Southampton. 19th May 2006.

The Lonely Planet guide to England has it about right; ‘Frankly, there isn’t much to see or do in Southampton.’
It’s the only place except Milton Keynes where I didn’t see anybody selling the Big Issue. It says something about both places; not only does nobody in their right mind want to set up home there, nobody even wants to be homeless there. Norwich, in contrast practically had a Big Issue vendor on every corner.
If a town’s desirability’s directly proportionate to the number of Big Issue sellers, then the charity could be sat on a fundraising goldmine. All they need to do is form an elite flying squad of vendors which can be sent into towns in return for a modest bung from local estate agents keen to hike up property prices. The property market gets a boost, the charity raises cash, the vendors get a few weekends away in decent B and Bs across small-town England, everybody’s happy.

You can develop a tolerance for museums, especially if you’ve been caning it like I have lately. The Museum of Archaeology reminded me that I’d been overdoing it a bit. I couldn’t look at the Bronze and Iron Age exhibits without glazing over immediately. I can’t get interested in artefacts relating to people that I couldn’t imagine having a conversation with, which pretty much rules out anything pre-capitalist, I think. The museum was mainly interesting for the building it was in which was part of the old city wall, and for the chance to eavesdrop on the two attendants who passed the time with analysis of the love-lives of their friends. I could’ve happily listened in all day.
Highlight of the trip was the city art gallery, which had a cracking selection of modern art. This was easily one of the best municipal galleries I’ve seen. In the comments book nobody had a bad word to say about the place, not even the person who complained that the security guard was really staring at them. I was inclined to dismiss the comments as paranoid ravings, but sure enough, a few minutes later I noticed the guard glaring intently at a man near the Camden Town group paintings. However, to be fair, the punter did seem to be standing so close to the painting that he might start licking it at any moment.