Monday Walkabout


The Science Museum sucks me in for the best part of the day.


I was planning on taking in the Science Museum and the Natural History museum today, but once I got into the Science Museum I just couldn't get out. In the end I had to leave before I was actually done.

First I stopped at the Starbucks for my morning coffee and saw a young Mac afficiando hard at work. She clearly had the hand-me-down. Her dad had a new 12" Powerbook.





On the way to Hyde Park I pass the end of Kensington Palace Gardens, which is at the west end of Hyde Park and is the home of many embassies, including the Israeli embassy. Here is one of the more obvious indications of post-9/11 fears.





There are guards posted at the end other end of the street carrying very nasty looking machine guns.

Also on the way to the museum I passed the Albert Memorial. The Memorial is on the flight path to Heathrow. You literally cannot stand there and not hear a jet. I figured one passes overhead approximately every 120 seconds.





I got to the Science Museum and was, as noted before, sucked in for five hours.





They have an amazing assortment of scientific and industrial artefacts. They have Watson and Crick's original model of DNA. They have some of Turing's gear. They have the bit of Babbage's Difference Engine that was actually completed (and a few years ago actually built the whole thing- and it worked). They have a sweater knitted with wool from Dolly. And that's just the first floor.

They have a whole new wing (loudly) funded by Wellcome with some pretty cool "modern" world stuff. One entire section deals with what it means to be an individual human, with retinal scans, displays about memory, ageing simulations, etc.

This is the computer that the World Wide Web was originally conceived and developed on by Tim Berners-Lee. It still has the CERN inventory control sticker on the front.





And this is your humble narrator, having a snack.





They also have a model of the Clock of the Long Now , a project (that has yet to be built) to construct a clock that will run for 10 000 years. Unfortunately, and ironically...





I finally managed to tear myself away from the place (after a short trip to the gift shop), and on the way home I passed this building. There is a prize for the first person who can email me and tell me how many holes it would take to fill it.






I came down a path called The Flower Walk on the south edge of the Hyde Park.





And found this puzzling and provocative object, sitting on a park bench.





Then it was time to check email quickly before heading out to see Tricky at Royal Festival Hall. Here is the Thames, taken after the show from the New Hungerford Bridge.



Posted: Mon - June 16, 2003 at 02:39 PM   Meltdown   Out and About   Email Comments

© Adam Smith