Brewdog, Brexit And Broadbent - Part II
Jun. 26th, 2018 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lupestripeWe awoke a little groggily on Saturday morning and checking the Telegram group which I had set up ahead of the Peoples' Vote march, I noticed that plans had changed and instead of meeting up at Green Park station, we were slated to meet at Leicester Square. This was less convenient and resulted in us being about fifteen minutes later than advertised but after we had a swift breakfast which we had to scran in the room due to the sheer number of people in the modest restaurant, we yomped it over to Ealing Broadway and picked up a Central Line train into the city.
Everything ran smoothly and although we were the last to arrive, there was still plenty of time ahead of the march. I needed the toilet so headed off to the nearby Burger King, picking up a bottle of water en route, before navigating the ten furries who had come out for the event westwards towards Piccadilly and ultimately Pall Mall. I was quite happy with the furry turnout in the end, with people coming from across the country, including Jay from Glasgow, Patter from Manchester, Cosmo from Leeds and Seadragom from York. We also had a few local London furs too, making it a rather nice group. The website wasn't overly clear about where the march was starting and we did see a number of people with EU flags walking in a number of different directions once we had gone beyond Piccadilly Circus. However, we decided to head to where it started fifteen months ago and this was made easier as the throngs of people started to assemble. What I didn't realise was quite how many people there were going to be - with the organisers saying over 100,000 and the police putting the number at nearly half a million. It was therefore no surprise that we ended up standing in the same place on Pall Mall for an hour and a half, waiting for the phalanx to set off. Still, the sun was shining, the atmosphere was friendly and we got to talk to a few of our fellow marches as we waited. There was even a dog in front of us while from their vantage point in one of the Georgian buildings a few gammons surveyed the masses.
The helicopters constantly flying overhead bore witness to the sheer scale of this march and it really did feel that momentum was on our side. We had been to a Best for Britain event the previous Wednesday in Leeds, which had certainly teed us up for the march, but walking down London's streets chanting with those of like mind certainly boosted the spirits. Indeed, the last two years at times have been incredibly dark and so seeing such huge numbers in what must be one of the largest pro-EU demonstrations in the whole of Europe was a very encouraging sight. Equally encouraging were the speeches on Parliament Square once the march had concluded, which was about forty minutes after we had started. Last time there were a few small pro-Brexit protests outside some of the bars but we didn't see any of this this time, while as we walked past the entrance to Downing Street, we all booed loudly. Opposite this there was a booth offering postcards which were to be delivered to our MPs, so I wrote a strongly worded yet polite one to mine. I expect little to come of it, but if you don't apply pressure when nothing is guaranteed to happen. The other advantage of marches of course is you get to see a number of local landmarks without being run over, with the Cenotaph being the main one. This was great to inspect closely and a timely reminder of the sacrifice people made to enable us to go on protest marches such as these.
The highlight of the speeches was undoubtedly Anna Soubry, a courageous MP who is going against the majority of her party in opposing Brexit. She may have had a sore throat but her voice was not dampened and highlighted why we need this to be a cross-party push. There were a number of unfortunate technical issues with the video system but compare Andy Parsons held things together quite well, while it was also great to hear Caroline Lucas again, a fantastic orator who really put a lot of energy into her speech. The same was true of David Lammy, again giving hope that at least some MPs will be speaking on our behalf in Parliament. The other highlight, I would say, was Tony Robinson, who added a little stardust to proceedings and a nice contrast to the doctors, truckers and activists who represented every day professions, all of which will be affected by how this plays out. The speeches themselves overran slightly, finishing twenty minutes late, but it certainly didn't feel that they went on too long, although I will admit I did feel I needed a sit down at the end. However, once we all disbanded, the plan was to head towards Tottenham Court Road where a couple of Geo's friends were waiting in a pub. Looking at just how busy Westminster Underground station was, after picking up a drink at a local Tesco, we decided to walk the twenty-five minutes or so to the bar, with the group splitting, the others taking the tube. In the end, it was us who got there first and we spied a couple of furs in the beer garden of The Angel. This was a Sam Smith's pub and we were saddened to learn that for some reason the beer garden was closing fifteen minutes hence, at the fantastically late time of 5:15pm. Still, there were enough tables in the pub to sit us all, so it wasn't too bad and soon our swollen number of twelve were sat in the traditional snug having a post-march debrief. Here, I realised that I had seen almost everybody's scrotum and decided to keep the Telegram chat alive so as to follow up with the activism. Meanwhile, the bar staff in the pub were all incredibly friendly, with one joking that we now had the privilege of paying £2 more a pint for a Sam Smith's than we do back home.
