On the 10th December, the day after visiting the Leonardo and OMA/Progress, I took a walk London's South Bank to experience the Winter Festival. But, I must say it probably should have been re-named the Winter Chocolate Festival;I've never seen so many chocolate purveyors in the same place. For a chocolate disciple such as myself this experience is certainly worth braving the icy-cold conditions as it was then, although, as any chocolate fan will tell you, a good chocolate is best served at room temperature. Please do not let any philistine persuade you to put your chocolate in the fridge. But now I must get back to the serious business of chocolate tasting. My eventual chocolate choices were Damian Allsop sublime individual artistic creations in beautiful packaging, and the wonderful bar curiously called Duffy.
But I must admit to not being here at the South Bank just for the Chocolate tasting, I am in fact here at the South Bank Purcell Rooms to listen to a talk by the Director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor. The subject of Neil's talk is the Book of his Radio 4 program A History of the World in 100 Objects...It was a marvellously informative and amusing talk, filled with highlights such as a suggestion that an object that could represent this century might by a football shirt belonging to the Francophile footballer Drogba; the shirt itself made in China, the footballer a French speaker from Africa playing football for an English football team. Although the talk was interrupted by a member of the audience being taken ill this was quickly solved by a request for a doctor. And consummate with having a middle-class audience five doctors appeared all at once, and the person was eventually taken to hospital. Neil MacGregor handled this incident with aplomb by reminding us how safe we were in such an audience. At the end of Neil MacGregor's talk at the South Bank Purcell Rooms I joined a queue to get my copy of his book signed - of course he remembered my name.
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