jmtd → log → hols → London, Day 2

It's been nearly a week since London day 1, so I'd better write about the rest of the holiday before I forget the details.

The Rosetta stone

Sunday was a more typically tourist day: A visit to the British Museum to see (amongst other things) the Rosetta Stone. Unfortunately the pre-history section was closed, so we didn't get to see Banksy's Early Man Goes to Market.

A trip to Camden for lunch with Kate's home friend Zara and her house-mate followed, then a cockney-narrated boat trip east down the river with Tom, Emma and Andy to Greenwich.

We stopped for afternoon tea in a small tea shop. We were sat opposite the door and could feel the draft every time someone opened it. Shortly after we had arrived, an elderly woman opened the door, then proceeded to struggle with her umbrella outside, with the door wide open, for five further minutes.

Andy's admirer

The couple sat at the table next to us and proceeded to listen to a tale Andy was relating which must have offended them. The woman's eyes were wide and she spent the remainder of our stay there fixated on Andy, who was blissfully ignorant of this. She only turned away when we took a photo of Andy with her in shot.

The Greenwich Meridian

Greenwich is famous for being the location of the Prime Meridian, which passes through the Royal Greenwich Observatory. We arrived at the Observatory at 4pm, just as it closed. However, Andy pointed out that the Observatory turn on a laser pointing north along the meridian (roughly towards the Millennium Dome) which we would probably have missed if we had turned up earlier. I believe he got this nugget from Dave Sobel's Longitude which he mentioned he had recently read.

Meridian laser

We closed the day with an Ethiopian meal in a Restaurant near King's Cross, followed by some beers near Angel with Andy his girlfriend Tamsin, who hails from Alnwick, near where I live. I spotted some graffiti which looked like a typical Banksy work near Angel: two security guard silhouettes with their heads replaced by CCTV cameras. I can't find it in Wall and Piece but I did find some on flickr (which seem to suggest it's dbase, not Banksy).