We had two pints in the end, with most of our company clearly flagging after being on their feet for such a long period of time. As a result, most people had drifted off by 6:30pm, leaving us with just a quartet. We were all feeling rather hungry so after toying with general food ideas around this part of Soho, we decided just to walk around and see what we could find. Our first stop was Flat Iron, a well-renowned steak place, but their waiting list was an hour and a half with a queue snaking out of the door, so we couldn't be bothered with that. In the end, we just went to the Angus Steak House, an ubiquitous touristy chain in the heart of London which charges tourist prices for average food. So it proved to be, with us paying £40 for food we enjoyed less than the £15 burger combo we had picked up in Islington the night before, but it was something to eat having had no actual lunch, while it was good to chat with Jay and Stonewolf about Brexit and other related shenanigans. I hadn't met Stone before, along with a few others on the march, so it was great to make some new friends as well as catch up with a few I rarely get to see. I guess that's the main thing to take away from marches, the camaraderie, and certainly my sense of hope along with my determination to fight this was greatly boosted on Saturday.
Jay and Stone headed back home after the food, leaving Wolfie and I to our own devices. With Brewdog Seven Dials just around the corner, we decided to go there and decide what we wanted to do, not least because they had another of the Overworks beers that we had not yet tried. Typing 'best craft beer bars in west London' into Google, I was shown venues anywhere but, but there were a few in Brixton that caught our eye and this wasn't too far away. Thus, after finishing our halves, we boarded the Underground and headed to South London. Our first stop there was the London Beer Lab, very near Brixton station, and upon entering the rough and ready microbrewery, the kind lady asked us what we had been up to. After telling her we had been on the Peoples' Vote march, she cheered and pointed to the Lambeth For Europe stickers which were festooming the premises. It was clearly going to be a good evening. London Beer Lab is a bar and microbrewery, and they had three of their own beers on draft. We therefore tried these along with an ice cream pale ale from them which was served in cans. These were probably for takeout but with other bars slated later in the evening, we didn't want to risk having them confiscated. Most of the people in the bar were actually sat on the chairs outside, which were blocking the narrow alleyway on which the premises were situated. It was a really cool vibe and everyone was friendly too, even telling us about another bar just down the road called Ghost Whale which, at 11pm, shut one hour later than London Beer Lab.
Once it reached 10pm, therefore, we made a beeline for the Whale, walking through the eclectic back streets of this London suburb. We noticed there was a Billy Idol concert going on at the Brixton Academy and we were to bump into this traffic on the Underground as we headed home, but first we had two delicious drinks in the rather neat Ghost Whale, a bar inside what must have been a traditional shop back in the day. Like Tall Boys Beer Market used to be, this was more a shop with a few taps within it, but the four beers they had were all of exceptional quality. We tried two alongside some sour cream and black pepper popcorn, and would probably had stayed longer had it not been for a pretentious American in glasses telling two other patrons rather loudly of his religious experiences in America's Deep South. We could do without this so after a rather pleasureable half hour, we bid the bar adieu and headed back to the Underground. The journey back to Ealing was largely uneventful, with us stopping off at the Brewdog in Shepherd's Bush to try a further Overworks sour beer that we had not yet had. This was a bit of a jaunt but a doable one, and we made sure we got a decent timed train this time, rather than rushing for the last one, like we had done the evening before. As a result, this was the calmest evening that Wolfie and I had had, and although I got a little frustrated when in Ealing's McDonald's as we waited for another cheeseburger - but not as frustrated as the argument which ensued when one guy pushed in front of two others and a lady, which almost lead to a full-on fist fight until security intervened - in the end it was a rather stress-free and encouraging day.
