Day 53: 1st May – Mr or Sir Soane – Na rathaidean fada, lùbach tro Chuimrigh agus Alba

Today’s trivia is on Soane’s House:

The basement houses the vast, 3,000-year-old limestone sarcophagus of Egyptian King Seti I, purchased for £2,000 in 1824 after the British Museum turned it down.
The Picture Room has movable, hinged panels that allow 118 paintings to fit into a tiny space, including Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress.
The dome in the Breakfast Room served as a test for the (now lost) designs Soane created for the Bank of England.
A column of mixed architectural fragments, known as a pasticcio, stands in the central monument court.
Soane utilized a private Act of Parliament to set up the museum, preventing his estranged son from inheriting the house.
Inside the house, you can find the grave of Soane’s dog, Fanny.
Mr Soan added an “e” to be associated with the right lineage and subsequently became Sir Soane.
Following Soane’s original wishes, the museum remains free to enter. Although they get you if you want to see certain parts of the house, as need to do a tour, which we’ll be doing.

Lost and never to be found again was my beloved electric shaver, Gillette Proglide Power Razor. I’ve had it for 3 years and never had a cut. Used 2IC’s manual shaver and cut myself first go 😥😨😱.

note to self, female shaver contour isn’t suited to a males face!

and we have these for the next week . . .

The car hire worked out to be about $150/day. Not exactly cheap but you can’t put a price on convenience. We wouldn’t have seen the puffins, the otters nor gone to the Shetland Islands and half the other sights and sites without it.

The trip-a-deal mob are just waiting on the stragglers outside our ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ hotel😱..

First port of call was, Sir Soane’s house . . .

but on the way . . .

and at Sir Soane’s house, another collector like Frank Green of York, but totally random collection and with no theming.

Mr Soan was a son of a brick layer and also started out as a brick layer. A chance meeting with James Peacock changed all that and he became Sir Soan with an added “e”.

Mrs Soane, was never a Lady Soane as Mr Soan was only a Sir Soane after her death.

Dear friend, I can no longer hear your voice, – teach me what I must do to fulfill your wishes

With our paid entry we got to see . . .

The original and, one and only “A Rake’s Progress” by 18th-century English artist William Hogarth purchased in 1802 for 70 guineas at a Christie’s auction of the contents of Fonthill Splendens . . .

The series shows the decline and fall of Tom Rakewell, the spendthrift son and heir of a rich merchant, who comes to London, wastes all his money on luxurious living, prostitution and gambling, and as a consequence is imprisoned in the Fleet Prison and ultimately Bethlem Hospital. Bit like me, other than the bits on heir, prostitution, gambling, imprisonment, admittance to mental institute and finally, death!

We spent 2.5hrs in the museum including the hour tour. We were lucky with getting onto the tour but also the lack of people for self guided bits. Must be because of the exceptional weather and surely not the new Banksy hype.

Then off to see if the royals have any sympathy for their penal colony inhabitants booking the wrong date for seeing the Queen’s fashion sense . . .

It was then time for some sirenity in Postman Pat’s named due to its popularity as a lunchtime garden with workers from the nearby old General Post Office. It is home to the famous Watts memorial, built in 1900 by Victorian painter and philanthropist GF Watts (1817-1904) . . .

We got sucked into the vortex of the rush of air to see a new Banksy or is it Bansky? . . .

The noise of the crowd was so loud that my dear wife, could no longer hear my voice, telling her to teach me what I must do to fulfill her wishes, so I took her by the hand and guided her over to the Wrights of London dive nearby, for a reprieve from the crowds, heat and to quench our thirst. They have everything at £9.50 . . .