Good afternoon from central London. The Child and I are in the midst of our traditional spring half-term weekend to do nerdy girl stuff. Yesterday was Natural History Museum day. While queueing to get in via the shiny new visitors’ garden, we caught this serendipitous moment:
“Look at those pigeons,” said The Child. “Honoring the ancestors without even realizing it.”
We have been to the NMH many times and always enjoyed it. This time we lingered a bit longer over the vintage taxidermy displays.
On a scale of woe to malice, where are you?
Are you this soldier fish (woe):
Or this owl (malice)?
Personally, I’m the soldier fish for about 30 minutes every morning, and then full-on owl for the rest of the day.
We also made a pilgrimage to the plesiosaur and ichthyosaur fossils dug up in the early 19th century at Lyme Regis by Mary Anning, whose career as a fossil hunter began when she was 12. She may also have inspired the tongue-twister “she sells seashells by the seashore.” Anning has been The Child’s personal science hero since she was six or so. Here, with The Child’s permission, is a photo of her gesturing at some of Anning’s finds:
(The Child is of an age where she refuses to smile for the camera.)
The Child will probably not become a scientist, but she has a very strong interest in graphic art and design, and has suggested she might be interested in creating better displays for museums. More than once this weekend she has peered at some signage or an interactive display and said, “This font should be bigger,” or “that graphic went by too quickly,” so it’s already on her mind. And more than once this weekend I’ve felt sad that our original plan to move stateside in 2028 is no longer on the cards. Whatever future she chooses, she’ll be training for it here in the UK.
Still, it’s been a nice weekend. I’ll save our British Museum photos for a respite thread later this coming week: we went on a dragon hunt and investigated one of the galleries that’s reported to be haunted.
Respite thread for whatever weekend plans you have, or memories of fun museum- or history-related trips you’ve taken.
oldster
The Child simply prefers to show the world the owl, and I applaud her choice.
Are there any daffodils up in the London parks? We’re still two months away from any flowers in upstate New York, but I remember some February daffodils in London decades ago.
Elizabelle
The birds look like the dinosaur’s ears in your photo.
Rose Judson
@oldster: Yes! We took a long walk through Hyde Park and Green Park yesterday afternoon, and the daffodils have begun to bloom. Lots of snowdrops and crocuses, too.
Steve LaBonne
Playing two concerts with my community orchestra, this evening and tomorrow afternoon (Barber First Essay for Orchestra, Haydn cello concerto in D, Brahms Symphony 1). That will help distract me from the ambient insanity for a while.
Phylllis
Mary Anning is featured in the recent Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party, which was a delightful, informative read.
Elizabelle
Great to see The Child and you out and about. I think TC’s career plans sound excellent.
And: put those graphic arts skills to use defending democracy and lampooning its destroyers. When ready to do that.
Staying in Europe sounds wise. You may find more of us over there in coming years
Do you think TC might want to take some of her studies in Germany?
zhena gogolia
Wish I had another country to escape to. But I’m stuck with this one I was born in.
Raoul Paste
This is the most beautiful building you will ever walk into
Steve LaBonne
@Elizabelle: One of my cousins is married to an Irishman and both have dual citizenship. They own property in his hometown (Carrickmacross). They visit frequently and I really don’t know why they come back (except they like the sun and plan to retire to St. Augustine, FL). If things get bad enough on this side of the pond, maybe one of these times they won’t.
Trivia Man
word on the street says that On The Road is in need of submissions right now. I for one would love to see some street scenes from modern london. We just finished another of Phillip Pullman’s series about bad ass woman Sally Lockhart, feeling brit curious this week.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
The Child is simply channeling her ancestor’s undesire to smile for photos:
https://history.nebraska.gov/why-so-serious-3-reasons-why-you-never-see-a-smile-in-old-photographs/
The fact that she’s picking apart the presentation is great and is an obvious early indicator of where her life might lead her.
Matt McIrvin
The Kensington museums were some of my favorite things I saw on my last visit to London–the Natural History Museum, Science Museum and the V&A. The world has many natural history museums, but London’s has some unique and precious things: stuff brought back by Charles Darwin from the voyage of the Beagle; the type specimen of Archaeopteryx (though it’s perhaps not the one you’re thinking of, which is in Berlin).
