Monday 8 July 2013

I feel it in my fingers.....We love Notting Hill

We packed a lot into the two more days we had in London. Still not the mad rush of "must see everything" which bubbles deep in Ree's blood as I think we are all a bit tired. The kids are getting a bit behind in all of their committed schoolwork and travel blogs and a couple of relatively early nights went down a treat.

The weather was pretty average. It would go from grey and not raining to grey and spitting, to grey and raining in irregular cycles. The weather forecasters were obviously on drugs but in their defense, they could give the same forecast every day then go for a coffee and a kip. The weather conspired to keep me from heading to Wimbledon. Sitting mate free in the rain not watching tennis, seems a relatively desolate way to spend a travel adventure. Would have been nice but......

 

So what did we get up to?

  • Back to the Natural History Museum
  • Science Museum
  • V & A
  • Drew and Lozza to Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum
  • Ree and Zozo to Liberty's
  • Southbank for a walk with buskers and then a catch up with one of Ree's old friends and family.

 

 

Science museum

Think Scitech on steroids then give it steroids. I know I know, museums aren't fun but this one is. The kids loved it - couldn't get them out. Ree loved it, I LOVED it and would ask it to marry me but can't because some other museums would get jealous (also it's a building with objects in it, not a human female, and I am already married).

 

A few highlights

 

Alan Turing exhibition. He was an amazing guy and pretty much the father of the modern day computer. He also was the acknowledged genius amongst geniuses at Bletchly park - the UK government's code breaking group set up in WW2 that solved the puzzle of the Enigma machine.

 

 

Alan Turing

 

 

 

The pic below is of pilotACE, the first electronic universal computer. It was completed in1950 just after Turing had left the group but the specifications had been written by him 3 years earlier.

 

 

The ACE.

 

 

 

Come a long way since then!

 

 

 

This is an original Enigma machine. There were actually many iterations of the device, the most complex being the Lorenz Enigma whichbwas the one hacked by the Bletchly Parkmteam. By cracking its extraordinarily complex mechanism, the Allies were able to understand the German communications - massively important in the final Allied victory. There are heaps of great shows and documentaries about Turing, Bletchly and enigma. The code book by Simon Sharma is really good as is this radiolab podcast.

How the UK treated one it's greatest patriots and hero is a shameful disgrace of persecution. Hopefully the world has moved on a lot since then but narrow mindedness does seem extraordinarily virulent.

 

 

An Enigma Machine

 

 

 

Earlier single code wheel from the Bombe device

 

 

There was an entire floor devoted to what we are. Heavy emphasis on cognition and memory. All a bit basic to me but the kids loved it. Lots of interactive displays.

 

 

World memory champion: The number of cards memorized (54 shuffled decks) and recited after seeing each one in sequence for about a second. The sticky out cards are the mistakes.

 

 

 

Ree watching a video about London taxi drivers and "the knowledge"

 

 

Amazing artwork - from a distance you see the shape, from closer you see how its made..
Amazing artwork - from a distance you see the shape, from closer you see how its made..
Amazing artwork - from a distance you see the shape, from closer you see how its made..

 

 

 

Each layer is paper. Actually better examples of perception at the Ripleys museum.

 

 

 

Tha airplane / flight section took up a hangar sized area. We thought we would just have a quick look and move through but probably stayed here as long as anywhere.

The picture below is interesting not for the flight suit guy but for the metal shape next to him. These were fake passengers that they used to test concord air conditioning. They measure temperature through this shape seated, pressurized and heated (body temp) like a passenger and then work out how much air conditioning is required at different parts of the flight.

 

 

 

 

 

The Jumbo 747 was a joint business venture between Pan Am and Boeing that was a giant gamble that most thought would fail. People just did not believe that there would be a large enough market for generalized consumer flying. Even the CEO of Pan Am thought that it was a long shot but the huge jumbo size was a good investment in terms of a plane that could fly cargo, mail etc. He had his money on what was known as the American SST (Supersonice S.... T.... - can't remember) which was a kind of American Concorde which never made it to consumer production.

The cross section in the Science museum was cut by Boeing for the museum in the early in the late 1980s. It was from a plane that had done 20000 flights and 10 million Nautical Miles. Boeing then took the plane out of commission, did shear stress tests on it for about the same amount of flight time (20000 pressure cycles) and then made the cut out for the museum.

Whats amazing is how little of the area is used for passsengers. The undercarriage is massive. Have seen quite a few folk walking the streets with similar characteristics.

 

 

 

747 Cross-section. It's huge.

 

 

 

The now ubiquitous Rolls Royce plane engines were designed for use by the new wide bodied airplanes. Rolls Royce which now owns almost one half of the market was trying desperately to break into the US airplane market so joined with Lockheed to design the turbofan engine below. It took years and in the process bankrupted the company!

