Gonna Rock Down to Electric Avenue

Fridays are my "free day" and Jackie and I have a tradition of spending the day together exploring museums or parts of London we haven't seen.

This past Friday, we visited the working class distict of Brixton, which is on the southern end of the Jubilee line. The neighborhood is home to a sizable African and Carribbean population and boasts a huge, very colorful food market (which runs along Electric avenue). In the 70s and 80s, life here was very tough and the streets were the settings for the famous Brixton riots in 1981, an event that has been immortalized in a number of reggae and punk songs (including, of course, "The Guns of Brixton" by the Clash). These days, you're more likely to hear rap and "bass 'n drums" blasting from open windows than punk or reggae.

We strolled around, walked past the art deco "Ritzy" theater, past a large old church that houses the famous "Mass" dance club (which appears in China Mieville's fine London novel "King Rat"), and went by some massive public housing estates. After a cup of coffee, we then spent an hour or so drifting through the market and got a nice deal on some fruit and on a Jamacian ginger-cake. It was a great little outing.

We did very little on Saturday as the kids had playdates and I, at least, had a ton of reading to do. Today, however, we took a family trip to the British Museum. They have wonderful themed "backpacks" for kids full of activities, games and quizzes they can do while visiting the various galleries. We selected the pack for Ancient Egypt. It walked the kids through the whole process of making a mummy while -- very sneakily-- getting them to scrutinize the various exhibits in the Egyptian section of the museum. They loved it and want to go back again to check out the backpack on Roman Britian. Good show, British museum, good show.