The Science Museum’s amazing exhibits on the history of technology are almost overwhelming. I think my favorite is their collection of old computing devices, because that’s a thing I’m very into. An actual working instance of a Babbage Difference Engine, reconstructed several years ago with some zillionaire’s money. Giant specialized multi-ringed slide rules. A bizarre electromechanical gadget full of chains and gears used to calculate parimutuel betting odds on the fly.
dnfree
PBS had a David Attenborough special the other night that was set in this museum and brought various of its creatures to life, stalking the halls of the museum and Attenborough. If you can find it, the child might be interested in how it was done. We have never seen that museum, and it is gorgeous inside as well as out. Thanks for sharing!
Jacel
That stuffed owl reminds me of a short poem about such an artifact,
“The Owl-Critic”. The text is here:
https://allpoetry.com/The-Owl-Critic
Margaret
I first visited the British Museum shortly after I graduated from college, where I had majored in Classics. My intention was to spend the day in the rooms devoted to ancient Greek and Roman culture. After entering the museum and starting to the Greek and Roman ruins I passed a gallery of illuminated manuscripts. I had taken one course in the “art of the book“ in college and I thought, ‘“what the heck I’m in the neighborhood.” I planned to take a quick 15 minutes in this little side trip. Sometime later, I realized my stomach was gurgling. I had only looked at half of the exhibit cases in the room. But when I checked my watch and realized I had spent over three hours there. I dashed across the street to an outrageously overpriced tourist pub (I eventually learned about the outrageously overpriced, cafeteria and coffee shops in the museum) and back to the Greek and Romans when I returned. I always visit the manuscripts when I get a chance to visit London and the BM. I’d like to thank the people of Britain whose tax dollars afforded such an extraordinary, life-altering visit to a now retired professor.
MCat
Thank you, Rose. I always enjoy your posts. This one is fabulous. The Child is clearly a really smart kid.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
I’ve been to the British Museum once. Main reason was to genuflect in front of the Standard of Ur. That didn’t disappoint.
Best unexpected part was the bathroom grafitti:
“The British Museum…Of Thieves”
“Remember that ‘looting’ is just a crass term for ‘Expanding The Collection'”
kalakal
I love the South Ken Museums. The Science Museum is my favourite. The computing section is great, from Jaquard Loom cards to Babbage to Apollo and on. I remember walking into a circular room that had a V2 rocket hanging from the ceiling across the room with displays of rocketry along the walls. There was also a sign “This room is the size and diameter of the 1st stage of a Saturn V”.
Gloria DryGarden
My favorite composer is being sung this weekend by a local professional chamber choir. It’s an all Palestrina concert for the 500th anniversary of his birth. I’m very excited! I love it so, I may go tonight AND Sunday. I’ll probably cry, it’s just so moving to me, 4 part and 8 part harmonies, ethereal, layered.
Gloria DryGarden
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: expansion has been in my mind , because of the threats to invade/absorb Panama Canada Greenland. I am so happy to see it here equated with looting, and thievery.
Matt McIrvin
@kalakal: They have a Black Arrow and a Prospero there, the only entirely British orbital rocket and the first satellite launched by it (from Woomera in Australia).
kalakal
One of my favourite museums is the PittRivers in Oxford. Augustus Pitt Rivers was a Victorian General who frequently spent his military career on leave ( in 32 years he saw action once) indulging his passions for archaeology and ethnography all over the world and amassing a vast collection of artefacts from Stonehenge to Australia. They’re arranged typologically and then chronologically and the place is utterly fascinating
WTFGhost
Graphic design and such is great, but she’s also touching on graphic/video learning. “What does it take to hold the attention the right amount of time? What do bored kids and interested adults both want to see here – not what some aged paleontologist or archeologist think is interesting. Except that guy with the hat and the whip – he seems to have some adventurous spirit!”
The video and the sound and the presentation are good – but the real power comes when someone also loves the learning behind it, because that’s the difference between a decent (or even great) piano player, and a great piano composer, if you see what I mean. Music theory, sure, but a love of the piano, and what it does, and that imaginative spark, make for greatness.
And lots of people won’t know they have that spark, until they’re immersed enough to catch fire, in a figurative, enjoyable sense (but I do keep fire extinguishers around my home).
MazeDancer
As someone who is frequently railing against typography sins – More white space! More paragraph breaks! No one wants to read a big, dense block of text! – and finding it frequently falls on deaf ears, my heart goes out to your child’s sensitivity to How It Should Be.
And not to throw could water – okay, maybe to drip a little – have to warn that technology has made “graphic designers” on every street corner. And no one cares that they are all wretchedly bad.
That said, there is always room for someone with a good eye in a wide range of fields.
