As someone who works up in the tourist-y bit of London (or as my Mum callously labels it, 'The
West End'), I'm used to dodging those who haven't conformed to the usual rules of our nation's
capital. Come half-term, these pavement-obstacles, Sky-gazers and 'don't stand there for fuck
sake' are multiplied beyond comprehension.
Some are there to experience the buzz and vibe, some decide to go for a bit of shopping, while others come up to London just to spite commuters. A fair few however, head to the museums.
Museums are great. Especially London's. They're often some of the best days out you can have in this grotesque assortment of urban glitz. And best of all, they're free. Which explains why everything else in London is so damn expensive - there's a surcharge on my morning coffee which goes towards keeping the Elgin Marbles nice and...Elgin-y.
Museums are important in today's media-riddled culture. They're important for teaching kids not all man-made structures can be bought down by catapulting multicoloured winged-creatures at the foundations; important for showing sexually-oppressed mothers that not all those who were once in chains were part of an EL James novel; important for ultimately showing where we came from, how we improved on it and where we are now.
Which leads me onto my own experience of a museum. I went into a travel agent the other day.
This experience falls quite decisively in the 'where we came from' camp.
I felt like a cybernetic organism in a world of pocket watches. An old couple had spent 15 minutes
trying to understand how restricted a 'restricted view' would be from the balcony of their cruise ship
cabin. Another marital mess were weighing up whether to book a hotel in the hope it'd be finished
by the time they went in June. Small wonder the holiday segment of Watchdog was such a bulging
collection of horror stories when the first chapters were being completed before they'd even
booked the things.
Another lady in front of me in the queue wanted to 'get some ballpark pricing' for a trip. In the 21st Century, that means going onto the Internet, sticking your ideal holiday into some boxes and seeing what package and at what cost comes out the other side.
People in travel agents are not from the 21st Century.
The process of this in store involves the customer telling the travel agent, who makes notes at such speed it looks as if she's taking down a witness statement at a car accident. The agent proceeds to get on the phone to some mythical pricing guru, read out the notes, wait for the price guru to conjure up some numbers and then relay this information back to the customer. Trouble arises when the agent's poor handwriting results in a quote for an ISIS Training Camp Experience in Syria rather than the requested two night bed and breakfast in Scarborough.
A lot of these steps could've been rendered pointless by the customer merely sending out a Morse Code to their ultimate destination and pre-warning them of their impending arrival.
So there I am, just wanting to pay the balance of my holiday, a task that takes roughly four seconds, but instead held up a group of recently bronzed artefacts who insist on slowing the world down to a crawl.
It was at this point I realised I am not very patient.
A similar thing happened just hours before at the Apple Store. This particular retail establishment would sit quite comfortably in the Tomorrowland of Disneyland classification of stores; a cocktail of chrome, glass and gadgets. I think I had a wet dream about all three once.
Some are there to experience the buzz and vibe, some decide to go for a bit of shopping, while others come up to London just to spite commuters. A fair few however, head to the museums.
Museums are great. Especially London's. They're often some of the best days out you can have in this grotesque assortment of urban glitz. And best of all, they're free. Which explains why everything else in London is so damn expensive - there's a surcharge on my morning coffee which goes towards keeping the Elgin Marbles nice and...Elgin-y.
Museums are important in today's media-riddled culture. They're important for teaching kids not all man-made structures can be bought down by catapulting multicoloured winged-creatures at the foundations; important for showing sexually-oppressed mothers that not all those who were once in chains were part of an EL James novel; important for ultimately showing where we came from, how we improved on it and where we are now.
Which leads me onto my own experience of a museum. I went into a travel agent the other day.
This experience falls quite decisively in the 'where we came from' camp.
 |
| "What I really want is an upgrade to Windows XP" |
A collection of old fossils greeted me as I entered. "We'll be with you soon," one of them
immediately warned. 25 minutes later I was still sat wondering how this concept ever worked.
Another lady in front of me in the queue wanted to 'get some ballpark pricing' for a trip. In the 21st Century, that means going onto the Internet, sticking your ideal holiday into some boxes and seeing what package and at what cost comes out the other side.
People in travel agents are not from the 21st Century.
The process of this in store involves the customer telling the travel agent, who makes notes at such speed it looks as if she's taking down a witness statement at a car accident. The agent proceeds to get on the phone to some mythical pricing guru, read out the notes, wait for the price guru to conjure up some numbers and then relay this information back to the customer. Trouble arises when the agent's poor handwriting results in a quote for an ISIS Training Camp Experience in Syria rather than the requested two night bed and breakfast in Scarborough.
A lot of these steps could've been rendered pointless by the customer merely sending out a Morse Code to their ultimate destination and pre-warning them of their impending arrival.
