'huge, queer and tawdry' but 'much admired by the public'

On Friday, the weather was nice enough that I realised I didn't have to come back home in between picking up my comics and late night opening at the Natural History Museum - I could just wander through London as spring woke it up. Not that it was exclusively an outdoor tour; pausing at the National I made the momentous decision that The Fighting Termeraire is no longer my favourite painting in the world ever. Fortunately, however, my new favourite painting in the world ever is only two along on the same wall, and also by Turner - Odysseus Deriding Polyphemus. I'm not linking to them because if ever there was a painter who doesn't reproduce well on screen, it's Turner. But it has even more magic in the light, and less of a sense of the passing of wonder, and I like the rocks. So that's that settled. Then on down to Bonnington Square to confirm that the daffodils are out, alongside various other spring-y flowers I fail too hard at botany to identify (though I suspect the white ones might be snowdrops), and along to Battersea Park, which until now I had only seen across the river, mysteriously pagoda-ed. It still feels a little mysterious when you're in it, all twisty paths and grottos, and the pagoda (unlike muck public art) feels just as curious up close as it does from a distant, rather than merely municipal. Battersea's an odd one, though - the Battersea Arts end is genteel South London, but approaching from Vauxhall you enter the park via a rough as guts district I can only presume is the mythical Nine Elms. From here, presumably, spawn also the chav brood who kept asking me for fags in the park, presumably convinced that they would eventually catch me out and get me to admit that I smoked.
The Museum late was considerably more civilised than the Science Museum's in terms of crowds, in spite of/because of having far less of the museum open for them to explore; the whole upstairs was shut, ditto the dinosaurs. All the shops were open, obviously. Still, wine and giant sloth, so hardly a dead loss.

Feeling Gloomy on Saturday night; unfortunately, there was one more band than I expected, and worse still I caught almost all of their set. Maddison, I think they might have been called. Avoid. Then on to The Firm who, in a nod to the old days, were in need of a bassist. Fortunately Simon Drowner stood in, and all was well. The Drowners remain, as the name hints, massively Suede-y, though also drawing a lot from the Manics, including the incongruously heterosexual drummer (who looks like Dan Snow and takes his top off after one song). And then Jonny Cola & the A-Grades, who have come on in leaps and bounds since I saw them last, now coming across like proper glam stars. Though I do feel that 'We're All Gonna Die' is such an obvious set closer that carrying on past it for two songs might not be the best way to organise the set.

On Sunday I wasn't going to go to the New Royal Family video shoot, because I had other plans and, as I said to a Sex Tourist on Saturday, I wasn't sure about being "that guy who's in all the New Royal Family videos". Then I got a text cancelling Plan A and thought, sod it, there are worse ways to be typecast. Even if I do always seem to end up having to feign disapproval of them; I'm a little worried that, like some soap villain, people will start to believe I genuinely am trying to stop them entertaining The Kids. Or I would be if I could act. Good times.