The company fought back from bankruptcy and split in 1973 to Rolls Royce aeronautics which was nationalized (for about 15 years) and Rolls Royce Motors which comprises Rolls Royce and Bentley and which was then acquired by Volkswagon in 1998. VW then started another company which they lease to BMW to make Rolls Royce cars today. All a bit intermarried.

 

 

 

The engine that bankrupted Rolls-Royce

 

 

 

As an aside, there was a car exhibition hall on the ground floor. The early VW was a great example. This one was from 1965.

Interestingly VW began life as a social expansion project by one of those politicians who all the people like and then they get into power and, well, sorta show there true colours. Kevin Rudd? Not for this example. This guy was Adolf Hitler.

Hitler promised a cheap to run, small car to "motorize" the people. The car would cost about the same as a small motorbike and workers could save for it by buying special govt backed stamps.

My first car was a VW beetle. Only car I have named. It was a dark blue metallic beauty called Epstein. Little did I know then that the original VW beetle design of rear air cooled engine was designed in Nazi Germany by Ferdinand Porsche!

The Beetle was a great commercial success because of the very high standard build quality and the fact that it started perfectly even on cold mornings as opposed to most cars of the time which had poor electronics and ignition systems.

Even though production was stopped by the war, it was recommenced post WW2 as a means of aiding post war German rebuilding. The Beetle went on to be the best selling car of all time. Who knew?

 

 

VW 1300, circa 1965

 

 

 

We headed to the kids experiment section. This is a place for kids to do some hands on stuff and not a place to do experiments on kids.

 

 

They found some 3D glasses left on a ledge after other visitors had left the 3D iMax

 

 

 

There was a funny moment when Drew got obsessed by a dry ice experiment. He was calling out, "look guys its dry ice, its cool". By calling out I mean calling out very loudly and with single minded repetitive purpose. Again and again. A bit like this.

Finally an American dad smiled at him and asked, "is this dry ice?" Without missing a bit, Drew said, "Yes, and it's cool".

 

 

 

 

 

There are lots of talks and shows to go to. They are aimed at kids level and very enjoyable. We went to a show about "structure" which was pretty much about bridges. Lots of audience participation. Mostly kids but a few parents in the back rows, one of which was obviously learning quite a lot. She was sitting next to Ree and calling out the answers once she had tried to work the out. Sheesh.

 

 

some show choices

 

 

 

A talk about structures. Our kids in the front row

 

 

 

Briefly we left the kids in the experiment section and went to see a bit of the Medical section.

 

 

Portrait of Isaac Newton

 

 

 

Probably as great a reason as any that the Allies won the war

 

 

 

It's always better to see better - isn't it?

 

 

 

Finally the favourite exhibit of both Ree and me. The Phillips economic computer. The computer attempts to model how parts of the economy work. Money is represented by coloured water which flows from tanks through pipes and sluices.

It was invented by a New Zealand guy called Phillips and not the Dutch Phillips compnay. In 1950 it got rave reveiws after being demonstrated at the London School of Economics and over time, 14 were built and used in the best economics schools for teaching and demonstration rather than accurate economic forecasting.

It's a cracker.

 

 

 

 

 

Taxes

 

 

 

Government spending

 

 

A video of a video of it in action.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ripleys Believe it or Not

Drew had done his research on this one. He really wanted to go so had gone to tripadvisor and read all the reviews before summarizing all the pros and cons.

 

 

Carrying around his Notting Hill souvenir. Never know when you may need map reading binoculars. Truthfully, he used them lots in the museum, as did I

 

 

 

The original Humbug Major Sweet Machine aka the Toot Machine which was the car in Chity Chitty Bang Bang - written of course by .....Ian Flemming

 

 

 

Image made completely by smoke. Artist holds paper above a smoky fire

 

 

 

Keyboard piece Abe Lincoln montage

 

 

 

Bottletop Oprah

 

 

Photobombing the Tussaud like models

 

 

 

THe making fun of people's deformities section

 

 

 

Oldy but a goldy. Bit like the "where did hitler keep hi armies" joke.......Up his sleevies

 

 

 

Didn't know this condition existed

 

 

 

Stopped half way through for a couple of games of pinball

 

 

 

There was a section on chastity belts. Not exactly sure why. Then they had one you could have your picture with. Again, not exactly sure why. Drew took the photo bait though and showed that (whew for now at least) he has no idea what they are for.

 

 

 

Faith, hope and chastity

 

 

 

Inside the maze of mirrors

 

 

 

Ripley's call this the "crown jewel"of their museum. Its a shrunken head with earings of dried beetle wings from a tribe in the Andes.

 

 

 

 

 

Quick Game of Thrones reference.

 

 

 

 

Enough

 

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