Tutankhamun on the Kings Road London

It's been a while since we went to London, a few years a go I seemed to be there at least monthly.   But the Tutankhamun exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery was enough of a draw to take me back.

We walked from Victoria to the Kings Road (the long way round no thanks to me!) but neither HWMBO have ever spent non-work time in this area so it was pleasant and we knew we were getting close as the number of Land Rover Defenders (with low profile tyres obviously) grew.    We wandered past the Sloane Square carpark which was a about £50 a day (or £224 a week) to park the London City necessary off-roader off road.

Pavillion Road was a plethera of artisan food shops where if you needed to ask how much a pound then you couldn't afford it!

There was a amazing little barbers shop that a little boy was having a hair cut in an old fashioned sweeney-tood type chair next to an incredible till, seriously worth window shopping but at £50 a shave,  HWMBO said he'd rather shave himself.










The weather was good and we decided to wander on, I was drawn into an 'active wear' shop and HWMBO and I looked at clothes we'd actually have really liked and then looked at the prices!  A pair of leggings in an orange colour to die for were £120 - now don't get me wrong if you were going to a gym in Chelsea they are probably uniform, I can see that - but given the brambles and clay stain mud I run through I decided to stick with my (cheap by comparison but it's all relative) Reeboks!  HWMBO decided Sainsburys gym clothes were perfectly adequate for his needs and that is why I love him - he doesn't spend his own money, so I can do it for him!

This is the world of Ab-Fab and the stereotypical and the want-to-bes are there for the watching.  It is  fun and at the same time horribly disconcerting that this country is really such an unfair society in which so many can't afford to eat and so many can afford to live this life.

We had a wander around the Duke of York Square fine food market which is right outside the gallery and decided what we would be eating afterwards and I gave some money to the big-issue seller to get over the guilt (amazing how quickly you can filter out the uncomfortable feelings.)

Anyway, onto the Saatchi gallery and the queues, tickets are timed and the queues are very well organised, get there 15 minutes before your time on the ticket and they open up a queue lane for your ticket time.  There's no point in being there any earlier.  But you know exhibitions in London, never knowingly undersold tickets since 19-canteen.

Once in we declined the Theme park type photo and headed into a film room (or holding gate as layout designers probably refer to them as)

It was short enough not to be a pain and interesting enough to get me a little more excited but I don't consider myself to be small person and this was my view of the screen so I can only assume I was there on tall person day or the room is on a downward slope.




Once inside,  the exhibition was heaving with each case surrounded by people waiting to take a photo before moving on.

There was limited historical information, just snippets of  what seemed more like prose than data and a brief description of the artefact.

In fact some people seemed to take a very long time reading a very limited amount of words,  I came to the conclusion that the lettering colour and font was not conducive to fast information intake, which for the number of people they were pushing through was needed.

Overall it had a cinematic rather than historical/museum feel to it and my social media trained snippet brain liked it.  It reminded me of a phrase my brother used about musicals "Opera for idiots"

 This was Tutankhamun for the bling not the detail.

 But all the same I kept awing over the age of the items and that in the 100 years we have been man handling them, they haven't been totally ruined.  There's time for that yet I guess.

 I also decided I'd prefer it if my own grave wasn't turned into a mass tourist event without properly touching on my life.  But I guess the ancient Egyptian's importance of remembrance in posterity makes it a trade off.


















We headed back out into the cold for chicken broth and dumplings and walked the straighter route (thanks to HWMBO) to Victoria.


It was a pleasant day which reminded me why I like a day out in London and why we should make the effort to go more often.