We're being stalked ...

Dear Sheddists,

the week before last sees an early birthday celebration as dear mrs electrofried and I make our way down to London for a long weekend. What joys are in store!

The festivities begin on Saturday with a visit to the The Photographers Gallery to see a triptych exhibition featuring the works of David Lynch, William Burroughs and Andy Warhol. Three more rum characters you are most unlikely to meet.  We vote young Mr Lynch the best of the bunch for some stunning photographs of abandoned factory sites so redolent of an evening out in the finer parts of Dudley and the Black Country.

We call in on the way back to our hotel to sample the delights of The Salt Yard, a rather fine charcuterie bar tucked away just two minutes walk from Goodge Street tube-station. Despite the fact it's only six o' clock and the place is already full to the gunnels we're ushered downstairs and squeezed in to the last remaining vacant table whereupon we proceed to treat ourselves to an excellent selection of tasty tapas whilst reflecting on the events of the day.

A leisurely breakfast on Sunday sets us up nicely for a trip to the Victoria and Albert Museum.  It's the first time we've visited and it proves a great delight. We're particularly impressed with the History of Fashion exhibition. Thoughts of my dearest in fetching whale-bone corsetry dull the pain of the subsequent extended visit to the museum's palatial Gift Shop and the ensuing rapid depletion of the electrofried bank account.

Having shopped till we dropped it's onwards and upwards to the photographic gallery where we admire a series of plates drawn from the museum's extensive collection. It's almost by accident we discover a second exhibition tucked away in one of the lesser travelled recesses on the ground floor. It's called 'Photographic Fictions' and amongst the exhibits are two versions of the same scene from the Crimean War taken by Roger Fenton. They're entitled 'Valley of the Shadow of Death'.

Back once more to our hotel for a restorative cup of tea and a short cap-nap before venturing just a few yards down the road to join the queue outside the former GPO Sorting Office next to Paddington Station. We're off to see Punchdrunk's amazing production of 'The Drowned Man'. Three hours of mayhem, mystery and murder amidst six hundred fellow audience members, all wearing identical white masks - it rounds off proceedings in a suitably surreal fashion!

All that remains on our return home is to read the papers and catch up on the news. The Independent runs an article on the Photographers Gallery exhibition whilst The Metro plumps for a story of Prince Harry's visit to 'The Drowned Man'.  Then blow us down with a lightly greased feather, that night's edition of 'The One Show' features Roger Fenton's, 'Valley of the Shadow of Death'!!

 I fear the paparazzi are closing in so please forgive me if I leave you now to pull tight the shutters across the windows of the West Wing,

yours as ever,

electrofried (mr)