Why I went commando on a visit to the #Science #Museum in #London

The Science Mueum, the Science Museum, so great they really did name it twice. Actually no, that’s wrong, they named it ‘The Science Museum’ since ‘Twice’ would have been a silly name.

This is Part The Two’th of my visit to the museum, it’s just too big to fit into one post. I couldn’t do the place justice if I wrote twenty blog posts about it. No, the sad truth is that you must go there yourself and gawp and gasp like a mortal human being. Entry is slightly free, so if you hitch the hike it’s not as though it’ll break the bank. Head for Kensington. Kensington is in London, and London – although it doesn’t know it or care for the fact – is in England.

The museum is rather deceptively spacious. The facade is yer regular posh stone thingy with columns and wotnots but the inside is an entirely different space than the one suggested, with full-height halls, galleries and walky-walky bits. There’s a ground-floor gallery that is crammed with space and space-related exhibits, and a top floor full to the brim with aeroplanes and flight-related gizmos. One of the ooh-aah, Cantona moments is meeting an apparently free-floating globe displaying real-time images and weather data…

Fancy gnawing on a chunk of Moon-rock? There’s a decidedly sizeable lump on display, although between you, me and Gromit’s quivering doggy-buttocks, I could smell Stilton all around that display…

An Apollo landing craft pod whatsit thingummy? I lived in Greece (long ago) for many, many years, on Mount Olympus (where the Japanese make the cameras), and my bezzie mate of the time, Apollo, assured me that he had never landed in one of these.

Now then, or more correctly, then now, move on up a floor or two and you’ll be in the company of some more down to Earth equipment.

This dental pod is identical to the one that Nanny had installed in the nursery wing. Her reasoning was that the less we were taken out of the house, for dental visits and social services check-ups, the less likelihood there was of us escaping, so she requisitioned the necessary and took a postal course in advanced, pedal-powered dentistry.

Nanny pioneered the use of non-toxic fillings, experimenting with wood, cast iron, ivory and, eventually, Cubic Zirconia. Some of the wood for our childhood fillings was imported from Father’s teak plantations. Some of the ivory was from elephants that Mother said were too young, too old or too sickly to continue to work on Father’s teak plantations.

There was also a sad reminder of Grandmother (First Class) and of some of Father’s business enemies (Steerage and, in the case of one or two of his worst enemies, tied up in Hold 3). RMS Titanic, Grandmother’s last motor-yacht.

Still, mustn’t dwell too long on contracts for hits that have long-since been fulfilled and paid orf in full.

Let’s move up to the top floor, where all of the hairyplanes are. One of them is the one that used to run on blondes, or peroxide or something. Dumpy-looking thing, a bit like the chap who commissioned it. An insane design, also like the chap who commissioned it.

No, as far as aeroplanes went the RAF’s counter-attack of yellow was, fortunately, far superior. No invasion force ever expects yellow, and England gave it to them in buckets.

So, to more mundane matters. Gallileo’s telescope, anyone? Some other chap, Newton I think his name was, has also left his lying around, gathering dust. Bill Herschel’s big forty-foot jobby is parked just around the corner from this display. No idea what it’s all about. Looking at the sky, or something. Personally, I use binoculars in preference. It’s so much easier to keep an eye on the grooms in the stables with binoculars.

When is this ever goin’ to end, you say? Pretty soon, I must admit, since it’s almost time for elevensies at ten, and I happen to know that Cook has produced one of his famous cylindrical coffee and cough-drops Battenberg Cakes. I suppose that to finish up with the Science Museum I might show you one of their failures… the most unloved and world’s most inaccurate Foo Cow… Fuc’all… Foucault’s Pendulum. Pendulee… pendulah… pendulohohohoho – it’s a bit of a joke, stuck in a stairwell and I suspect that most visitors don’t even notice that it’s there. Dinged, dented and poorly-designed. The Bro has constructed a much, much better and immeasurably more accurate one at a wee school in Cheshire (The Grange). More of that in a future post, when he releases the information…

So. Sooooo. That’s my visit to the Science Museum, with much left out.

How about a spot of Hampton Court Palace for the next post? Henry VIII’s little pad… What’s that? Threats will get me nowhere? That’s never been my experience…

Chin-chin, chaps and chapesses.