The Farmstead

Once upon a time a read a lecture summary or something on the Cambridge website about what would happen if humans upped and vanished one day from a large city (such as Cambridge)... I've never been able to find it again, but it stuck with me and was one of the main inspirations behind abridgement. And these images from Pripyat in the Chernobyl exclusion zone remind me of that too:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-22246328

Can't get over that second image with the forest re-emerging between the buildings.

Had a good afternoon in London today, with both the satisfaction of finding something I'd wanted for a while and of finding something shiny I'd never thought about before. They were both, strangely, that weird mustardy/orangey/yellowy "gold" colour. It turns out the 80s fever currently afflicting fashion everywhere has affected me with a taste for sportswear, because, building on my ownership of trainers for the first time in years, I now have a very nice vintage Adidas track jacket (Made in Yugoslavia, apparently): the sort of jacket I've been wanting for ages (don't judge me!). I also found some rather amazing shoes in the Topshop sale, which are, er, high-heel peep-toe platforms made out of rubber/plastic... They're amazing!!

In the past my shopping trips have been compared to hikes (though I resent this - wandering down Oxford Street from Bond Street to Tottenham Court Road and then on to Covent Garden is a perfectly sensible way to shop), so it's perhaps not surprising that I made a detour to the British Museum en route (<3 free museum entry). Yet I have a rather odd relationship with the British Museum, because I am what is probably known as a Bad Classicist: I have very little time for pots and sculptures of most descriptions (there are exceptions, obviously, like the Warren Cup, which is actually fascinating - unlike the Wiki article I link to, which I'm not entirely happy with, but comment if you care and I'll ramble), and even less for the Rah Rah, Up With Athens Greece, Down With Rome attitude that gets everywhere and means that I'm not sure Rome has a single dedicated room in the whole place.

But, and this is a big but, there is one room in the British Museum that fills me with utter glee, and is completely worth skipping past all the smelly tourists and their cameras. That room is Room 69: Greek and Roman Life.

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