War and Splash

ST LUKE'S: More sort of summer on the weekend. More working too - but that happens every weekend. Did the usual summer things, got drunk with Flo on Hampstead Heath on Friday night, barbie at Joe and Anna's on Saturday night, overtime on Sunday morning but pepped it up with a visit to the Brockwell Park lido in Brixton. For the un-English, a lido is an outdoor swimming pool designed for leisure rather than, say, racing and training. Most of the ones I've heard about have grassy areas to sit on. Brockwell Park, unfortunately, doesn't. Still it was good to swim outside and it was another quintessentially London experience I could tick off my list.

On Sunday afternoon I visited the Imperial War Museum again in an attempt to finish the thing off. Unfortunately, or wonderfully, the museum is so interesting and comprehensive that after three hours all I'd seen was the film on genocide, the spies and SAS exhibit and three quarters of the wars since 1945 section, leaving D-Day, World War 2, the merchant Navy and the large objects for another day. Some of the best things included a full range of guns (Sten Guns, AK's, M-16's, Berettas, Uzis, etc.) and the films including one featuring all the best Cold War soundbites ("Mr Gorbachev tear down this wall!") and another detailing the Iranian Embassy siege from 1980.