The Louvre Does A Liverpool
The Times today reports, that the Louvre is opening a branch museum in Lens. It suggests this might have been inspired by the success of the Tate Liverpool.
I suspect though that the French will charge in Lens, whereas, the only charge in Liverpool is for special exhibitions or in the excellent restaurant.
The Grahame-White Aircraft Factory
This historic building is now part of the RAF Museum at Hendon and has been fully restored and added too, by moving the Watchtower to join it. The latter operation was shown on BBC TV.last night. The building contains aircraft from the First World War and earlier and they are listed here on the Museum’s website.
In some ways, it is one of the best parts of the museum. The BBC programme was very much worth seeing as it gave a deep insight into Claude Grahame-White, who in many ways has become a forgotten aviation pioneer.
Exploring Hackney Central
Many will think that Hackney Central is some run-down area, that was partially destroyed by the riots last August. But look at these pictures.
The church tower wasn’t even all that was left after it was knocked about by the Luftwaffe, but the remains left after an 18th Century moving of the parish church. More details are here on Wikipedia. I do wonder what would happen, if a parish wanted to rebuild their 16th Century church on a different site now!
The reason for the coffee, was that I had a very good one, in the excellent cafe in the Hackney Empire. The lady in the pleasant museum said that the coffee was also good in the cinema on the other side of the road. Note that the cinema is part of the nationwide and independent Picture Houses group.
After my quick visit to Hackney Central, I took the Overground to Stratford, from where I took the Docklands Light Railway to Canary Wharf for lunch. I could have taken one of any number of buses back home, to the City or the West End.
Where is the Printing at the Science Museum?
They used to have a Wharfedale and an Original Heidelberg plattern. But there’s nothing now!
Considering that letterpress printing was the greatest information revolution of all time, it is very sad.
But then I’m biased as my father was a printer.
The UK needs a comprehensive printing museum.
Hidden Heroes At The Science Museum
I went to see Hidden Heroes at the Science Museum yesterday. It was quite an interesting little exhibition documenting the stories behind a selection of everyday objects.
As you would expect most of the items shown, had been invented or designed in the major industrial countries like the UK, the United States, Germany, France and Sweden.
But what was surprising was that only one had been designed or invented by a woman. and that was the coffee filter, which was invented by a German housewife called Melitta Bentz. Could it be that she was fed up with her family’s comments on her bad coffee?
In some ways it’s strange, but one of Britain’s most successful and well-known female engineers of the mid-twentieth century, Tilly Shilling, made her name in the field of getting liquids to flow properly. She designed a device, which meant that the Merlin engines in Spitfires and Hurricanes could perform negative-G manoeuvres and thus not be shot down by German fighters.
White Sound: An Urban Seascape
I just had to go and see White Sound: An Urban Seascape outside the Wellcome Collection on the Euston Road.
Unusual and definitely worth a visit.
Donations At Galleries and Museums
London’s museums don’t charge entry except for special exhibitions. Talks like last night’s one by Tom Hunter are often free and long may they stay that way.
They do have donation boxes and I can’t say I do it every time, but I generally drop a note in every so often, when I visit the British Museum or the National Gallery, which I do fairly regularly on a walk-through basis. Both are great totally dry short-cuts in the rain, with a lot more to see.
In the next few months, London’s transport system will start to accept credit cards, in addition to Oyster cards. You’ll just touch in, in the same way.
It would be interesting to note, if the ability to touch a credit card on a reader to say donate £3, would increase donations in museums and galleries, as often finding suitable change is not as easy, as getting out a card. You might even be able to use Oyster, as this might encourage visitors to buy one.
Tom Hunter and Piero di Cosimo
Tom Hunter is a well-known artist based in Hackney. A friend had invited me to a talk at the National Gallery by Tom to discuss a painting by Piero di Cosimo called A Satyr Mourning a Nymph. Tom had used it as an inspiration for one of a series of large format photographs based on a series of headlines in the Hackney Gazette. There is more about the talk here.
It was all very enlightening and enjoyable. It made me think that why don’t museums and galleries do this sort of talk and discussion more.
The National Gallery had just set up several ranks of folding chairs in front of the Piero di Cosimo painting and admission to the talk was free.
In this case the discussion was quite deep and some new insights into the painting seemed to have come forward. My friend even felt that the nymph was pregnant, which was a view supported by others and according to one of the curators of the gallery had not been proposed before.
In some ways it was slightly surreal for me, as I’d just featured in a headline in the Hackney Gazette. I can’t find it on-line, but it was about my 92 Clubs trip.
The Much-Improved Trafalgar Square
When I was young Trafalgar Square was rather a tacky place, where you went for New Year’s Eve, if you cvould brave it. Traffic rushed everywhere and the central part was completely cut off from everywhere else. But look at it now.
It just shows how things can be improved by removing the traffic.
Is there a more impressive important square in a European capital?
The only problem, is that some Ipswich Town fans might protest that the admiral on the column is from Norfolk.
I do have some happy memories of the place from when I stood on the Fourth Plinth.
The Anonymous Widower 