dinosaur fossils were dug up and classified etc. Most interesting, except almost all of that footage was pointless being 3D, in fact much of it was ~1920's cine footage so wasn't 3D anyway... There were frequently people getting up and leaving mid-film.

I think the Science museum needs to seriously re-think it's methods. Even with free entry it's a ripoff. It needs to be an educational establishment, but it needs to do it in an interesting way. One of my friends with us is a year 5 teacher, and often organises school trips, but she said no way would she want to take her kids there.

Then we went back into theatreland as we'd got tickets for a show. We went with the hope of getting half price tickets for We will Rock you, but luck of the draw, none available. I'd seen the theatre showing Avenue Q a while back and wondered what it was. Looked it up on the net and it was basically described as sesame street for the adult generation. Sounded like my kind of thing, but my friends weren't convinced. Still, they (most kindly) decided as it was my do to give it a try. I was rather bricking it as the day hadn't exactly gone well so far...

When we were at the ticket booth, I had my hoooge "30" badge on, and I wonder if it helped as the lady rang somewhere asking for more Avenue Q tickets, hung up and said she had some 5th row, centre ones for us. So good or bad, we were going to have a good view

I can wholeheartedly recommend it. Absolutely brilliant show. Within the first couple of minutes we were all laughing our heads off. Really made the day for all of us. Fantastic acting and singing, spot on timing and even a little bit of audience participation. Well worth the £27 each we paid.



Then we headed off to Ed's Diner for some food. I've been to one once before a few years back. Still great. Not the cheapest burgers, but they taste great, and the onion rings are still the best I've had

One last gripe - £4.20 for a pint of diet coke in a bar?!!!?! A pint of lager in the same place was £3.10 which is about the same as many Chelmsford places.

A busy day, and I am shattered today! Overall I really enjoyed it, just shame a couple of places showed how bad it can be

[Dymetrie]

London can certainly be a serious rip-off. It's useful to actually know the good places to go, but without living here then it's a bit difficult.

Sad to hear about the crappy food places and the Science Museum (it's basically not been updated since 1985 :/), but good to hear that you enjoyed the show

Incidentally, I was also in Theatreland yesterday. Lunch in Caffe Uno near Leicester Square Tube station, then went to see Rent! (I enjoyed it, very well done if slightly long. Denise Van Outen was damn good as Maureen, made me giggle when she started picking on someone in the audience "You have amazing tits! Stand up and show everyone how amazing your tits are" ), then a few pints in The Chandos (Sam Smiths pub at the bottom of St Martins Lane... Nice and cheap, £5.25 a round for three people).

Dum de dum

[Belmit]

I had the opposite experience last night!

With my railcard the return ticket + all day travel card cost me £13. Ran out to the platform and jumped on literally as the train was leaving. Met my brother at Waterloo and went to Leicester Square. Found a pub called The Cambridge and had a couple of ales, and met a chap from New Jersey who comes over once a year to drink proper beer! Thoroughly nice chap, who totally dispelled the Jersey stereotype.

Just across the road was a posh looking bistro type restaurant with surprisingly reasonable prices. Had swordfish for not much more than £10. Nom.

From there, went on to the Soho Theatre (which has one of the nicest bars I've been to in a while) for a couple, and saw Stewart Lee. Great show, very funny.

Got the Tottenham Court tube back to Waterloo and arrived at 23:30. The 23:23 had been delayed by ten minutes and moved off seconds after I got on. Result!

[Flibster]

I like the Science Museum.... I am a geek though. Late 2006, did the Spitfire exhibition and the Game On show. Had a spot of food in the bit down near the mangles McLaren F1 car.

However, I do agree about most of what you've said though. It really does need to revamp a lot of the older displays. Whatever you do, don't go the the Natural History museum - it's worse! One of our customers is quite senior in the Sciene Museum though, so I'll pass your comments over to her. She's nice enough. Apparently, on average you go to the science museum 3 times in your life. 1st time as a kid, 2nd time as a parent and 3rd time as a grandparent.

Imax is pretty good - sounds like that film you saw was pretty crap though. The 3d one about space is cool.

Avenue Q is a fantastic show. Sesame Street meets South Park - the most explicit sex that I've seen on stage in the UK too. Especially as the people doing it don't exist from the waist down.

Simon/~Flibster

[Nutcase]

Glad others had a great time yest Overall we did too, just bad stuff sticks in your mind...

Simon, I'm a geek too I've probably been to the Sci museum 15-20 times in my life. Last time a couple of years ago, but that was a very brief visit.

I don't think the main museum has changed significantly in at least a decade, so I was only really interested in any temp exhibitions or anything new. Which from what we saw was basically the Wellcome wing. Of which one entire floor was shut

My mum showed be something in the paper, it looks like we just missed the re-opening of one of the major hands on areas, which might have improved our visit a lot:

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/launchpad/

I'm sure they have a very limited budget to work with, but I'm sure the stuff we did see in the Wellcome wing cost a lot of money, just a shame it was so dull

Managed to miss the Spitfire event totally, didn't know it was there else I'd have definitely nosed round there. Didn't see any signs for it?

[Flibster]

Surprised you missed the spitfire - it's almost one entire side of the second floor iirc.

Complete with a dismantled and partially polished spitfire on one wall.

Also contains the only remaining component of the Supermarine Type 300 - K5054 - Spitfire prototype. One of the wing bolts was made into a hammer by an engineer.

The Computing and photography sections need the most work, it's still just exhibits in cases for the most part. Although seing the computational engines is pretty cool now.

Last time I went it was undergoing some work, haven't been since then.

Simon/~Flibster

[goldilocks]

i've never really 'done' london
been to a couple of shows, and had my d of e gold presentation there, but not been shopping / museums / touristy stuff - and i'd really like to
was looking a spending a few days there next year
but even on last minute, and through early booking websites everything looks really expensive, 1* hotels are pricier than 4*s elsewhere in the country

i know it's criminal that i'm english and i have never visited our capital city - but is it really worth spending the same price as a week abroad, to spend a few days being a typical london tourist?

[Nutcase]

Think I missed the entire 2nd floor - we went in, straight through space to the loo, then back to space, then through to the Wellcome thing, into the imax, out the imax and trundled round a bit demoralised and left.

Really wish I'd seen it Might have to head down again soon just for that!

[Mark]

I agree with Flibster on the Imax stuff. The space one is by miles the best one to see. And yes, the computing stuff does need updating. It's interesting to see really old disk platters and such, but there needs to be more moden stuff there too.

[Flibster]

Originally Posted by Nutcase

Think I missed the entire 2nd floor - we went in, straight through space to the loo, then back to space, then through to the Wellcome thing, into the imax, out the imax and trundled round a bit demoralised and left.

Really wish I'd seen it Might have to head down again soon just for that!

It's there till the end of December.

Could be good to get away from the christmas garbage.