Having done all of the Brewdog bars in London, Sunday's plan was to head to Brighton to tick this one off before heading back to the city to see Tom Broadbent at the Royal Academy of Arts. His photograph he took of me and Syrrus (Cosmo) having a barbecue in our front garden back in late-September was being exhibited there and as this was the only time we were in London during the two-month period the exhibition was on, we really wanted to see it. I had invited Cosmo once he had told me he was staying the entire weekend rather than just the Saturday for the march, but alas he couldn't make it in the end. It wasn't something I was going to miss though, meaning we were on quite a tight timescale heading to the South Coast. The idea was to go there and back swiftly, but upon checking out of the hotel, we realised that we didn't really want to carry our luggage around on swelteringly hot day. With the hotel being far too much of detour on our way back to Kings Cross to get our evening train, we decided to deposit the bag at Victoria station. I had initially considered leaving to Brighton from here but the Thameslink services from Blackfriars were significantly cheaper for just a six-minute longer ride. Alas there is no left luggage facility here so Victoria it was, with the detour and the lengthy queue delaying us by half an hour.
I enjoyed Blackfriars station once we had eventually got there, largely as it's on a bridge right on the Thames, affording excellent views of Tower Bridge and the City. This kept me entertained as we waited twenty minutes for the train, but I wasn't prepared for it to be so busy, with everyone having the same idea as us it would seem in heading to Brighton for the day. I had hoped most would get off at Gatwick Airport but this didn't seem to be the case and although we did find a seat, the journey was pretty uncomfortable on account of it being next to the toilet, with a full carriage and a kid kicking the back of my seat. This was in sharp contrast to the journey on the way back, which was largely deserted, I assume on the account of the England match being on. Sadly, we were forced to miss this, although we did get to see the second half of the first half in North Laine, a microbrewery in the heart of the city, which wasn't too busy considering the event. This, at least, meant we saw three of England's six goals against Panama live and left at half-time when the match was 5-0 and thus effectively over. My view of the television was slightly obscured by a large wooden bird but this only added character to the place and the beer wasn't too shabby either. It was the place we stood opposite at Brighton Pride last year watching the parade and I remember thinking we should have gone in, but it was always too busy. We could see why.
We should have had food here, but beforehand we had gone to Brewdog to get the stamp and a beer. This was our primary destination but as they weren't showing the football, it wasn't anyone else's, so it was quite quiet. Still, this enabled us to chat with the barkeep for a while and he imparted some useful information about the state of the company, while the chicken and avocado burger was nice too. On Monday, we found out through the Furry Brew Crew Telegram channel that one of Ipequay's friends from Texas had been watching the England game in a bar in Brighton as part of his visit to England and had we known, we would have met up. Alas we didn't and with time pressing, we did have to head back to the station in order to meet up with Tom at the Gallery.
