When a Woman is Tired of London, she is Tired!

When I was a kid, I remember being taken to the London Plnetarium which was utterly enthralling, seeing all the Galaxies and the Milky Way and the way the solar System has evolved and how everything has been moving outward at a tremendous rate ever since the Big Bang! Of course, now I'm told that this will only last for another umpteen million years and then it will slow down and reach a brief moment of stasis before everything begins rushing back towards the centre of the universe when, who knows, maybe everything will implode and for a brief moment there will be another Big Bang and history will repeat itself – or it might just be a big car crash of stars and planets bumping against each other like those tangles you get into on the Dodgems when nobody can get out of it till the roustabout comes and with a flick of his wrist steers one car out and the rest can all get going again – Jeepers, is god just a big tattooed Roustabout, setting the cars spinning and racing around again and then retiring to his booth for a smoke and a can of whatever Gods drink? Anyway, the Planetarium is is no more but now houses Madame Tussauds which we went to again after a lifetime, and then to 221B Baker Street – The Sherlock Holmes Museum!

When I first visited the famous Wax Works, it was with my Aunts Daphne and Maude, who didn't seem to find the same things funny as I did, and my sister Stacy, who didn't seem to find the same things funny as I did. This was before my involvement with The Ring of Gold and Jimmy Savile and I was very naive and innocent and probably a bit like a sweet little St Trinian's girl. Actually, now, if I remember rightly, weren't the St Trinian's girls into smoking, gambling, drinking, sex, drugs and Rock & Roll? My role models

Anyway, they have new wax figures since I was last there, I suppose it is a bit of a barometer of who's in and who's gone. I remember Muhammed Ali and President Kennedy and The Beatles. Now they've got Star Wars, the Kardashians and Benedict Cumberbatch; David cameron and David Attenborough as Boris Johnson – actually that has always been the fun of going round a Wax Works: guessing who the face actually looks like, because a lot of them don't quite catch the look of the official subject and do often look more like someone else. Which can be a bit creepy! Oh, Nelson Mandela does look kinda like him, but their Barack Obama isn't quite right. But it's a good laugh. I was disappointed that few of the Sports Stars looked like the real Deal – Mo Farah was the best, except for his hands which look like a big spider about to land on his head!

Astonished that they have branches in 21 Cities; well, 20 Cities and Blackpool – it just goes to show that the original Golden Mile with the Pleasure Beach, Tower and Three Piers is still on the world stage, alongside Amsterdam, Berlin, Las Vegas, Washington DC and Wuhan! WTF is Wuhan? I've just looked it up on their website and it's all in Chinese, which isn't much good if you can't read Chinese but are thinking about Wuhan for your next Hen Night – Sod that, we're off the Blackpool, you can get a good Fish and Chips there and there used to be a wee tram and a fantastic Carousel on the North Pier, I hope they are still there!

 

And from Madam Tussauds, we (that is me and Stacy and our cousins Biddy and Suzi who live in London and were acting as very amateur tour guides, walked round the corner to visit the Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221B Baker Street – which everyone knows is a fictitious address, but nevertheless and totally disregarding that, you can have your photo taken outside with a Victorian Police Constable (or at least someone masquerading as a Victorian Police Constable, which I’m sure would have been a crime in Victorian England) and a very nice fellow he is!

 

 

And the plot is complicated enough – indeed, you might say it thickens, even more than the London Fog – without the location for the TV series with Benedict Cumberbatch (of Madam Tussauds Fame) and Martin Freeman, who's only little which makes me such a fan of his, being on the petite side myself and forever being towered over by men (and not a few women) of the Cumberbatch ilk, by the location being transferred to what is actually 187 Baker Street next door to Speedy's café, a block to

the South of the real address (if there really was a B) which of course has the Museum which would be inappropriate in the series, I know, I know – who cares about all this extraneous detail? ME!

On the ground floor of the museum is a gift shop packed to the ceiling with all sorts of goodies and although some are quite expensive (for me and my chums) such as walking sticks for £40, there are lots at almost pocket money prices, so, yes, we succumbed. Hangs head in shame at being such a tourist.

The Tour of the house is £15 which, if you're a fan is fine, though I wouldn't fancy paying for a crowd who weren't all that bothered – and I did see some couples in which one was clearly being dragged along by the other. And the different ages of the visitors probably meant that there were some drawn by the new series set in present day London while others were probably aficionados of the Victorian originals. I've got a pair of books, one having all the Short Stories and the other the Long Stories. They were my first ever leaving gift from my first ever job and have moved with me everywhere. They aren't particularly expensive, but I treasure them and have read the stories many times. So I suppose that, while I enjoy the modern TV series, I do still see the real Holmes and Watson in great woollen ulsters and bowler or top hats striding through the fog or hailing a hansom cab. I loved seeing the rooms and felt myself to be Irene Adler – yes, I was always drawn to 'That Woman' and would loved to have played her – first setting foot in Holmes Drawing Room and meeting the famous consulting detective and his vague and blustering friend. It was packed with memorabilia and you almost expected one of the pair co walk in and make himself a pot of tea, or call down to Mrs Hudson, perhaps even see Sherlock himself, playing his violin or injecting heroin.

It was strange afterwards to step out into modern London, see red omnibuses and Japanese tourists, people speaking into their hands or taking selfies with the Bobby.

We were ravenous so, despite Biddy wanting to go into Speedy's and ask the young man behind the counter for “a roll with a big fat meaty sausage to fill her up,” we ran round to Weatherspoons and had big plates of steak and kidney pie and pints of Directors! Nothing girlie for us lot!