CNPS numbers spotted 0 (799). The gods are testing me, but I will not stint in my devotion to them. And I will fall upon my knees and praise their greatness on that happy day when they allow me to see the 800 that I covet. But any help with this problem would still be appreciated.
I took 49 to the London Dungeons. I didn't really know what this tourist experience would entail, but regular readers know how much I enjoy poor museums, especially if they involve some kind of mechanised ride and artificial smells, so I was pretty sure we were in for a treat.
Of course, when you have never met someone before it is difficult to choose an activity that they will enjoy and there is always the danger that if the thing you do is a bit crap then you will look a bit stupid. It's not like I created the London Dungeons or chose what was going to go into it, but for the purposes of a date I might as well have done. Because if 49 had a bad time it would be all my fault.
It is rather a surreal experience, going around a museum dedicated to torture and death with someone that you have met only thirty minutes before. It is hard to gauge how you should react. After queueing for quite a while we finally got to the ticket cubicle, but first we were made to have our photo taken with me with my head of some stocks and 49 holding an axe and pretending to chop my head off. Even with someone you knew well this would have been an embarrassing thing to do, but with a stranger it was just rather weird. I am sure 49 looked as uncomfortable as me, but I don't know because we couldn't face even looking at it at the end. Which was a shame as I really should have bought it. It would be funny for the show, but also if 49 and me get married then it would have made for a great illustration for my speech.
For all I knew 49 might also have been a mad axe woman in real life and could have been planning to kill me at the end of the date, which would also have invested the jokey photo with a grim irony. She didn't kill me though and this isn't her writing this in order to make it look like I am still alive and provide herself with an alibi. And she isn't wearing my head as a hat as she's typing this. And anyone who says she is is lying (though you have to admire the way she has picked up my writing style - it is the perfect crime).
It turned out that the London Dungeons is a bit shit. I thought it occupied a strange hinterland where it was possibly a bit too gruesome for kids, but a bit too cartoony for adults. The various disemboweled waxworks did not look real enough to be shocking and yet much of the detail seemed a bti gratuitous.
I think whoever put the thing togehter maybe had a bit of a problem with women. Not only was there a section pretty much celebrating the work of Jack the Ripper, nearer the beginning there was a room called "Wicked Women" which catalogued female murderesses and the like. There was no "Wicked Men" section, so it seemed slightly misogynist to have one dedicated to the ladies. All it really needed was an exhibition called "All Women Are Whores" to really set the thing off, possibly involving wax works of all the women who had crossed or upset the bloke who created the museum. I might commission the Chapman brothers to make a similar exhibit for my own home. That would teach them.
There was lots of potentially embarrassing audience participation where bored young actors pretended to be judges or torturers and tried to make each other laugh by changing their script. Luckily we were not called upon to take part and some Americans were made to do it instead. It was all a little desperate and rubbish and the short boat ride through the dark did not really make up for it. It wasn't quite bad enough to be funny and there was nothing very frightening in there to liven things up a bit. It was just a bit tedious and for a while in the middle it felt like it was never going to end. Then suddenly and unexpectedly it did.
It was no Pencil Museum, that's for sure.
But I think we managed to enjoy it our own way, as well as the surrealism of this being the first thing we had ever done together. I will miss going to tourist attractions with strangers when all this is over.