I had planned to be there for 4:30pm, with Tom having kindly let us use his membership so one of us could get in free. I had paid for the other ticket for the aforementioned viewing but this wasn't too strict, as I picked up the tickets fifty minutes early and the lady behind the counter said we could just go in. As it turned out, Tom was early too, still recovering from having attended a furry wedding the day before, but he was in good spirits and looking forward to showing us the picture. He did challenge me to discover it once we entered the huge yellow room in which it was housed, but I knew it was at kid head height and in one of the corners as I had already seem photographs of Tom promoting it on his own social media channels. Finding it therefore was quite easy and it was a real honour seeing something to which I contributed hanging in such a prestigious exhibition. What makes it even more remarkable was it was just a throwaway idea to kill some time on a Sunday morning before Tom had to head back home to London, with us shooting it in my garden in Leeds that morning. It was very well crafted though and a real privilege to be involved. Tom took a few pictures of me doing the pose, along with a few more to prove I had been there, while we did have a chat with a couple of interested bystanders who had clearly worked out that photographer and subject were there. What I didn't expect was the size of the artwork, it was a lot bigger than I imagined it would be, and indeed I kept coming back to it as I wandered around the exhibition such was its gravity on me. This was Grayson Perry's personal room - with him having overseen the event too, the Summer Exhibition, which in its 250th year is the longest continuous running art exhibition in the world. This in itself was another honour and it was fantastic walking around the range of other fascinating artworks, with beer in hand, as we took it all in. The theming was hard to put one's hand on, with a definite political bent considering some of the Brexit works, but it did all come together. I did find a lot of the art polarising though - some of it was thoughtful, some intricate and some I just didn't get at all - but if art is to provoke a reaction then I guess it succeeded.
We spent about an hour walking around the exhibit, with Tom showing us all of the halls in which it was situated. He then took us to the private members bar in the Gallery, only to be told that it was closed. This meant that we ended up back in Brewdog Seven Dials for a post-meet debrief and catch-up, with us not having seen Tom since the London furmeet back in February. He took us along all the backstreets to get there, which was fascinating in itself and even allowed us to see the actual obelisk that is Seven Dials, a part of London I had never seen before (which is odd considering it's right in the centre). It was great meeting up with him again and he was telling us all about the forthcoming book launch in August/September, which we helped kickstart for him. This too is exciting and it was a brilliant way to end our time in London, with us going our separate ways at the National Portrait Gallery. Tom was heading to the South Bank for a show and we needed to go back to Victoria to pick up our bags. This saw us walk along the march route, where we saw a number of anti-Brexit stickers from the previous day's event stuck to the pavement, through Green Park and past Buckingham Palace. Once at Victoria station, we picked up our bag and stopped off at Shake Shack, a local hot dog and burger place, for a bite to eat before heading back to Kings Cross and our train. The food here was pleasant enough, if a little bland, but it was interesting that Thornbridge had brewed a beer specially for them. It filled a hole at least and was a nice way to end our exhilarating three days in the capital.
Everything ran smoothly and although we were the last to arrive, there was still plenty of time ahead of the march. I needed the toilet so headed off to the nearby Burger King, picking up a bottle of water en route, before navigating the ten furries who had come out for the event westwards towards Piccadilly and ultimately Pall Mall. I was quite happy with the furry turnout in the end, with people coming from across the country, including Jay from Glasgow, Patter from Manchester, Cosmo from Leeds and Seadragom from York. We also had a few local London furs too, making it a rather nice group. The website wasn't overly clear about where the march was starting and we did see a number of people with EU flags walking in a number of different directions once we had gone beyond Piccadilly Circus. However, we decided to head to where it started fifteen months ago and this was made easier as the throngs of people started to assemble. What I didn't realise was quite how many people there were going to be - with the organisers saying over 100,000 and the police putting the number at nearly half a million. It was therefore no surprise that we ended up standing in the same place on Pall Mall for an hour and a half, waiting for the phalanx to set off. Still, the sun was shining, the atmosphere was friendly and we got to talk to a few of our fellow marches as we waited. There was even a dog in front of us while from their vantage point in one of the Georgian buildings a few gammons surveyed the masses.
