Late in November, 2012 we travelled up to London for the weekend, the primary reason being to see Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson play at the O2. The fun had started when we’d checked into our hotel behind people clearly going to the same gig as us – lots of goth gear, old band t-shirts, some BDSM bits and pieces too – and the person at the hotel desk had apologised to us telling us that he thought they must be there for some weird musical artist or something. “Yes,” we replied, “we’re going too.” Raised eyebrows at the pair of us. We don’t exactly look like your average Rob Zombie fan. We’d then walked past car parking signs for “Zombie Parking” on the way to the arena that had amused us, then been amused further at the venue where there was a very distinct split between those there for Marilyn Manson – young, heavily made-up, super-Goth – and those there for Rob Zombie – older, scruffier – and a large pile of confiscated bondage equipment at the doors. The gig itself was superb, or at least Rob Zombie’s performance was. Crowd-pleaser, animatronics, pyrotechnics, TV screens, mosh-area-walk-through. And it didn’t hurt that he’d followed on from a croaky-throated, lacklustre performance from Manson who clearly knew he was nothing like the showman that Rob was and there was no point competing.
Anyway, to the day afterwards where we decided to take a bit of a look around nearby Greenwich before catching the tube to the train station and heading home.
We made our way to the National Maritime Museum, and from there we took a look around the Cutty Sark which had not long been reopened following restoration work after a fire in 2007. I’d only brought my 100mm macro lens with me (I’d not taken the camera to the gig) so the photos I ended up taking around the nineteenth century clipper ended up being a little bit odd and arguably artsy. Historical Ship Ropes: A Collection.
An odd surprise when visiting the Cutty Sark was finding the Long John Silver Figurehead Collection housed beneath the vessel. A collector of maritime objects, Sydney Cumbers lost an eye as a child and took to wearing an eyepatch that gave rise to his nickname. The 101 figureheads in his collection were donated to the Cutty Sark trust in 1953 after she became a museum ship open to the public.
From the Cutty Sark we walked under the Thames through the 370 metres-long Greenwich Foot Tunnel, opened in 1902, with distinctive entrances beneath glass-domed buildings. It was here that we were treated to another surprising sight in the form of a ballerina posing for a photo-shoot.
A few random photos from the financial district to finish off.
Greenwich is definitely one of the more interesting areas of London and we really ought to return at some point to do it more justice, particularly around the park area to the south of the museum.