“Will you find it?” said the posters across London, all week. I didn’t know what “it” was until I saw the pictures on BBC News. Apparently neither does anybody else outside London, though it’s been talked about non-stop all week within its borders. The Sultan’s Elephant is a production by the French Company Royal de Luxe, who aim to take theatre back to the people, from behind the closed doors back onto the streets and into the real world. And from the 4th – 7th May, the 40 ft high mechnical time travelling elephant packed up its trunk to visit the big city.The Sultan’s elephant is a Jules Verne story of a Sultan tormented by dreams of a time travelling girl. The Sultan comissioned an eccentric engineer from the year 1900 to build him a time machine so he could find the girl, and rid her from his dreams.So, that sounded like my kind of story really 🙂 It’s London’s largest ever street theatre production, includes a real life 40 ft tall mechanical elephant operated by a huge team of puppeteers, and a no less impressive “giant” girl. As I walked through St James’ Park looking for the elephant, I stumbled across the crowd of people watching the girl asleep in a huge deck chair. I didn’t think the elephant would be that hard to find, but there were still large groups of wide-eyed city workers rushing around asking “have you seen the elephant?”, “where’s the elephant going to be next?” like junkies trying to find their next fix.

I knew exactly how they felt.

I watched the giant girl as kids were allowed to take part in the performance by sitting on her arms while they swung back and forth, and followed the crowd as we all walked alongside, in front of, and around the giant. This led me to Horse Guard Parade, where the finale was to take place.

The elephant was just huge, about 3 stories tall and whilst not quite as large as Whitehall, it still made a hugely impressive view. I’m not convinced over its ability to time travel – but the elephant was certainly a work of mechanical, and imaginative genius. Seeing it for real made me very glad I’d come into London to see what the fuss was about, and I could fully appreciate anyone who had spend the last 3 days following it everywhere it went, cheering at every sound of the trumpet, and squirt of water from the elephant’s trunk. You couldn’t help but turn to your neighbour and grin, it was that kind of atmosphere 🙂

A really unique show and a great day out, all for the bargain price of “totally free” … Today has been a good day 🙂

Just been watching Natural World: Ella – a Meerkat’s story. Great show, all because meerkat’s are just freakin’ cool. Look at that one on the right, all standing up and everything. In fact, the show was a lot like that “look at that meerkat, all meerkat and everything. Oh oh and that one running!”.

Well I couldn’t find a BBC page just for ella, so here’s a fact page about Meerkats instead.

I woke up this morning thinking “wow, a week has almost gone of my holiday, and I really need to … like … do something”. So, since I travel into London 5 days a week, approximately 46/47 weeks of the year for work – I thought I should do something different. I’m on holiday! I should travel the world! Book a ticket to somewhere I haven’t been, not come back for a few days. Meet some new people, have a few drinks, and try food I’ve never tried before.

Well, I can’t afford that. So I grabbed my annual rail card off the side, and headed into London for a bit of tourism. Free of the shackles of having to get straight off the train onto the underground, and leaving the underground into an air conditioned building, London can be a very different place. Actually, that’s not true – London is still quite similar to the London of the rest of the week. However, it appears to be filled with very different people. The people using the tube at 11.30 in the morning are a lot more relaxed about taking a journey, than the grumpy 9 o’clockers with minds only how long it’s taking to get to their destination.

So anyway, I’ve never been – so thought I’d go and take a wander around the British Museum. From the outside, the building itself, is really large. That’s the first thought of seeing it. Rather than some of reverse Tardis, it’s quite large on the inside too. I walked through the entrance hall, and was rather surprised to see the huge opening into the great court. A massive open space opened in December 2000, with the original Reading Room in the centre. And this massive room leads off into tons more huge galleries of art and culture from across the world.

Wandering around the galleries, I passed by someone stopping a curator for help. “Excuse, how do I get out?”, he asked. “You want to find what?” “Erm, the exit, I forgot how I got in here.” Did I mention the place was large?

Totally overwhelmed by the amount of exhibits, I wandered around aimlessly for a good long while with my mouth hanging open. Through Egypt, Ancient Greece, Europe, America, Africa and China. I have no doubt I missed a lot of stuff, and a *whole* lot more I wasn’t really paying attention to. I only really went because I wanted to see the Ancient Persia exhibit – and I didn’t even make it to that.

So, a few things I did make it to… Male and female fertility totems I saw in Cyprus. Slightly older than the replicas being made in Nicosia, and cool to see.

A really cool rolling ball clock. The ball rolls down these channels on a sloped piece at the bottom of the clock, and takes about 30 seconds to arrive at a small switch. This tips the slope the other way, and the ball rolls back. Total genius! It was captivating listening to the metal ball rolling along a metal platform. chhhhhhhhhh, clump, chhhhhhhhh, clump, chhhhhhhh, clump, chhhhhh, click. chhhhhhhhh, clump. You get the idea. I’m sure after a few hours of it going in your living room, you’d begin to wish for the old tick-tock favourite you just threw out.

A really really scary looking figure from the ming dynasty. He gave me the creeps – it’s those eyes.

Countless huge Egyption statues, including a part of the Sphinx’s beard (a bit near the top). I can now say I’ve seen the Sphinx, and I didn’t have to go to the airport! Still, it’s not quite the same.

I passed by the gift shop as I was thinking about leaving, which I noticed were selling t-shirts, and magnets, and books, and postcards of The Rosetta Stone. None of the other exhibits have t-shirts. I wondered to myself “What’s so special about this Rosetta Stone thingy then?” Ah yes, I visit museums, I feel like such a knowledgeable and cultured citizen. I remembered seeing a replica of a big stone in the Enlightenment Gallery. So I headed back that way to have a look. Sure enough, a big stone with lots of words on that I didn’t really understand. “We invite you to touch this exhibit”, said the sign. So I did. “The real stone was found in Egypt, and can be found in Room 4”, said the sign below. So feeling a bit like I was making a new discovery of my own, and following clues between the tombs, I took chase. I looked around this room 4 for quite a while, staring at Egyptian slabs, thinking that maybe the real one isn’t the same colour, or that it’s much smaller. As I was about to leave, disapointed I hadn’t seen the museums prize exhibit, or even knew what it was – I noticed a huge crowd of people swamping a glass case, with the stone inside.

So this stone was found in Egypt, with a decree passed by a council of priests affirming Ptolemy V (13 years old!) on the first anniversary of his cornonation. Not so impressive so far, but stay with me. The decree is written in three different languages; hieroglyphic (suitable for a priestly decree), demotic (the native script used for your every-day stuff), and Greek (the language of the administration). This is a hugely important find, as the knowledge over how to read hieroglyphic was lost soon after they stopped using it in 4AD – and provided a means of translating this ancient script.

That’s all providing the historians didn’t mess up, and the text is actually the same in all three areas of the stone. I’m just saying, what if the hieroglyphic part says something totally different? “We tricked you, this is an elaborate hoax, and we’re all going to come out from behind the bushes and laugh at you now’. “Okay everyone out from behind the bushes. Surprise! Oh, and it took them 2300 years to find the stone and we’re all dead. Never mind”….

Well, I’m sure that’s unlikely – so I’m glad I found it as well, and took the time to learn something 🙂