Also, I am always surprised how mild the weather in London is. You have daffodils. The US Northeast has frozen and slippery snow on the ground.
Of course, less snow is not the main reason to celebrate not returning to America. Less oppression being considerably higher in rank.
TBone
Trip to historic Williamsburg, Virginia as a kid, with locals dressed as colonists & all the colonial sights & sounds included my first taste of okra stew. But the best museum trip was meeting Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis while standing in line to get into the Picasso Exhibit at The Met. All my 9 y. o. self could say (in a stage whisper to my Mom, and a bit too loudly) was, “She has freckles!” I was so surprised because none of her pictures I’d seen showed them. I really hope she didn’t hear me but I’m sure she had to, we were standing so close. Serendipity! I too had freckles as a child.
ETA I am that famous puffed up, scowling bluebird sitting on an icy fencepost.
TBone
@TBone:
Closest I could find but not the photo I was thinking of
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/199495458463414388/
RaflW
I think I was at the NMH in 1980 as a lad (age 14?), having ventured there solo by tube from the hotel where my dad and I were staying. It was my first time navigating London alone, and kind of thrilling.
Come lunch time, I went to the museum cafeteria and put my items on my tray, got to the self serve soda fountain, and while eyeing the Fanta orange (my fave back then, and not other-world orange color like similar sodas in the US) I didn’t see any ice available. I enquired.
“My dear, we don’t DO ice here!” she exclaimed with a friendly chortle.
Still makes me smile 45 years later.
It’s also I think the only trip I ever took with just my dad? We had family summer vacays every year (mostly modest US road trips) but I was subbed in at the last minute on this London jaunt because my mom had the flu! I recall the trip being a big deal, and generally fun, but a bit awkward as I was in the somewhat painful adolescent phase.
Thanks for waking up a bit of my ancestor memories.
eta: I remember the other father-son trip. 1986 he and I drove from CT to St. Louis together (STL was my stop to visit friends). Mom & Dad were moving to Houston, and they had two cars so my bro & mom took off in one and we in the other, but on different timeframes. Mom & bro had the dog, but in “dad’s car.” I remember little except that a 4-speed manual Ford Escort is not a fantastic long haul road trip vehicle!
Tehanu
We watched David Attenborough doing a “Night at the Museum” thing, at the London Natural History Museum, on Nova the other day, so now I’m very envious that you have the ability to go there any time you feel like it!
@Trivia Man:
The Sally Lockhart books are great, I’m delighted to find another fan.
WTFGhost
@MazeDancer: in Western Washington, we’re starting to see signs of spring – trees are already showing preliminary buds, flowers might be popping up. Now, the downside is, our clear days are (relatively) cold – sometimes I need to put on *long* pants! – and the dreary days are many.
@TBone: I’d from a child attempting sotto voce (sp?), she had to suppress a smile. it was likely a *perfect* child moment, with actual surprise/wonder in the voice.
TBone
@WTFGhost: thank you! I never thought of it that way before…
It seems I must’ve been a bit older than 9 also too, but memory that far back is weird – I remember Jackie O though. I’d had a fever that weekend, hated our hotel room too, but Mom was bound and determined to get us to see Picasso up close. Little did she know how momentous it would be! I wasn’t as impressed with the art as I should have been!
TBone
Now I’m also remembering my Gramps (Mom’s dad) and his Lieutenant Col. (semi retired) brother, Great Uncle John, and wife Great Aunt Odeena (all beloved ancestors), piled us all into their station wagon and took little brother and I to see Niagara Falls, and to see a huge Navy ship or some type of very large vessel harbored somewhere nearby, as well as across the border into Toronto for a fabulous Chinese restaurant dinner. That night, the men shared a room, and my Aunt Dee and I shared an adjoining one. All of sudden, us girls heard a weird, humming, grinding noise. The men were trying out the electric massage feature on their hotel beds hahaha! My Great Aunt never let them live that down the whole car ride home, and ever after!
Gloria DryGarden
@MazeDancer: your white space is beautiful. I read everything in your nicely spaced paragraphs.
Traveller
This was a fabulous read…thank you…I have so much real and pressing work to do…but this respite of yours into real life…made my life better, so thank you. (and yes, I’ve been to the British Museum a half dozen times…whenever in London, beautiful London, that is a mandatory stop) Best Wishes, Traveller
Alice
I am a paleontologist and Mary Anning is one of my heroes, too! Your Child is clearly brilliant.
MazeDancer
@Gloria DryGarden: What a wonderful thing to say! Thank you!