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Fake news. Alternative facts. Terminological inexactitudes. Post-truths. Lies are absolutely everywhere you look. Which is why two disgruntled Londoners from The Robin Collective have decided to cut through the bullshit by filling a whole building with the stuff for a pop-up ‘Museum of Lies’ in Mayfair.
Its collection houses top falsehoods like this photograph (above) of ‘the first ever crab-drawn carriage on the Isle of Mull in Scotland’. At one point, the crab carriage was the main mode of transport on the island, and ‘is still used in Mull for special occasions’.
You can learn about Henry VIII’s performing Parliament puppy, and the little-known delicacy of ‘platypus bacon’. Don’t even get them started on the contents of ‘The Senghenydd Crate’, a clandestine box of nonsense found in the basement of the National Museum Cardiff.
It’s all fittingly-bizarre, but this is still a London pop-up we’re talking about, so the Museum of Lies also contains an elaborate bar. Order drinks like the (G)old Fishioned (made with a substance that kept the world’s oldest goldfish alive) and a cup of ‘alcoholic elixir’ from the Fairy Fountain. There’s beer too (thank fuck for that). Is this London’s strangest event yet? If you answered ‘yes’ obviously have yet to hear about Toast or Hands.
It might have some decent fibs, but the greatest trick the Museum of Lies ever pulled was convincing us that Mayfair had suddenly gotten trendy.
The Museum of Lies is open today and Thursday noon-midnight, and Friday-Saturday, noon-2pm. Find it at 54 Shepherd Market, W1J 7QX.