Hypatia Avenue

"Chinese. All of this. Definitely."

After kicking Taxloss out of bed and sending him off on his long long loooooooong journey to work, I curled up in bed with a graphic novel and the latest P J Harvey album. (Yeah, that really is my idea of fun.) Thanks to my bro for lending me the book. God, I love being on holiday. Of course, it couldn't last forever: I had to eventually get out of bed to have a lunch of pancakes and waffles with my folks which gave us all a great deal of calories to burn off which we did by taking a very long turn around the British Museum.

Dad: You see those totem poles? The Chinese taught the Native Americans how to do that.
Me: Really.
Dad: The Chinese were in America first. It was the Chinese who taught the Native Americans this sort of thing. Then we left the US and destroyed all traces of what we did there because we had our own civilisation already and it was just something the explorers wanted to give to the people they met there and then the Europeans found America and that was that.
Me: Dad - I don't think that's what happened.
Dad: No, no, that's what happened, but there's no evidence because the Chinese were too clever to be traced as the people who gave civilisation to America. We destroyed anything that would give us away, that's why it seems like we were never there.
Me: Dad... let's go look at the Egyptian stuff.
Dad: Hmmm. None of this is as good as what the Chinese did.
Me: (Pause while I consider pointing out the pyramids are quite impressive)
Dad: They didn't really do anything special did they?
Me: (Pause while I consider pointing out the pyramids are quite impressive, standing next to a display of breath-taking sarcophagi in a room full of tablets engraved with intricate hieroglyphics)
Dad: Look, these vases are all rough and half-finished compared to the stuff we saw downstairs.
Mum: (Loudly) Shall we go home now?

We got caught in the most dramatic burst of heavy summer rain... EVER!(tm) when we left which meant I was too wet and miserable to spend any time at the Roma Festival in Trafalgar Square - a shame, as it looked like cracking good fun from the top of the bus when I went by but never mind: plenty more free events to attend in the next few weeks...

...including the final free open air screening at the National Theatre this Saturday: The Cabinet of Dr Caligari - who's coming? Myself, Fizzwhiz, Taxloss, Devukha and (briefly) Prandial had an unofficial blog meet-up at the last screening which was Metropolis (which was brilliant) and we are now well-practised in the way of these things so get in touch...

In other news, we are now file-sharing across our mini-home wirelss network and have been sitting in the living room with our laptops, swapping ridiculous and nonsensical mp3s of, amongst other things

- a female choir's version of I Touch Myself
- classic Abba songs sung in Hindi
- ragtime Eminem
- a Norwegian choral version of Nirvana's Nevermind

We love the internet. Oh yes we do.