A Strange & Unusual Day Out In London

 

My year of Jen-themed exhibitions has continued! Hot on the heels of last month's trip to the Emo exhibition (blog here) Vana and I went up to London to visit the Design Museum's World Of Tim Burton exhibition. 

A traditional train selfie

Being autistic at Gatwick (since you asked it's a 737 Max 8)

Battersea Power Station

When we arrived at Victoria we went to a Japanese Pancake cafe that Vana had found on Instagram.

It was super busy but luckily we'd booked. 

Vana always takes me to the pinkest places ......

After I managed to get us lost twice on the tube we finally got to the Design Museum.

The exhibition was absolutely fantastic and was like walking into my dream Halloween. I'd forgotten how many projects that Tim Burton was involved in, it ranged from his early sketches right up until recent work like Wednesday. I love so many of his films - Nightmare Before Christmas, Alice In Wonderland, the Beetlejuice films and his aesthetic in general ( I even have a Tim Burton inspired striped wall in my room - flashback to my decorating blog).

Corpse Bride models

Frankenweenie Pet Cemetery

Mars Attacks 😂

My favourite items were the Nightmare Before Christmas models -

Initial Alice In Wonderland sketches

Alice's dress she wore to fight the Jabberwocky

Edward Scissorhands sketches and hands -

Posing with costumes from Wednesday

This corridor was so fun to walk along -

Obviously I used my Beetlejuice bag

After we finished at the exhibition we went off for an explore; starting off in a soggy Chinatown -

After a visit to the Japan Centre we stopped off at Watkins Books which sells lots of witchy books and tarot cards. I've been wanting to visit for ages and wasn't disappointed. 

Their carpet is so cool (Thoth the Egyptian god of knowledge)

I resisted the urge to add this to my deck collection ....

The basement is huge with so many interesting looking books which I feel warrants a further visit when I'm back in London next month. Whilst we were in Covent Garden we came across the London branch of Artbox (the company that run our beloved Hello Kitty cafe in Brighton). 

So cute

We wanted to visit a couple of the bars that Hilary took me to when we were in London last month so we hopped on the tube, giving me the chance to act all of my (almost) 38 years ......

We started off in The Mayor Of Scaredy Cat Town and I manged to order a candyfloss cocktail!

Vana's looked a lot more sensible!

We carried on to the London Cocktail Club where I managed to end up with another accidental sweetie cocktail when, much to my surprise, the barman handed me my drink which included custard creams 😂

That rounded off an absolutely fantastic day in London, thank you to Vana for coming with me. I'm back up in London next month to see Delilah Bon which will probably include a sneaky trip to Treadwells along with my planned return to Watkins. 

Love Jen

XxxX

I'm Not Okay (With Feeling This Old)

 

It's a truth universally acknowledged that when one begins the fast descent towards their 40s that they may on occasion vastly underestimate the time frame in which past events happened. Case in point - emo was surely massive only 10 years ago .... right ..... right???? Well no actually as evidenced by The Barbican's I'm Not Okay retrospective celebrating Emo's explosive era from erm 2004 ....

So on Tuesday my fellow elder emo Hilary and I went up to investigate (appropriately dressed in our My Chemical Romance merch obviously) 

In 2008 with our friend Alli

Naturally I had to recreate my standard red and black make-up from the emo era -

I can feel Gerard Way's pride in me

At this juncture I feel it's only appropriate to share some photos of vintage Emo-Jen .... as opposed to current Emo-Jen. And yes Chris I have cut you out of the MCR-gig photo so you still pretend you didn't go 😜

Off to see My Chemical Romance in 2007

 

 

I actually think I look cute here (2008)

Reading Festival 2007

The aforementioned red and black ... no idea what's happened to make the pot noodle so rock n roll though 😐

Christmas 2006 with the obligatory skinny scarf and studded belt

At a 30 Seconds To Mars show in 2008

Er no my style hasn't really evolved has it? 😂 But back to the subject at hand. We arrived at The Barbican and promptly got lost .... 5 times ...

The most confusing place ever

We finally found the music library and the exhibition and I was instantly transported back to my youth. 

It was (no pun intended) actually quite emotional seeing the memory wall with people's photos and memories of the emo-scene. I couldn't have as much fun as they did with hair and piercings because I was 19/20/21 and working when emo was at it's peak so I was living retrospectively through them!

❤❤

This made me chuckle

I miss emo 30STM

The parts of the display that I liked best (read made me feel old) were the display cabinets with merch and magazines of the era. 

I had this copy ....

Some things really don't change ...

I loved my RAZR phone and I had the MCR tour poster underneath it 😁

On the way out I found the first candidate for my year-end 2025 in music blog ....

After leaving feeling suitably nostalgic (and getting lost on the way out too) we went to Sandwich Sandwich for some much-needed sustenance. On the way I was reminded just how much I love London's mix of old and new architecture. 

We went across to Spitalfields Market for a look around -

I love London's skyline at night

Hilary knew some really cool 'secret' bars so we went on a tour. We started at the Discount Suit Company (not the 'Discount Soup Company' as I originally thought she said). It was a speakeasy style bar underneath a suit shop. 

Next up was the London Cocktail Club which was circus themed -

Mojito

The final bar we went to (and my favourite) was The Mayor Of Scaredy Cat Town which you get to by going through a fridge in a restaurant 😅 

I loved that the ice cubes had the key logo shaped into them

It was a really great day of nostalgia, labyrinthine building, giant sandwiches and cool bars. Now we just need that My Chemical Romance tour ..... please guys? 

See you at the Black Parade!

Love Jen

XxxX