some more of our most recent london adventure, then, look you see. indeed yes, fans and enthusiasts of such, this will involve a good deal more queuing. perhaps not quite so much as was involved in our time at the south african high commission, bit some all the same.
having done what we needed to do (kind of) (we think) at the sa high commission (we shall find out if all went well in, oh, months), we had some quality free time in london to do with as we wished. after some conversations and discussions about the many, various and diverse attractions offered by the city, we opted to go and visit the london dungeon and madame tussaud's.
we went in that order, on different days, but what the hey, let us live a little and do it out of sequence.
yes, indeed, it was quite wet when we went. a good deal of rain fell, which is somewhat uncharacteristic of london, i am led to believe. the rather fine umbrellas were sold to us by one of the many street vendors the capitol (capital?) city has to offer, at a rate of two for a tenner. believe me, that is reasonable for london costs.
speaking of costs, some practical advice. the majority of london attractions would appear to be in undefined ways "linked", as in you can make advance bookings for a number of attractions at once. also, as i did, you can buy tickets at one attraction and build in others. the savings on two or more attractions are full worthy, the difference in saving between buying online in advance and buying at one of the attractions is quite negligible. as i was uncertain when or where we might be i didn't dare book online in advance, and found doing it at one attraction was ten, maybe just south of twenty pounds more than an online option. that's on face value online, by the way - no idea if when you check out you get hit with a "booking fee".
but, that said, i would totes suggest you book in advance for madame tussaud's. or madame tussauds if the apostrophe is not required. i vastly underestimated how popular the place is. when we arrived to check in with our tickets for the day and checked in, we discovered that we would have to wait some three and a half (3.5) hours before we would be admitted. hence us discovering the sherlock holmes museum to help pass the time.
indeed, that is one of the "official" pictures one can purchase at madame tussauds. there are many, many, many opportunities to pay significant money for such images, but we just went with the one since we were there.
my recollection of madame tussauds - and it will be somewhere around thirty years since i went - was that it was quite good, but never seemed or felt all that popular. that has changed somewhat. i suppose what i forgot to consider, or include in my thinking, is that we now live in a world where we, the people, have gone selfie mad. whereas once madame tussaud's was a place where people went in not particularly large numbers and admired the great skill and craft of the waxworks, now it is full of people clutching to the statues (is that the right word for them?) and taking selfies with most decidedly gay abandon.
yes, of course i indulged or engaged in that sort of thing. and much of this post shall be a celebration of some of the selfies i took, before i got quite bored of it.
we are not 100% certain on the identity of the above. no, yes, we know one of them is me. our understanding is that this might be meant to be a wax statue of actress kate winslett, better known as "her out of titanic". which i guess puts me in a sort of leonardo di caprio position in the above.
in truth i am not as familiar with miss winslett as i could be, but all the same i had a decidedly distinct feeling that now in madame tussauds the approach is very much one of "near enough is good enough". once the place was celebrated for absolute perfection in 100% remarkable waxwork creations, from what i could see it is now that a "vague likeness" shall do. not in all cases, mind, for as we might see in the rest of the pictures some of them are remarkably brilliant.
my (considerably) better half, if you are wondering, is quite possibly very much in the, say, to round it down a bit, 99% of women in the world who probably would, if pressed, choose Brad Pitt over me. and why not.
you see, that's a really good waxwork (unless Brad is most smart at standing still and it is really him). others on display, well, not so much. more of a passing resemblance, as i mentioned.
like, for instance, or if you will for example, this one.
whereas you can see that is supposed to be our incumbent prime minister, glorious leader Boris Johnson, something of it just feels "off". maybe. i mean, i have not studied the man in any great detail, but it doesn't see as lifelike as a few of the others, or what madame tussauds is famous for. but still, i suppose, someone glancing at that picture might believe i was really stood behind Boris, what with his cheeky grin and great plans.
one, in every sense possible and imaginable, better would be the most splendid one they have of Madiba, as in Mr Nelson Mandela. regular readers here will be aware that i posted an image of this particularly pleasing waxwork in another post, but why not have another, especially when it features my (considerably) better half.
things have very much changed at madame tussaud's since i was last there. which, i guess, is understandable since it will be close to thirty years since i was last there. one thing which i recalled as being there but has now gone and i am sad it has gone was a "horrors" section, meant for the more mature visitor. perhaps they removed it so as not to steal the appeal of the london dungeon, or maybe it was just to make the whole thing a bit more "family orientated".
yes, there is a "horror" or "scary" section of sorts. kind of. it's called Alien Escape or something like that. basically it is a corridor, with a Michael Fassbender out of the so-so Prometheus and the terrible Alien Covenant films, and an alien figure. not bad, i suppose, but not wax models getting guillotined.
another change is more "modern" celebrities, famous people being on display, rather than the ones i can recall from 30 years ago. it was with some considerable interest i noted that one of the supposedly more popular people of today, mr kim kardassian or whatever the tosser is called, was being widely, routinely and wisely ignored by the vast majority of people visit.
the rare level of space around this statue and a burning desire to let mr kim kadushian what i thought about him in a simplified way meant the above was necessary. undoubtedly he feels the same way about me, if asked.
and busy the place is. the three (plus) hour wait between us checking in and getting in seems standard. further, when in, they are letting loads in. getting near the waxworks is tricky with so many people wanting to take dozens of selfies, which is perhaps why i got bored of taking selfies. you have, then, been warned. in terms of just how many people go in a day, well, we went in just before 4, left somewhere around 6, and we were numbers 4700 (ish) to leave. and batches of people were being let it for some two hours after we went in.
how about another image from our strolls around london? it would be a lovely excuse to have a picture here which does not have moi in it.
both my (considerably) better half and young William really, really like them there fancy cars, so they were delighted to spot this one. there were many such fancy cars in and around the city, so they had a few to admire. no, my interest remains in how the stereo performs in a car.
how else has madame tussaud's changed? quite jazzed up features. there is a "tour of london" ride thing, which is actually very good indeed and probably worth all the hassle and waiting to get into the place. also, a "4D" film experience thing featuring The Avengers in a cartoon form. it was short and entertaining, i would say. actually did just say.
go on then, yes, one more selfie. how about a nice one of me with The King, Elvis Presley? of course.
indeed, it was the younger, 50s era of The King, Elvis Presley that they had on display. my preference would have been for He in all His 70s glory, resplendent in a most smart jumpsuit, but i will take what they gave.
quite strangely they also made a bit fuss of having a wax model of that Ed Sheringham (or whatever) twat, the one who "set chart records" by "streaming". nobody seemed particularly interested in the wax statue of him, and absolutely no one was buying any of the vast, ludicrous number of Ed Sheridan (or whatever) merchandising items for sale in the gift shop.
so is madame tussaud's worth your time going to? worth the waiting, the bustle of people, etc? pretty much yes, really. very much yes if you are fanatical about selfies, and have one of them social media things with followers and that to post images to. just book in advance, and book a time slot in advance too, if possible.
anyway, as ever, hope this has all been of some interest, use or what have you to someone out there somewhere.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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