Welcome to Wednesday Wishes.
Two reopened, refurbished museums this week. One telling the story of surgery and the other showing us the home lives of Handel and Hendrix. Two multi centenaries are celebrated with exhibitions St Bartholomew’s Hospital and Christopher Wren. Peckham Station waiting room becomes the latest location for an Artangel installation. Modern Saris get the once over at the Design Museum and a look at nineteenth century China at the British Museum. Book of the Week is a menacing historical dive into rural Essex.
Have you been watching Queen Charlotte the latest in the Bridgerton series? It is very different from its predecessors. No chemical dyed Regency frocks here. We have the tale of how Queen Charlotte met King George. There are flash forward to the time we met before but we only see the older characters not the giddy young. I confess that this is my favourite series so far. There are new locations too. Blenheim Palace stars as Buckingham House (it didn’t become a Palace until later), time to revisit I think.
Way back when I began my career I spent a lot of time going to press conferences in the City of London. Navigating the centuries old street pattern, surrounded by the constant clamour of building as the City reinvents itself. Roman London hides beneath the streets. Visiting the Mithraeum and Amphitheatre have long been favourite things to do. Now you can visit a new patch of London’s Roman Wall under a brand new building on Vine Street, it even has a cafe that you can sit in gaze over the wall. Visiting the wall is free but you do need to book (no need to book for the cafe).
Happy Culturing
Catherine