Carefully posing myself next to Beckam I’m wondering ‘Is he really this short?’ I’ve heard he is a six-footer, but perhaps he has hunched up for the in-the-middle-of-the-run pose. It’s a lovely hall; all lit up for partying and one can’t help bumping into celebrities. Yikes, my chance has come to pose next to Madonna! Somewhere nearby Arnie stands tall in my all time favourite Terminator costume and cool makeup. Would have anybody believed it if told them? Sometimes your camera can be a life saver. Check out the snaps.
Am I kidding you? Not really. We were kidding ourselves. The party is at Madame Tussauds and the celebrities are just plain wax models. But what they have essentially tried to capture is a moment in the glam world. A moment which we would love to be a part of (judging from the enormous amounts glossy trash that gets consumed in the name of magazines and tabloids). There are moments when you confuse between the wonderstruck onlooker and a lesser known wax model. You might even reach out to touch, but then .Oops!
Tussauds is a very tourist oriented experience. But it’s worthless if you don’t carry an essential tool a camera. I don’t deny that there are thrills. Chamber Live! For example is a dungeon with live actors dressed up to resemble gruesome serial killers. But, somehow the killers took fancy only on the women and children. Coz by the time we hear a scream and run up to the spot, the ‘murderer’ would be smirking affably in a corner hiding for the next ‘victim’. Deprived of even a single horror experience, we somewhat enjoyed the London History ride due to its colourful three dimensional experience.
Keen that fireworks by the Thames (or more accurately by the London Eye giant wheel) should not be missed on this particular day, we planned to move accordingly. Coming from the land of deafening and scintillating fireworks displays, Thrissur; I had a unique opportunity to compare traditional Chinese fireworks and modern electronic pyrotechnics. Simply due to the fact that they are electronically ignited allows for more controlled and spectacularly synchronised effects. The London Eye was effectively portrayed many times as a gigantic fiery windmill with fluorescent strands. Another camera-happy moment for me [Snaps are here]. I naturally put my A95 in Fireworks mode which, I later realized, makes for long exposure times. Hence a tripod would have been handy, though I cannot imagine a spot to place it in that dense crowd. Swarms were pouring into stations in such numbers that police stepped in for crowd management. The huge water dispensing trucks could be also spotted at some places. Again, quite thoughtfully, portable toilets were installed at ‘strategic’ points. Despite all this, beer bottles would get smashed and an odd ruckus would start at some distant street.
People were generally in the pink of health, not because of healthy diets, but because of all-night pubbing:wink:. However, most of them were in the best of their ‘spirits’. One actually came up to us, as we passed by, claiming he had an Indian friend and would like to wish a wonderful new year to all Indians .. He continued bawling his ode to whoever holding him upright. We simply kept walking, thinking smug in our minds ‘We share yur feelin, mate!'
