2012-04-09: London & British Museum

Another holiday, another day out. Today: the British Museum in London.

The museum us a great destination, especially when the weather is as disappointing as it recently had been. Managing to get relatively cheap rail tickets (£20 each) from Nuneaton right to Euston, we reached London at around 11 am and took a stroll past Timothy’s alma mater – Birkbeck College to the British Museum. We weren’t the only ones with the idea for a museum visit and a long queue (= line for American readers) had already formed. It was moving quite quickly and we were soon through the main gates. We had been lucky! Just behind us the doors were closed – the museum was full! Once inside we realised just how busy it was, but in we were 🙂

We had a good look at the American exhibition and Stacy recognised many of the Amerindian styles and identified them before we even had seen the labels.

A tour around Central American high cultures later and we wound our way to the Egyptian Collection. After a brief lunch, we returned to the Egyptian section to find the Rosetta Stone. Heading tough the Assyrian and Greek Collections (taking in the Elgin Marbles) we made our way to the Manga exhibition – alas we arrived a day late and there were only a few bits and bobs around. Instead we viewed some German Romantic Art by Tischbein. After that we headed through the Japanese and Korean Collections and made our way to the European section, including Roman Brittain. We nearly missed the Lindow Man – an exhibit of a bog corpse. Little is known about him other than he’s been dead for around 2000 years.

At this stage we had nearly seen as much as we could take in, however on the way out we came across an excellent exhibition of clocks and watches, which even included a “Teasmaid” – an alarm system that got the water ready to make a cup of tea.

A quick trip a little way down Oxford Street, so Stacy could say she’d been there too and we started our journey home.

2012-04-02: A Day Out in the Black Country

A little over a week ago Stacy had returned to the UK with her Spouse Visa proudly stamped in her passport and at the end of last week Timothy’s school had broken up for the Easter Holidays. So we had an opportunity to do some exploring again and today took us to the Black Country – an area to the west of Birmingham. The area gets its name from the consequences of the industrial revolution; during that time the “relatively ready” availability of coal, iron ore and lime locally made the area one of the key areas for industrialisation and as a result severe pollution.

Our first stop was the Black Country Museum. It’s essentially a reconstructed village made up of buildings that have been taken down in one place and rebuilt stone for stone and brick for brick at the museum. To visit you need to allow a day and even then you will not have seen everything properly. There is an “iron house” constructed out of blocks of cast iron to counter act a brick shortage. There is an underground mine – with an excellent guided tour, an overground mine area exhibit again with a helpful guide on hand.

We also enjoyed the old school where we sat in on a lesson. The teacher was extremely knowledgeable … and strict and we had a lovely chat with her after the lesson and she gave us a couple of good tips – more of those later in this post.

There are several luncheon facilities – the warm weather having left at the same time as the holidays started, fish & chips were our choice and a good one it was too. For desert we went next door and enjoyed a fantastic cream tea (that’s tea, scone, clotted cream and strawberry jam and here topped with a fabulous sugar sculpture). After lunch we took a canal boat ride into the Dudley Canal – this is at an extra cost (£5.70 per adult) , but worth it.

After having spent all day at the museum we headed to the Himley Hall and Gardens as was suggested by the School Teacher. En route we came across another of her recommendations – The Crooked House pub. As the result of the mining activity in the area it is the victim of subsidence – according to the publican, ongoing even today! Entering it, things are such that you might think you’ve had too much to drink! The door to the bar leans down and needs some push to open. Inside there is panelling reaching half-way up the wall. The leaning of he house makes it look as if it is going upward at an angle and when you put a marble on it, it seems to roll upwards! Of course it is a simple optical illusion.

Next we headed for Himley Hall and although the gardens are open until 20.00 (8pm) we were too late for the house itself.

2011-10-15: Transistors to Transvestites

Long Overdue Story: It was a Saturday in October 2011 when Timothy and Stacy met two of Timothy’s friends to walk around the Bletchley Park Computer Museum.

The museum is sited were during World War II the British coding experts were working on decrypting German secret messages. Led by Alan Turing and coming by a German Enigma machine, they successfully managed to glean important secrets using computational analysis for the first time in history. It was the genius of Alan Turing who realised you could use computation in this way.

The museum houses much of the original equipment as well as “gadgets” that plot the history of computation, including PDP11s, a variety of mobile telephones and an exhibition with BBC Micros where you can have a go at writing your own code – if you are so inclined!

It’s a great day out and we had a lovely time. Thank you Dan and Matt.

The Title? You’re wondering? Well at the end of our time at the museum we went for a meal in a lovely pub with nice food. To cap it off, as we were leaving we encountered a group of very tall transvestites – basketball players in drag?