how it feels to be gorilla'd
...Or the story of this blog, with a rather fuller narrative.
At 10.30am on Sunday 25th June 2006, there was a knock on my door. I thought I knew who it was - my two friends Kirsty and Alice, coming over so we could spend the day together before I move to California in five weeks' time. I had a little suspicion that they might blindfold me and drag me off to a secret location, as Alice and I did to Kirsty for some celebratory occasion when we were all 18; but I did not expect to open my door and see nothing but this:
I opened the envelope and found a pink letter that told me I was going on a treasure hunt around London. There was a number to text if I ran into problems, a Travelcard, a map of the Tate Modern, a voucher for the EasyEverything internet cafe on Trafalger square, and an envelope containing the first clue. There were also strict instructions not to telephone Kirsty or Alice or try to make contact with them under any circumstances.
I was very excited indeed about the treasure hunt, and bounced happily around my flat thinking how I have the bestest friends in the world ever for a good few minutes before I settle down to open the clue. The clue was a postcard of The Great Bear, on the back of which were instructions telling me to go and look in the window of my local newsagent - located, coincidentally, about halfway between Kirsty and Alice's flat and mine. I made sure I had everything I was likely to need (A-Z, bottle of water, knitting, large purple envelope) and skipped off to the newsagent. I couldn't resist texting Alice on the way to tell her and Kirsty what fun I was already having.
At the newsagent I found a note telling me to FIND JOE. There's only one Joe who could possibly have been implicated in this treasure hunt, so I phoned him. Joe told me to go to a phone box opposite the National Portrait Gallery, so I headed for the bus stop and got on the 176 towards Trafalgar Square.
The bus had made it to Elephant and Castle, and I was industriously knitting away, when I got an unexpected text message. It told me to buy a coffee and a postcard at Waterloo, and to keep both the cup and the postcard for later. I was mystified, but did as I was told - not wanting to break the spirit of the scavenger hunt - so I got off the bus at Waterloo Station and purchased these:
The postcard shows the number 12 bus hurtling south across the Thames to Dulwich where Kirsty, Alice and I all live, so I was quite pleased with it. I decided to walk from Waterloo to Trafalgar Square, as it isn't very far and it's a nice walk.
Soon, I was facing the phone boxes outside the National Gallery.
Central London phone boxes are always full of sex workers' calling cards, so I was sure that the clue in the phone box would be of that kind of a nature. I love Bettie Page (Kirsty knitted her for my last birthday) so I was fairly sure it would feature her - and I was right.
As you can see from the picture if you're not distracted by the genuine shemale picture or the man with chewing gum on his nose, the clue says ALEXIS! CHECK YOUR LJ.
My LiveJournal was duly checked.
The clue was a comment on a locked post so I can't link to it, but it told me to ring my mother. I now knew why she, a woman with serious secret-keeping problems, had been so keen to get off the phone when I called her the previous night. I called her from the internet cafe and she recited her directions: I was to go to Gower Street Waterstone's and ask at the biography enquiry desk for a book that had been set aside for me.
After a quick pause to update my LJ with the details of my adventure so far, I was on the road again. The 29 bus, to be precise.
The man behind the desk in Waterstone's was most surprised to find out I didn't know which book had been kept for me. But when I explained to him what was going on, he got quite excited about the whole thing, and handed me over a package. Inside the package was the 2006 book of Poems on the Underground, and a very nice card with a complicated letter.
The complicated letter - which almost blew away as I walked down Gower Street - explained that the next part of my quest would be to track down the name of a blog. The blog name was made from three words, and those words featured in three exhibits at the Tate Modern. It explained which exhibits they were, how to find them, and where in the exhibits to find the words. So off I trotted to the Tate.
The Northern Line Charing Cross branch wasn't working, so I had to walk along Tottenham Court Road and get the bus back to the South Bank. I passed this sign.
The idea of someone buying a laptop case full of potatoes made me laugh so much that I had to take, and post, a picture.
Anyway, after a longish wait, a shortish bus ride, a stroll and a sandwich (I wondered whether I should eat without being instructed to do so by my hunt leaders, but I was hungry) I arrived at the Tate Modern.
I wandered through the art at a leisurely pace, heading for the clues I'd been directed to.
The first clue word was in the blurb for Mamelles by Louise Bourgeois.
The word was "mythical".