The helicopters constantly flying overhead bore witness to the sheer scale of this march and it really did feel that momentum was on our side. We had been to a Best for Britain event the previous Wednesday in Leeds, which had certainly teed us up for the march, but walking down London's streets chanting with those of like mind certainly boosted the spirits. Indeed, the last two years at times have been incredibly dark and so seeing such huge numbers in what must be one of the largest pro-EU demonstrations in the whole of Europe was a very encouraging sight. Equally encouraging were the speeches on Parliament Square once the march had concluded, which was about forty minutes after we had started. Last time there were a few small pro-Brexit protests outside some of the bars but we didn't see any of this this time, while as we walked past the entrance to Downing Street, we all booed loudly. Opposite this there was a booth offering postcards which were to be delivered to our MPs, so I wrote a strongly worded yet polite one to mine. I expect little to come of it, but if you don't apply pressure when nothing is guaranteed to happen. The other advantage of marches of course is you get to see a number of local landmarks without being run over, with the Cenotaph being the main one. This was great to inspect closely and a timely reminder of the sacrifice people made to enable us to go on protest marches such as these.
The highlight of the speeches was undoubtedly Anna Soubry, a courageous MP who is going against the majority of her party in opposing Brexit. She may have had a sore throat but her voice was not dampened and highlighted why we need this to be a cross-party push. There were a number of unfortunate technical issues with the video system but compare Andy Parsons held things together quite well, while it was also great to hear Caroline Lucas again, a fantastic orator who really put a lot of energy into her speech. The same was true of David Lammy, again giving hope that at least some MPs will be speaking on our behalf in Parliament. The other highlight, I would say, was Tony Robinson, who added a little stardust to proceedings and a nice contrast to the doctors, truckers and activists who represented every day professions, all of which will be affected by how this plays out. The speeches themselves overran slightly, finishing twenty minutes late, but it certainly didn't feel that they went on too long, although I will admit I did feel I needed a sit down at the end. However, once we all disbanded, the plan was to head towards Tottenham Court Road where a couple of Geo's friends were waiting in a pub. Looking at just how busy Westminster Underground station was, after picking up a drink at a local Tesco, we decided to walk the twenty-five minutes or so to the bar, with the group splitting, the others taking the tube. In the end, it was us who got there first and we spied a couple of furs in the beer garden of The Angel. This was a Sam Smith's pub and we were saddened to learn that for some reason the beer garden was closing fifteen minutes hence, at the fantastically late time of 5:15pm. Still, there were enough tables in the pub to sit us all, so it wasn't too bad and soon our swollen number of twelve were sat in the traditional snug having a post-march debrief. Here, I realised that I had seen almost everybody's scrotum and decided to keep the Telegram chat alive so as to follow up with the activism. Meanwhile, the bar staff in the pub were all incredibly friendly, with one joking that we now had the privilege of paying £2 more a pint for a Sam Smith's than we do back home.
We had two pints in the end, with most of our company clearly flagging after being on their feet for such a long period of time. As a result, most people had drifted off by 6:30pm, leaving us with just a quartet. We were all feeling rather hungry so after toying with general food ideas around this part of Soho, we decided just to walk around and see what we could find. Our first stop was Flat Iron, a well-renowned steak place, but their waiting list was an hour and a half with a queue snaking out of the door, so we couldn't be bothered with that. In the end, we just went to the Angus Steak House, an ubiquitous touristy chain in the heart of London which charges tourist prices for average food. So it proved to be, with us paying £40 for food we enjoyed less than the £15 burger combo we had picked up in Islington the night before, but it was something to eat having had no actual lunch, while it was good to chat with Jay and Stonewolf about Brexit and other related shenanigans. I hadn't met Stone before, along with a few others on the march, so it was great to make some new friends as well as catch up with a few I rarely get to see. I guess that's the main thing to take away from marches, the camaraderie, and certainly my sense of hope along with my determination to fight this was greatly boosted on Saturday.
