The Tara Plumbing Family Day out in London

We made it to the Royal Academy of Art on Saturday (see my previous blog

http://mrstaraplumbing.wordpress.com/2007/06/01/hockey-at-the-royal-academy-of-arts/

).   It is a challenge to take a 5 year old to an Art Gallery.

Don’t touch (or lick) the paintings. Don’t run around the installations or sculptures. Be careful you don’t knock over that piece of Art, yes that stack of old brocken chairs. Don’t sit – that is not a colourful chair but a piece of Art! Yes you can sit here, it is not Art, it’s a bench. How do I know it’s a bench. To be honest, I’m not sure of the answer, but loads of other people were also sitting there.

So if an Art Gallery is just a place where you can’t do anything but be in trouble then it is not going to be a nice day out.

I find it is better to discuss what we see. “What is your favourite painting in this room and why?” Our son liked the black canvase with a ghostly whisp of silvery grey hinting at something that we couldn’t make out.

In the next room I challenged him to find the painting of the whale, in the next a painting of the chair with a big bra hanging from it!

I explained that sculpture is a type of Art that you can walk all the way around! He liked this a lot.

As for the the massive Hockney painting, our son just said, “wow!” as he walked into the room. It was really impressive, I am pleased we saw it.

As we were going to be in the Piccadilly area I went on to a very useful website to find out what local attraction might offer a 2 4 1 discount. We decided to visit the Wellington Arch, which is in the middle of the roundabout at Hyde Park Corner. This property is under the care of English Heritage. It has an interesting exhibition about the history of that area of London and a view over the wall into the back garden of Buckingham Palace. There was nothing hanging on the washing line. In fact, I think someone must have taken it down and I think I spotted some Union Jack boxers attached to a flag pole.

We travelled to London that day by train, with a railcard it was approx. £25 for the 3 of us, Which is not too bad, but I could have driven and parked in zone 2 for less, you can even park for free in zone 1 on Sundays. Children can travel free on London transport, so we just bought 2 bus passes for the day at £3.50 each. Each individual bus journey in the centre of London is now £2. So very expensive! I am telling you this, because it was impossible to find out the bus fares for central London on the internet. I knew we did not need to travel on the underground.

The cost of public transport does not encourage us to give up our cars and it is prohibitive to the poorest families. Recently, we investigated travelling to Worcester from Ramsgate by train, booking a long time in advance and travelling on a certain appointed off-peak train, the cheapest fair was £65 return! That is each!

Please take note of this, Mr Ladyman, MP for Ramsgate and with resposibilities for transport.

P.S.  I note the growing ruthlessness with which train companies are gethering fares has been reported widely lately and is a disgrace:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1969212.ece

“Britain’s biggest train company has told its guards that they will be disciplined and possibly dismissed if they show discretion to passengers who are unable to buy tickets before boarding because of long queues at stations.

… guards are judged according to the amount they collect in penalties. … treat passengers as fare dodgers even if they come up to the guard on the train and ask to buy a ticket. “

The guards must sell the most expensive adult ticket, with no discounts (eg railcard) even to children.  On BBC R4 it was reported that a woman with 2 children had to buy another ticket on the train because she boarded the train at the station AFTER the one named on her ticket! 

It would be like me getting a ticket in advance from Ramsgate to Victoria, but getting on at Margate instead.  Being told as I got on at a different station I would now have to pay the full most expensive adult fare.