Fourteen Hours

Today was Paul's only full day in London, so we made sure it was indeed full, starting with the first place on his list, the British Museum.

Although he was supposed to be the tourist and I was supposed to be the tour guide, I'm also still a tourist, so we both took photos as we walked through a very small part of the overwhelming museum. This 1820 rolling-ball clock measures time in thirty-second intervals (the time it takes for the ball to move from one end to another), resulting in the ball travelling about 4,000 km per year.
This 11,000-year-old piece is thought to be the first sculptural representation of something. Can you guess what? It depicts a couple making love--the explanatory plaque remarked on the sculpture's heart-shaped appearance as being another representation of their love, in addition to the bodies themselves, but I think that might be stretching things a bit. This next piece came with the amazing title "The oldest known piece of art from England," and is thought to be 13,000 years old: If you look very carefully, you can see a horse's head and mane facing the right side of the carving, which was done on a rib before being damaged with deep scratches and a snapping of the rib itself. "The oldest art known from Wales," done on a horse's jaw, is also 13,000 years old:
And while we're going with superlatives, this Tanzanian chopping tool is the "oldest object in the British Museum," at 1.8 million years old:
The King's Library was spectacular,
the turquoise Mosaic mask of Tezcatlipoca has a human skull as its base (take that, Damien Hirst),
and this room contains sculptures that once graced the outside of the Parthenon.
The detailed frieze was incredible and this particular panel
is thought to have inspired John Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn ("Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies"). Our last stop was at the Sutton Hoo exhibit, with its striking early 7th-century helmet:
We could have spent all day at the British Museum, but considering that it was already past noon, we headed over to Marylebone in search of lunch. Paul was interested in good cheese, so I took him to La Fromagerie, where they have an amazing assortment of cheese in their walk-in chilled cheese room:

They also have a gorgeous Tasting Café, at which we decided to have lunch.
We lingered over bread, meat, cheese, and a summer pumpkin salad that made for a perfect combination of flavours, and even chatted briefly with our neighbours at our shared table (you can see them in the earlier photo of the café), who were very posh--talking in their mellifluous tones about all their friends' grandkids at Oxbridge (Oxford and Cambridge)--and also very nice. They sat down around the same time as us, and once we all started eating, the man remarked to his wife that we were all "crammed in like coffins" at the communal table, and then half-smiled at me. I told him that if this is what death tasted like, we should all be so lucky! They both laughed and the woman touched my arm and said, "You are so right, my dear," and we continued eating. As Paul and I left, the man looked up and smiled again, and I said goodbye and wished them a lovely afternoon/ life after a delicious La Fromagerie death and they both smiled widely and wished us the same. Our next stop was at the Fortnum and Mason foodhall, which I didn't know is undergoing a renovation that drastically reduces its size until the end of the summer (but Paul still found something to buy), and then we took the tube to Waterloo and walked along the Thames to Tate Modern, where we met Bob. Paul had a look through some of the permanent collection and then we walked through the Global Cities exhibit in the main turbine hall.
Although London is a huge city, its density is nothing compared with other cities, as represented in these 3D models. Clockwise from bottom left are Cairo, London, Mumbai, and Mexico City: There were numerous video installations about cities, including an interesting one about London that you entered by walking through the top floors of the Gherkin (I've never felt so tall):
The exhibit was filled with questions and opportunities for debate--this particular question is perhaps deliberately undermined by the signpost directly in front, which divides and labels people by media catchphrases, pointing groups in their respective directions:
While ASBO is the acronym for an anti-social behaviour order, which places specific restrictions on a person whose behaviour has been shown to unlawfully challenge aspects of the human or physical environment (e.g. vandalism, theft, aggressive behaviour), it's also become shorthand for youths who are often the holders of ASBOs--which of course leads to an even greater us-versus-them mentality. Reducing the scale, but not the creativity, one of the most visually satisfying parts of the exhibit was Nigel Coates's Mixtacity:
A unique representation of the possibilities for urban regeneration of the Thames Gateway region of London, the model was full of fascinating raw materials and ideas.

From Tate Modern, we headed south to Peckham Rye for a remarkable sound installation in a gallery space right beside the rail station.
This tiny sign just outside the gallery entrance warned, "view all work at your own risk,"
and in this particular case, that warning was a bit more ominous than usual, since today's installation involved propane gas
that created a "gas organ" that has to be heard to be believed. (The sounds on the website give some idea of the booming cries that the instrument emitted, although the resonance in the brick-walled space under the rail bridge made the sounds even more surreal.) The artist handed around controls and allowed each of us to have a turn at controlling the output of the four propane torches that created this ominous music.
After we left Sassoon Gallery, we hopped on the train back to London Bridge and ticked off the last item on Paul's wish-list when we joined the early evening crowd at the busy Market Porter pub in Borough Market. After a nice sit, we wandered west, both on foot and on the upper decks of buses, showing Paul a bit of Buckingham Palace, Green Park, Hyde Park, and Chelsea, before ending up at the unlikely (at least in terms of 48-hour tourists!) location of Battersea, where there was a restaurant that we've long been curious to try: The cosy restaurant, friendly service, and delicious food didn't disappoint.
My favourite tapas dish was the pork--one forkful of warm, rich, melt-in-your-mouth meat in its lovely sauce, along with a bit of crunchy vegetable crisp, and the tiniest bit of freezing cold thyme sorbet made for an extremely unique and satisfying mouthful.
We also shared two desserts, with this one being my favourite:
Quince wrapped around a cheesecake-like centre, with raspberry sorbet and celery ice, it was full of pleasing contrasts--in the same way that I think yesterday and today's whirlwind (and highly subjective) tour around London perhaps began to give our guest some idea of the scope and variety of this overwhelming city.