Jay and Stone headed back home after the food, leaving Wolfie and I to our own devices. With Brewdog Seven Dials just around the corner, we decided to go there and decide what we wanted to do, not least because they had another of the Overworks beers that we had not yet tried. Typing 'best craft beer bars in west London' into Google, I was shown venues anywhere but, but there were a few in Brixton that caught our eye and this wasn't too far away. Thus, after finishing our halves, we boarded the Underground and headed to South London. Our first stop there was the London Beer Lab, very near Brixton station, and upon entering the rough and ready microbrewery, the kind lady asked us what we had been up to. After telling her we had been on the Peoples' Vote march, she cheered and pointed to the Lambeth For Europe stickers which were festooming the premises. It was clearly going to be a good evening. London Beer Lab is a bar and microbrewery, and they had three of their own beers on draft. We therefore tried these along with an ice cream pale ale from them which was served in cans. These were probably for takeout but with other bars slated later in the evening, we didn't want to risk having them confiscated. Most of the people in the bar were actually sat on the chairs outside, which were blocking the narrow alleyway on which the premises were situated. It was a really cool vibe and everyone was friendly too, even telling us about another bar just down the road called Ghost Whale which, at 11pm, shut one hour later than London Beer Lab.
Once it reached 10pm, therefore, we made a beeline for the Whale, walking through the eclectic back streets of this London suburb. We noticed there was a Billy Idol concert going on at the Brixton Academy and we were to bump into this traffic on the Underground as we headed home, but first we had two delicious drinks in the rather neat Ghost Whale, a bar inside what must have been a traditional shop back in the day. Like Tall Boys Beer Market used to be, this was more a shop with a few taps within it, but the four beers they had were all of exceptional quality. We tried two alongside some sour cream and black pepper popcorn, and would probably had stayed longer had it not been for a pretentious American in glasses telling two other patrons rather loudly of his religious experiences in America's Deep South. We could do without this so after a rather pleasureable half hour, we bid the bar adieu and headed back to the Underground. The journey back to Ealing was largely uneventful, with us stopping off at the Brewdog in Shepherd's Bush to try a further Overworks sour beer that we had not yet had. This was a bit of a jaunt but a doable one, and we made sure we got a decent timed train this time, rather than rushing for the last one, like we had done the evening before. As a result, this was the calmest evening that Wolfie and I had had, and although I got a little frustrated when in Ealing's McDonald's as we waited for another cheeseburger - but not as frustrated as the argument which ensued when one guy pushed in front of two others and a lady, which almost lead to a full-on fist fight until security intervened - in the end it was a rather stress-free and encouraging day.
Having done all of the Brewdog bars in London, Sunday's plan was to head to Brighton to tick this one off before heading back to the city to see Tom Broadbent at the Royal Academy of Arts. His photograph he took of me and Syrrus (Cosmo) having a barbecue in our front garden back in late-September was being exhibited there and as this was the only time we were in London during the two-month period the exhibition was on, we really wanted to see it. I had invited Cosmo once he had told me he was staying the entire weekend rather than just the Saturday for the march, but alas he couldn't make it in the end. It wasn't something I was going to miss though, meaning we were on quite a tight timescale heading to the South Coast. The idea was to go there and back swiftly, but upon checking out of the hotel, we realised that we didn't really want to carry our luggage around on swelteringly hot day. With the hotel being far too much of detour on our way back to Kings Cross to get our evening train, we decided to deposit the bag at Victoria station. I had initially considered leaving to Brighton from here but the Thameslink services from Blackfriars were significantly cheaper for just a six-minute longer ride. Alas there is no left luggage facility here so Victoria it was, with the detour and the lengthy queue delaying us by half an hour.
I enjoyed Blackfriars station once we had eventually got there, largely as it's on a bridge right on the Thames, affording excellent views of Tower Bridge and the City. This kept me entertained as we waited twenty minutes for the train, but I wasn't prepared for it to be so busy, with everyone having the same idea as us it would seem in heading to Brighton for the day. I had hoped most would get off at Gatwick Airport but this didn't seem to be the case and although we did find a seat, the journey was pretty uncomfortable on account of it being next to the toilet, with a full carriage and a kid kicking the back of my seat. This was in sharp contrast to the journey on the way back, which was largely deserted, I assume on the account of the England match being on. Sadly, we were forced to miss this, although we did get to see the second half of the first half in North Laine, a microbrewery in the heart of the city, which wasn't too busy considering the event. This, at least, meant we saw three of England's six goals against Panama live and left at half-time when the match was 5-0 and thus effectively over. My view of the television was slightly obscured by a large wooden bird but this only added character to the place and the beer wasn't too shabby either. It was the place we stood opposite at Brighton Pride last year watching the parade and I remember thinking we should have gone in, but it was always too busy. We could see why.
