42. South and North and West by East and North East and South West

SXSW is an amazing collage of colour and story. People and companies come from all round the world to share their narratives, and to listen. Globalisation has many faces, and SXSW is doubtless one of them.

The global mixing, matching, trading and talking has been going on for millennia, though, and one random place you may have come across it is the Museum of London Docklands, 

The museum is free, in the shadow of the towering Canary Wharf Development, housing the current iteration of London's financial hub. It shows, in detail, and with numerous authentic artefacts, the long history of trading on the River Thames, from before the Romans, thousands of years ago, to the explosion of London as the biggest trading city in the world.

The picture is from a recreation of an old docklands lane, and a shop selling exotic animals from all around the world. The museum also tells the stories of the multitude of different peoples, from all the continents and coastlines of the world, whose journeys crossed in London. It particularly lays out the harsh history of slavery, and how the obnoxious, inhuman trading in humankind left its mark on London, and on every person and population the trade touched.

It's the history and SXSW is the now story. Recommended.