While I was in Drawing Room by Tomoko Tamahashi
I got a text message asking where I was. I took this as my cue to hurry up, and proceeded into the Guerilla Girls room. There, who should I find but my friend Carolyn? For a moment I thought 'What a coincidence!' before I realised it was surely no such thing. Carolyn had, of course, been placed there by the treasure hunt mistresses, though she had been waiting a while and was clearly getting bored.
Aided and abetted by Carolyn, I soon found the word in the Guerilla Girls room ("gorilla", naturally) and went off to find the last one, only getting lost briefly on the way.
The last word was in Joseph Grigely's 167 White Conversations - a collection of messages written over the years to the Deaf artist.
The word itself was contained in the marvellous statement "I don't know if I can trust my libido in academia," and was - as you may have guessed by now - "trust".
The hunt was nearly over. But we still had to make our way back to the internet cafe, and Carolyn had been entrusted with the fare to take us up the Thames on a river boat. I had never taken a boat up the Thames before, and it was very exciting.
(That's Carolyn).
As we passed under bridges and gazed out at the passing architecture, a proper Cockney commentary was kept up by the boat's driver. Hilarious jokes were enjoyed by all, particularly the one about Boadicea (of whom there is a statue on the north side of Westminster Bridge) being the first woman driver - she's not looking at the road, see?
After the boat trip, it was but a short trot back to the internet cafe, where we entered the magic words to find mythicalgorillatrust.blogspot.com, this very website, and this piece of information.
So off on the 29 to Foyles on Charing Cross Road it was, with a great sense of vindication, for some much-deserved tea and cake.
But it wasn't quite over yet - there was one last hurdle. Rob, another mutual friend, had devised the last puzzle of the day for me. There was a scroll of brown paper, a bag of wooden blocks and the instruction to build London and look at the view from the south-east (where Kirsty and Alice and Rob and Carolyn and I all live, albeit in my case not for much longer).
Can you see some letters and numbers there? I could, and I recognised them as my aunt and uncle's postcode - where we were invited to have dinner and tell the story of our day's adventuring.
This may be the longest and most image-heavy blog post I have ever written, but once I started I couldn't stop. The post-hunt view from the side of the mythical gorillas themselves is still, of course, to come.
At 10.30am on Sunday 25th June 2006, there was a knock on my door. I thought I knew who it was - my two friends Kirsty and Alice, coming over so we could spend the day together before I move to California in five weeks' time. I had a little suspicion that they might blindfold me and drag me off to a secret location, as Alice and I did to Kirsty for some celebratory occasion when we were all 18; but I did not expect to open my door and see nothing but this:
I opened the envelope and found a pink letter that told me I was going on a treasure hunt around London. There was a number to text if I ran into problems, a Travelcard, a map of the Tate Modern, a voucher for the EasyEverything internet cafe on Trafalger square, and an envelope containing the first clue. There were also strict instructions not to telephone Kirsty or Alice or try to make contact with them under any circumstances.
I was very excited indeed about the treasure hunt, and bounced happily around my flat thinking how I have the bestest friends in the world ever for a good few minutes before I settle down to open the clue. The clue was a postcard of The Great Bear, on the back of which were instructions telling me to go and look in the window of my local newsagent - located, coincidentally, about halfway between Kirsty and Alice's flat and mine. I made sure I had everything I was likely to need (A-Z, bottle of water, knitting, large purple envelope) and skipped off to the newsagent. I couldn't resist texting Alice on the way to tell her and Kirsty what fun I was already having.
At the newsagent I found a note telling me to FIND JOE. There's only one Joe who could possibly have been implicated in this treasure hunt, so I phoned him. Joe told me to go to a phone box opposite the National Portrait Gallery, so I headed for the bus stop and got on the 176 towards Trafalgar Square.
The bus had made it to Elephant and Castle, and I was industriously knitting away, when I got an unexpected text message. It told me to buy a coffee and a postcard at Waterloo, and to keep both the cup and the postcard for later. I was mystified, but did as I was told - not wanting to break the spirit of the scavenger hunt - so I got off the bus at Waterloo Station and purchased these:
The postcard shows the number 12 bus hurtling south across the Thames to Dulwich where Kirsty, Alice and I all live, so I was quite pleased with it. I decided to walk from Waterloo to Trafalgar Square, as it isn't very far and it's a nice walk.
Soon, I was facing the phone boxes outside the National Gallery.