We should have had food here, but beforehand we had gone to Brewdog to get the stamp and a beer. This was our primary destination but as they weren't showing the football, it wasn't anyone else's, so it was quite quiet. Still, this enabled us to chat with the barkeep for a while and he imparted some useful information about the state of the company, while the chicken and avocado burger was nice too. On Monday, we found out through the Furry Brew Crew Telegram channel that one of Ipequay's friends from Texas had been watching the England game in a bar in Brighton as part of his visit to England and had we known, we would have met up. Alas we didn't and with time pressing, we did have to head back to the station in order to meet up with Tom at the Gallery.
I had planned to be there for 4:30pm, with Tom having kindly let us use his membership so one of us could get in free. I had paid for the other ticket for the aforementioned viewing but this wasn't too strict, as I picked up the tickets fifty minutes early and the lady behind the counter said we could just go in. As it turned out, Tom was early too, still recovering from having attended a furry wedding the day before, but he was in good spirits and looking forward to showing us the picture. He did challenge me to discover it once we entered the huge yellow room in which it was housed, but I knew it was at kid head height and in one of the corners as I had already seem photographs of Tom promoting it on his own social media channels. Finding it therefore was quite easy and it was a real honour seeing something to which I contributed hanging in such a prestigious exhibition. What makes it even more remarkable was it was just a throwaway idea to kill some time on a Sunday morning before Tom had to head back home to London, with us shooting it in my garden in Leeds that morning. It was very well crafted though and a real privilege to be involved. Tom took a few pictures of me doing the pose, along with a few more to prove I had been there, while we did have a chat with a couple of interested bystanders who had clearly worked out that photographer and subject were there. What I didn't expect was the size of the artwork, it was a lot bigger than I imagined it would be, and indeed I kept coming back to it as I wandered around the exhibition such was its gravity on me. This was Grayson Perry's personal room - with him having overseen the event too, the Summer Exhibition, which in its 250th year is the longest continuous running art exhibition in the world. This in itself was another honour and it was fantastic walking around the range of other fascinating artworks, with beer in hand, as we took it all in. The theming was hard to put one's hand on, with a definite political bent considering some of the Brexit works, but it did all come together. I did find a lot of the art polarising though - some of it was thoughtful, some intricate and some I just didn't get at all - but if art is to provoke a reaction then I guess it succeeded.
We spent about an hour walking around the exhibit, with Tom showing us all of the halls in which it was situated. He then took us to the private members bar in the Gallery, only to be told that it was closed. This meant that we ended up back in Brewdog Seven Dials for a post-meet debrief and catch-up, with us not having seen Tom since the London furmeet back in February. He took us along all the backstreets to get there, which was fascinating in itself and even allowed us to see the actual obelisk that is Seven Dials, a part of London I had never seen before (which is odd considering it's right in the centre). It was great meeting up with him again and he was telling us all about the forthcoming book launch in August/September, which we helped kickstart for him. This too is exciting and it was a brilliant way to end our time in London, with us going our separate ways at the National Portrait Gallery. Tom was heading to the South Bank for a show and we needed to go back to Victoria to pick up our bags. This saw us walk along the march route, where we saw a number of anti-Brexit stickers from the previous day's event stuck to the pavement, through Green Park and past Buckingham Palace. Once at Victoria station, we picked up our bag and stopped off at Shake Shack, a local hot dog and burger place, for a bite to eat before heading back to Kings Cross and our train. The food here was pleasant enough, if a little bland, but it was interesting that Thornbridge had brewed a beer specially for them. It filled a hole at least and was a nice way to end our exhilarating three days in the capital.
