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Catie and I had another mini-date in London which again involved a trip to the British Museum, because we know how to let our hair down. We went to the Feminine Power exhibition which included contributions from RHLSTP alumni Mary Beard and Deborah Frances-White. There was cool stuff about lots of female Gods and historical figures, but sadly no room for Sibyl (as far as I could see).
There was a bit of artistic nudity. The Sheila-na-gig is a scary faced sculpture of a toothy woman who is also holding open her vulva. You can also see her bumhole. It took everything I had to make a joke, but everyone else was taking things very seriously and the last thing the mainly female visitors needed was a man undermining everything. Even if they must have been thinking similar things, despite remaining straight-faced and affecting an academic air. The fact that a statue of Venus was said to have been so desired by Roman men that some had even attempted to make love to it demonstrated quite adequately how capable men are of ruining everything. Also if I had said something like “That’s a tricky wank,” my wife would have made sure my life wasn’t worth living for the next hour or so. She was rightly inspired by this exhibition that makes a tiny step towards addressing the way that women have been largely written out of history.
I managed to observe all this culture almost like an adult would have done. Once upon a time I would have refused to believe that people weren’t pretending to be serious and grown up when presented with stuff like this, but I almost managed it at 54 years of age and come on, that Shiela-na-gig is something else. If you’re not surprised by that or at least thinking “Blimey” and making up inappropriate comments then you’re not alive. But the important thing is that I didn’t say them. At least not until a day later when you’re writing your blog.
It was a big effort not to say it and I think all the women in that exhibition should have stood and applauded me for what I’d done for them.
The Queen of the Night was my favourite piece and I was so impressed by the survival of this ancient object and the weirdness of the things pictured that I didn’t even notice that she had no clothes on. I am a grown up.
We bumped into Janina Ramirez in the lobby of the Museum. We’d been talking about her a lot of her book about Goddesses is prominent in the Museum shop and Catie has an advanced copy of her next book Femina and she’s been a guest on both our podcasts. So it was odd to conjure her out of our imaginations, though it turned out we’d just missed her doing a talk about her Goddesses book. She’s such a bundle of energy and enthusiasm and her books and TV shows are ace, so it was a genuine boost to the day to bump into her and be buoyed by her positivity.
We went for lunch and did some shopping and navigated the packed pavements of central London populated by people who don’t seem to understand how pavements work or have any idea how to pass people without getting in their way. Why is it so many people’s tactic to just keep on walking and hope everyone else gets out of your way. Same reason why history is mainly about men I suppose.
A cracking RHLSTP with the wonderful Ardal O Hanlon.
Listen here and please let any friends who are fans of his know about it.