Central London phone boxes are always full of sex workers' calling cards, so I was sure that the clue in the phone box would be of that kind of a nature. I love Bettie Page (Kirsty knitted her for my last birthday) so I was fairly sure it would feature her - and I was right.
As you can see from the picture if you're not distracted by the genuine shemale picture or the man with chewing gum on his nose, the clue says ALEXIS! CHECK YOUR LJ.
My LiveJournal was duly checked.
The clue was a comment on a locked post so I can't link to it, but it told me to ring my mother. I now knew why she, a woman with serious secret-keeping problems, had been so keen to get off the phone when I called her the previous night. I called her from the internet cafe and she recited her directions: I was to go to Gower Street Waterstone's and ask at the biography enquiry desk for a book that had been set aside for me.
After a quick pause to update my LJ with the details of my adventure so far, I was on the road again. The 29 bus, to be precise.
The man behind the desk in Waterstone's was most surprised to find out I didn't know which book had been kept for me. But when I explained to him what was going on, he got quite excited about the whole thing, and handed me over a package. Inside the package was the 2006 book of Poems on the Underground, and a very nice card with a complicated letter.
The complicated letter - which almost blew away as I walked down Gower Street - explained that the next part of my quest would be to track down the name of a blog. The blog name was made from three words, and those words featured in three exhibits at the Tate Modern. It explained which exhibits they were, how to find them, and where in the exhibits to find the words. So off I trotted to the Tate.
The Northern Line Charing Cross branch wasn't working, so I had to walk along Tottenham Court Road and get the bus back to the South Bank. I passed this sign.
The idea of someone buying a laptop case full of potatoes made me laugh so much that I had to take, and post, a picture.
Anyway, after a longish wait, a shortish bus ride, a stroll and a sandwich (I wondered whether I should eat without being instructed to do so by my hunt leaders, but I was hungry) I arrived at the Tate Modern.
I wandered through the art at a leisurely pace, heading for the clues I'd been directed to.
The first clue word was in the blurb for Mamelles by Louise Bourgeois.
The word was "mythical".
While I was in Drawing Room by Tomoko Tamahashi
I got a text message asking where I was. I took this as my cue to hurry up, and proceeded into the Guerilla Girls room. There, who should I find but my friend Carolyn? For a moment I thought 'What a coincidence!' before I realised it was surely no such thing. Carolyn had, of course, been placed there by the treasure hunt mistresses, though she had been waiting a while and was clearly getting bored.
Aided and abetted by Carolyn, I soon found the word in the Guerilla Girls room ("gorilla", naturally) and went off to find the last one, only getting lost briefly on the way.
The last word was in Joseph Grigely's 167 White Conversations - a collection of messages written over the years to the Deaf artist.
The word itself was contained in the marvellous statement "I don't know if I can trust my libido in academia," and was - as you may have guessed by now - "trust".
The hunt was nearly over. But we still had to make our way back to the internet cafe, and Carolyn had been entrusted with the fare to take us up the Thames on a river boat. I had never taken a boat up the Thames before, and it was very exciting.
(That's Carolyn).
As we passed under bridges and gazed out at the passing architecture, a proper Cockney commentary was kept up by the boat's driver. Hilarious jokes were enjoyed by all, particularly the one about Boadicea (of whom there is a statue on the north side of Westminster Bridge) being the first woman driver - she's not looking at the road, see?
After the boat trip, it was but a short trot back to the internet cafe, where we entered the magic words to find mythicalgorillatrust.blogspot.com, this very website, and this piece of information.
So off on the 29 to Foyles on Charing Cross Road it was, with a great sense of vindication, for some much-deserved tea and cake.
But it wasn't quite over yet - there was one last hurdle. Rob, another mutual friend, had devised the last puzzle of the day for me. There was a scroll of brown paper, a bag of wooden blocks and the instruction to build London and look at the view from the south-east (where Kirsty and Alice and Rob and Carolyn and I all live, albeit in my case not for much longer).
Can you see some letters and numbers there? I could, and I recognised them as my aunt and uncle's postcode - where we were invited to have dinner and tell the story of our day's adventuring.
This may be the longest and most image-heavy blog post I have ever written, but once I started I couldn't stop. The post-hunt view from the side of the mythical gorillas themselves is still, of course, to come.
posted by Alexis at 10:17 PM
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