It’s odd to be mocked by baked goods, but that’s exactly what happened recently when I took a break from working in the reading rooms at the British Library for an afternoon pick-me-up of sugar and caffeine. There, peering up from the counter of the library cafe, was a beige doubledecker biscuit with marzipan teeth and goggly eyes called a “monster cookie – raawrr”. It was priced at £5.95. A simple cup of tea to go with the snack cost £2.25, meaning that for both, you’d be pushing a tenner. That grinning biscuit was taking the piss.
These extortionate prices are not unique to the British Library. I took my toddler to the National Maritime Museum, and ended up spending £7.80 on tea and a bit of cake to take the edge off being up since 6am. Cakes are luxuries we can do without, but the prices of hot drinks in our leading cultural institutions seem particularly outrageous, having rocketed up (like everything else) in the past year or so. The British Library even looks reasonable compared with most, and it’s not just a London thing, either – the Museum of Liverpool charges £2.60 for a tea; it’s £2.50 at the Imperial War Museum North, and at the National Museum of Scotland, £2.70.
