A stag do around the Natural History Museum

At the grand old age of 49 I went to a stag do on Saturday. I had however to fit it around a long standing arrangement to visit the Wildlife photography exhibition at the Natural History Museum which is shortly to close. My original plan was to join the pub crawl for a quick one at the start before joining up with my friends early afternoon and then returning to the gang in the evening.

 But as I was on my way I got a text to say the start was delayed owing to one of the members being in court (On a professional basis I should add. No doubt trying to get some toe-rag off jail when he could have been getting pissed with the rest of us. A poor sense of priorities in my view)

So given I wouldn't get enough time to do both, I just headed to South Kensington, but being about 2 hours early, I had a quick look at the neighbouring Science Museum.

Then onto the Natural History Museum. No photos of the photos I am afraid, but was a great exhibition, albeit rather crowded (always an issue for our little group none of whom exceed 5 foot 6, although I suspect the 11 year old will be by next year). Its always pretty amazing to see the shots of wildlife and landscapes. Even the under 10s category looks brilliant. They tend to be a combination of the amazing snaps of something spontaneous, or tales of people bedding down in hides for 10 days in minus 20C to catch the perfect shot. It was great going round with a youngster because he is just at the age he can be articulately critical of things (although his mum felt the need to shush him as he criticised yet another photo for composition, or the judges for having got them in the wrong order. Personally, all for it if he can back up his reasoning. And he can. Smart kid, with a great sense of humour.)

The Natural History Museum is of course blighted by being a favourite place to bring small children, resulting in long queues to get in. And being run over by pushchairs once inside. But it is a very impressive building.

The one really quiet bit was this room, I think because no one realises there is an exhibit. Its on the ceiling. The tree isn't a painting. Its basically a slice of tree.

And at the top of the museum, there is a slice (the more traditional cut across rather than lengthwise) of a giant sequoia.

But my favourite bit is the mineral room, lots of "dull" display cabinets of rocks, but to me much more interesting than interactive eco stuff that they now try and carve out of the old halls.

We broke up the visit with afternoon tea at the neighbouring V & A. Very civilised compared to the cafeteria/school canteen feel to The Nat History Museum.

Sadly, their visit was curtailed by a need to get off to church, so I then went out in search of the stag do pub crawl. I joined at the point of a visit to the Black Friar, a pub pretty close to where I work actually. And a very fine establishment too, not just for the quality of its ales but the fact that it is a listed Art Nouveau building, once saved from demolition by Sir John Betjeman.

Then on to our eatery for the evening, Tayyabs out in the East End. Possibly the world's busiest curry house. It was absolutely packed. Even having booked we were asked to stand outside for a bit, all the inside space having already been taken by diners queueing for a table. From this you may deduce that either the food must be cheap, or delicious, or both. Yep, it was both. Luckily we didn't have to wait too long before were summoned - we were a fairly conspicuous group since all the rest apart from yours truly had decided to wear tartan trousers in a tribute either to Rupert Bear or Tobermoray from the Wombles. We gorged ourselves on miscellaneous curries and mixed grills, under the scrutiny of salivating potential diners still snaking around the tables in the hope of eventually getting a seat themselves.

Finally with sufficient ale and food inside us we went in search of a further public house with late opening hours. Unfortunately this meant traversing the length of Brick Lane, which conspicuously lacks pubs but is full of blokes trying to entice you into their restaurants for curries: not what you want when you had only just finished  eating as much as you could 10 minutes before. I left the youngters in their search and sneaked back from Shoreditch. Well I am getting on a bit. And there was the 7:45 edition of Match of the Day to be up for on Sunday morning.