BM est. 1759

Finally, since I am in London after all, I thought it only right that I visit the British Museum. The first time i walked into this building, I didn't quite know what to expect. The huge classical colonade gives way at the entrance to a dark foyer flanked by the giftshop and a couple of galleries. I remember thinking that it would be full of very stuffy old men looking at very stuffy old exhibitions which would be nothing more than the trophy cabinets of dead merchant soldiers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Walking through, the dark recess suddenly opens into a huge marble space. In the centre is the cylindrical reading room, famous perhaps more for Marx choosing it as his study while writing the communist manifesto than for its books. Now it is simply an architectural curiosity, the constant stream of tourists making constructive thought rather difficult. I suppose that originally, this part was open to the elemts before it was roofed over in the 90s with a perspective warping glass triangulation.

This time my attention was drawn by a 1st century AD statue of a cheeky chappy on horseback, featured to the right. The thing that caught me more than anything else was that he was naked in all the 'important' areas, and yet sports a pair of sandals and a lovely oversized handkercheif. Either that or he just hasn't quite mastered the art of wearing a toga.