So there I am, just wanting to pay the balance of my holiday, a task that takes roughly four seconds, but instead held up a group of recently bronzed artefacts who insist on slowing the world down to a crawl.
It was at this point I realised I am not very patient.
A similar thing happened just hours before at the Apple Store. This particular retail establishment would sit quite comfortably in the Tomorrowland of Disneyland classification of stores; a cocktail of chrome, glass and gadgets. I think I had a wet dream about all three once.
If your product dies, you can take it to the Master Race of Apple Employees, the Geniuses, who
will fix it merely by gently caressing whatever iThing has slipped into the tech afterlife.
Unfortunately, miracles have to be booked up in advance, a problem when their calendars are littered by imbeciles who have misplaced the 'on button' on their gadgets and need help relocating it.
So, after finding a spare five minutes for the Genius to diagnose my horribly crippled laptop (I must add, I'd spent a good couple of evenings trawling various blogs for answers, before I am labelled a hypocrite *shudders*) I was sent on my way with a list of instructions as he'd used up all his magic powers on slightly more trivial requests.
I overheard some of these request while at the shop. They included a man trying to stick the wrong lead into his iPod and wondering why the computer wouldn't recognise it. Also forcing me to give up my early Saturday mornings to get the least popular time slot were a group of ladies excited to find out how to use their new iPads to send an email, and if they had time, a bit of entry-level web surfing.
These are fully grown adults who have been peer-pressured into buying something they have absolutely no idea how to operate. The human race has been made to look a fool just so they can carry around a brick with a glossy fruit logo emblazoned on it, because 'Joan down the road has one and she met her current husband, adopted three Cambodian children and ordered a new conservatory on it'.
In the same way we stick our noses against the glass of prehistoric relics and ancient artefacts, I wonder will our future generations stumble across a desolate high street, peer into a travel agent and wonder what the fuck we were all doing? "So you mean there was this incompetent middle-man who was like a less well-informed version of the internet was trusted with sorting out your big holiday?" "Yes son, and you ask why daddy went bald at 26".
Some will lament how traditional retailing establishments die out like an unfortunate breed of animal. The travel agent is one of them. As they saunter across the high street landscape, hunted by a digital predator, you wonder really what is the point. Other than a place to drop off a bunch of cash to pay off a balance you don't quite trust to be absorbed online. You know, like a drug deal.
So as I expertly point this assortment of letters back in the direction of my introduction; the travel agent and those that use them. A species that should be consigned to a perspex box to be stored in a fancy historic building for families on half term trips to gawk at. They've served a purpose, now to the museum of retail with you.
Of course, if these people just learned how to use their iPads maybe I would't have to queue at the bloody travel agents and this post would never exist. Ahh irony.
Unfortunately, miracles have to be booked up in advance, a problem when their calendars are littered by imbeciles who have misplaced the 'on button' on their gadgets and need help relocating it.
So, after finding a spare five minutes for the Genius to diagnose my horribly crippled laptop (I must add, I'd spent a good couple of evenings trawling various blogs for answers, before I am labelled a hypocrite *shudders*) I was sent on my way with a list of instructions as he'd used up all his magic powers on slightly more trivial requests.
I overheard some of these request while at the shop. They included a man trying to stick the wrong lead into his iPod and wondering why the computer wouldn't recognise it. Also forcing me to give up my early Saturday mornings to get the least popular time slot were a group of ladies excited to find out how to use their new iPads to send an email, and if they had time, a bit of entry-level web surfing.
These are fully grown adults who have been peer-pressured into buying something they have absolutely no idea how to operate. The human race has been made to look a fool just so they can carry around a brick with a glossy fruit logo emblazoned on it, because 'Joan down the road has one and she met her current husband, adopted three Cambodian children and ordered a new conservatory on it'.
In the same way we stick our noses against the glass of prehistoric relics and ancient artefacts, I wonder will our future generations stumble across a desolate high street, peer into a travel agent and wonder what the fuck we were all doing? "So you mean there was this incompetent middle-man who was like a less well-informed version of the internet was trusted with sorting out your big holiday?" "Yes son, and you ask why daddy went bald at 26".
Some will lament how traditional retailing establishments die out like an unfortunate breed of animal. The travel agent is one of them. As they saunter across the high street landscape, hunted by a digital predator, you wonder really what is the point. Other than a place to drop off a bunch of cash to pay off a balance you don't quite trust to be absorbed online. You know, like a drug deal.
So as I expertly point this assortment of letters back in the direction of my introduction; the travel agent and those that use them. A species that should be consigned to a perspex box to be stored in a fancy historic building for families on half term trips to gawk at. They've served a purpose, now to the museum of retail with you.
Of course, if these people just learned how to use their iPads maybe I would't have to queue at the bloody travel agents and this post would never exist. Ahh irony.
