If you've spent any significant time with me, you are doubtlessly aware of the fact that I do not like children. I cringe when I see children sharing airplanes with me; I intend to have a rule against children attending my wedding; I am not a fan. The pseudo-Latin motto of the school in Matilda is, as this post's title suggests, "Bambinatum Est Magitum" - children are maggots. While I don't actually advocate such a motto, I did stare longingly at the "children are maggots" coffee mugs they were selling at the merch stand for quite some time before remembering that I don't drink coffee and that I had less than a pound in cash on me at the time.
But in the past few days, I have been repeatedly brought face-to-face with the reality that British kids are basically the best thing ever. It all started with my night at Matilda. For those of you who are somehow completely uninformed about this Roald Dahl novel/cult classic 90s film/wildly successful West End musical, it revolves around a young British girl named Matilda and her days at a school filled, logically, with other young British children. [Note: Apparently they're not British in the movie. Whatever.] The cast of this musical, then, is filled to bursting with ridiculously talented British kids. I can't tell you any of their names, since programs were £3 and I obviously did not buy one, but these kids were incredible. All night, I watched these 7-year-olds, starring in a hit West End musical and being perfect, and thought to myself, "Yeah, that's cool I guess, but like, I played peripheral villain roles in three or four different musicals at my high school, so I think we know who the winner is here." For those of you requiring more evidence of how great these kids were, I would encourage you to try to find video recordings of "Miracle," "Revolting Children," and "When I Grow Up." After watching them, you can go and cry over the fact that these kids are a quarter of your age and still infinitely more talented than you. As we walked home from the theatre, we discovered that off-stage British children are perfect, too, as we somehow found ourselves quite literally in the middle of a huge group of schoolchildren being herded back onto their bus after a night at Mamma Mia. Finding us to be very tall and important-looking in comparison to their inexplicably-still-uniform-wearing selves, the kids were all "sorry"s and "'scuse me"s as they tried to get around us - and the teachers, finding us to be college kids and not creepy old men, probably grossly underestimated the likelihood that we would steal one of their students.
On Friday, the latest session of Inside London brought another dose of adorable (and rich) British children as it took us to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. After a largely child-free morning touring London's legal district, the afternoon session met in Chelsea at the National Army Museum. The museum was nice, but the highlight of the afternoon for all involved was seeing the swanky neighborhood in which the museum is located. As we walked through the blocks of mind-numbingly expensive townhouses surrounding the museum, we saw a lot of things you just don't see every day. Perhaps most notably, I saw a Maserati casually parked on the street. Have you ever actually seen a Maserati? I hadn't. I mean, Taylor Swift sings about them, so I knew they must exist. But I figured I'd never see one anywhere but on Cribs, right? Wrong. There is at least one just hangin' out in Chelsea. Also in Chelsea are approximately 90% of the cutest children in the whole of Britain. If there's one child-related thing that typically earns my love instead of my unabashed disdain, it's needlessly expensive baby clothes. And in this neighborhood, there has quite clearly been a lot of needless expense on baby clothes. One child that I saw was wearing a beret, sparkly kitten heels, and a knee-length peacoat that looked to cost more than my dress for senior prom. Suri Cruise would be proud of this child.
Yesterday, then, I completed my Tour d'Adorable British Children with a visit to the Tower of London. Touring around the Tower was great in and of itself. We walked around the areas where crazy numbers of very important people were brutally murdered, we took dozens of wonderful tourist pictures, and moving-walkway'ed our way past the world's most priceless gemstones, spoons (?), and cathedral-shaped salt cellars (???) in the Crown Jewels display. It will probably be one of the few times in my life where I pay £17 to get into a place and actually feel like I got my money's worth. Beyond its historical and tourist value, though, the Tower also brought us yet more adorable British children. There was the hopelessly short one who pushed past me in her desperate attempt to gain any kind of visibility on our short-lived Yeoman Warder (Beefeater) tour. There were the multiple kids on our walk back whose mode of transportation was three-wheeled, tiny neon razor scooters with unicorns on the handlebars. And most importantly, there was this:
Has there ever been a thing cuter than that? I don't think there has. In the past few days, I have done some really cool stuff. I saw a great new musical, I explored the Tower of London, I saw a Maserati (have I mentioned that?). Above all these things, though, I was taught that British children are perfect. I dread the day when I return to Ireland, because if there's anything cuter than British kids, it's red-headed Irish kids.
Oh, and, for good measure, here's a reminder of what I looked like as a child.
This. I looked like this.
You are such a cute child! I just do not understand where your dislike for children comes from...from a teacher who loves children.
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