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Originally posted February 13 2011 at 11:02 under General and Friends and Moments. 0 Comments. Trackbacks Disabled.

Transported Back In London

Mood:
Excited
Location:
Gateshead for Peter Kay
Music:
Smashing Pumpkins
Moving through the list of upcoming things Janet got her trip to the London Transport Museum last Sunday, with a few other bits thrown in.

Old underground steam train

The museum is arranged over a couple of floors in an old flower market. I have to applaud the entry policy, which while still charging silly London prices at least does give repeated entry for a year. This does make getting in to start with a bit of a lengthy process though! Once inside a lift whisks you back in time to the nineteenth century and horsedrawn cabs and trams. The layout then leads you round the evolution of London’s public transport (and really, the evolution of transport in general), with the mass expansion the ability to comfortably and quickly cover large distances gave. This meant I got to ooh over early tube steam trains. Just how insane was that idea to run such things through underground tunnels! A typically wonderful Victorian approach, which would probably never get off the ground (or beneath it!) as being “too difficult” these days.


Buses in the London Transport Museum

The ground floor is split between more modern underground bits and pieces and what seems like a fairly comprehensive guide to twentieth century buses. There’s also a flashing map of London which I presume is showing transport information but I really have no idea. Given the coverage of the underground there did seem a lack of any coverage of overground, conventional rail, which is a little strange given the huge number using it to commute into London everyday (myself included), not to mention its wider connection to the country. Perhaps this is an inevitability of a central London perspective, and the stock available to London Transport. I’m going to the National Railway Museum very soon anyway, so not too bothered. Still, recommended if you like this sort of thing, especially if you can go more than once in a year.


After all that we travelled to the Harp pub for refreshment. Good selection of real ales (I had a decent pint of Hophead). Jan informed me the cider poured from a random container in the fridge was OK too. Having realised we still had quite a bit of the day left we decided to pop into the National Portrait Gallery as it was just round the corner. Jan and both confessed that we didn’t exactly recognise anyone much (even Lord Grey we’re more used to seeing high up on top of a monument in Newcastle). The corridor lined with busts was disturbing though, visions of of them turning to watch us as we walked. Did get to see the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition, which I hadn’t realised was still on (note to organisers—if you’re going to charge for something then only admit so many people at once so we can actually see what we just paid for, even if it was a just a very reasonable couple of quid). Some good stuff, Jan and I both particularly liked what I believe was title “Text Message” (ah yes, by Oliver Reed). At least there was no portrait of the scary man from Jan’s children’s encyclopaedia (Machiavelli or Christopher Marlow it later turned out)!


Door dated 1621

After that excitement we accidentally wandered into the crush of people celebrating Chinese New Year in Trafalgar Square. I think there were some people dancing on a stage but we couldn’t actually see anything. Then down to wander round Westminster Abbey’s precincts (though the gardens turned out to be closed up so couldn’t prove to Janet that my air raid shelter is there. We did pop into the Jewel Tower though, its custodian rather optimistically informing us that it normally took twice the twenty or so minutes we had left to look around.

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Who:
Dr Ian Scott
Where:
Croydon (and Gateshead), United Kingdom
Contact:
ian@norcimo.com
What:
Bullding Services Engineer (EngDesign), PhD in Physics (University of York), football fanatic (Newcastle United), open source enthusiast (mainly Mozilla)

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