The Thinner The Air 💨

A recent trip around the capital took Mrs Akin and I to the Victoria & Albert Museum up in terribly posh and nice South Kensington.

The trains were out for engineering work (sigh!) so we 'tubed' it up on The District Line, to be honest it wasn't to bad a journey (plenty of sitting though). By the time we reached our destination my a**e was telling my legs they need a walk. We hopped off and followed the subway to the museum.

My it is a big museum! so many things to see, from medieval, to sculpture, some of it was huge in scale, as well as art and artefacts from China, the Middle East, Tibet and many places of the world. Quite literally you really need to take a couple of trips to soak it all in and if you are super swotty, read all the information with each of the pieces on display. As well as art, architecture and sculpture they also have a large section on fashion which is quite interesting to see how styles have changed (and some resurfaced) over the years. 

The Thin House

We headed out of the museum and down towards Brompton Road hitting in another really lovely old church called The London Oratory, again some beautiful stained glass, old wooden confessionals (being a Catholic church) and some impressive architecture. So, as per the title of the post and relating to thin things we came out of the church and doubled back on ourselves to hunt around over the road to Thurloe Square from the V&A where lies the 'Thin House' which is a block of flats built around 1887, at it's widest the building is approximately 6 ft (1.8m). You can catch a photo below:

And For My Next Trip

So, now I can work less hours it gives me a couple of days extra free per week. I am kind of settling in to the change in pace in life and I am actually enjoying! It feels so much more relaxing. It is a pity that work still gets in the way, so since January I have mostly stayed locally and pottered around but, for this day off I decided to head up town again, this time the destination was not far from Charing Cross/Leicester Square, thankfully this time as it wasn't a weekend the usual trains were up and running and I popped off at Tottenham Court Road, through the bustle, past Soho and down on towards Leicester Square/Trafalgar Square.

The thing I was after having a nose at is an alleyway! A little strange you may think, but this 'alleyway' is the thinnest/narrowest alleyway in London, it is called Brydges Place Alley and runs alongside The Coliseum, you'd almost miss it! The walkway measures in at it's narrowest point to a tiny 1 foot 3 inches! Certainly if someone was coming the other way down the alley one of you would have to back up otherwise things could get rather too intimate!

And On To The Music

Possibly because I was playing 'Heaven Or Las Vegas' by this band recently at home maybe it spurred me on to relate the music to this post.

The track is called 'The Thinner The Air' which you can catch at the link. The track is from their 4th studio album called Victorialand and was released on the independent 4AD records label back in 1986.

The album track listing is below:

By this time bassist Simon Raymonde had moved on to collaborate on the second 'This Mortal Coil' album called Filigree & Shadow. This left Elizabeth Fraser and Colin Guthrie to go for a more subtle sound, they were joined by Richard Tomas of Dif Juz on saxophone and tablas (a band previously mentioned on this site which you can catch at the link here Post Punk Dif Juz Sound).

Hoping you enjoyed this foray into London and hope to catch you again soon 🤪

Picture Thanks

Discogs.com

Photos by 𝓐 𝓚ⅰ𝓬𝒌 Ìռძⅰ𝓮 𝓝𝒖ꚍⱿ

Video Thanks

[email protected]

Gif Thanks

MakeAGif.com