A few lines on the death of an old friend . . .The Museum
When I was a child my dad often took me to the Science Museum. . .There could be seen the actual machines, apparatus and vehicles that propelled us into the modern world. Electron microscopes, A supersonic wind tunnel, The prototype Deltic standing on an entire section of real railway complete with a signal box,station and wonderful Terance Cuneo painting,
Last week I went to the Science Museum again. . And it was gone! The serried ranks of wonderful exhibits replaced by "experiences" and "educational displays" . Everything now has to be "Interactive" and "Instructional" . And everything seems to be aimed at children (who seem to have an attention span of seconds). Obviously our future depends on our children but this child was deeply inspired by seeing John Glens Mercury capsule, A giant Castle Class locomotive, A gallery of beautiful ship models more detailed than I could ever imagine possible and right on the top floor the aircraft that had made this country great. The ACTUAL aircraft at that.
In todays Science Museum Education, Interactivity, Experiences and Entertainment have slain all before them. For example in the ground floor area was an enormous steam engine stationary after many years of gracefully rotating its huge flywheel like the space station in 2001. Next to the engine was an interactive computer screen educating all about the engine. . It had an animation of the engine in operation. . . . And people were photographing the computers screen, ignoring the real magnificent engine standing forgotten by the crowd around its display screen . ..
It is all so very very wrong. I have nothing against interactivity, education and entertainment but not in a Museum for goodness sake. Museums are for showing you actual THINGS!
There is only one place on Earth I can can see a genuine Stephenson's Rocket locomotive, or a British Black Arrow rocket. and that is at a Museum. .
Leave the interactivity and entertainment to schools and the Internet and lets put all the exhibits back into the Science Museum .
As a footnote I read somewhere that the Maritime gallery is to be dismantled but before this they are going to comprehensively photographed for posterity. Why not just leave the thing alone in place. . .For posterity. . . .
Monday 21 October 2013
Moan time.
Or perhaps I am feeling my 61 years more than I care to admit.
Is it my imagination or has Television .. . . .All television that is forgotten that some viewers are over 25.
No this is not yet another moan at the lack of anything to watch on my 600 channel TV set up as others have been this way. Many many times.
No I want to comment about music. . And the almost ubiqutous electric guitar . Almost all documentaries and every single advert seems to require a thrashy guitar heavy metal background track. Even formerly serene nature programs seem to have dumped their entire music libraries in favour of what sounds like jam sessions from a "Top of the Pops" program. .
Now I could live with all this but the contagion is spreading. . .This modern aimed-at-under-25s-only music turns up everywhere I go. Every single shop in the land seems to have the same music playing. What ever happened to the great variety of Music one once heard . . . Today it is only aimed-at-under-25s-only or classical with NOTHING in between.
Nobody seems to have the courage to play anything other than aimed-at-under-25s-only music. Now as a fully paid up old fogey I appreciate that my taste is not everyones taste but if one has what used to be called "light music" in the background, it can be ignored if one does not care for it. . But todays loud loud loud aimed-at-under-25s-only music is like a noisy machine. It cannot be ignored as it is usually too loud to allow normal conversation and too irritating to permit relaxation of any sort.
I think I can date when this musical malady set in. . . It was years ago when the BBC lost the Light,Third and Home radio programmes . What do we have now.
Radio 1 Excruciating if you are over 25
Radio 2 Plays what was on Radio 1 last year
Radio 3 Music from the highest stratospheres which is pleasant enough but pray come back to Earth once in a while.
Radio 4 Good. . .But I think "Desert Island Disks " should be sunk with all hands as the celebrities sharing their likes have never heard anything other than aimed-at-under-25s-only music which as I said earlier is everywhere anyway.
Radio 5 News. . . and phone ins. No music here and thank goodness for that!
Classic FM. . .Nearest thing to the old Light Programme but due to its name plays mainly classics!!?!
Jazz FM Nowhere to be found.
And as for the rest of the radio stations. They may as well combine as to me they are indistinguishable from one another.
Thank goodness for the iPod. I can now superimpose my own soundtrack on the worst excesses of aimed-at-under-25s-only music. . .
Or perhaps I am feeling my 61 years more than I care to admit.
Is it my imagination or has Television .. . . .All television that is forgotten that some viewers are over 25.
No this is not yet another moan at the lack of anything to watch on my 600 channel TV set up as others have been this way. Many many times.
No I want to comment about music. . And the almost ubiqutous electric guitar . Almost all documentaries and every single advert seems to require a thrashy guitar heavy metal background track. Even formerly serene nature programs seem to have dumped their entire music libraries in favour of what sounds like jam sessions from a "Top of the Pops" program. .
Now I could live with all this but the contagion is spreading. . .This modern aimed-at-under-25s-only music turns up everywhere I go. Every single shop in the land seems to have the same music playing. What ever happened to the great variety of Music one once heard . . . Today it is only aimed-at-under-25s-only or classical with NOTHING in between.
Nobody seems to have the courage to play anything other than aimed-at-under-25s-only music. Now as a fully paid up old fogey I appreciate that my taste is not everyones taste but if one has what used to be called "light music" in the background, it can be ignored if one does not care for it. . But todays loud loud loud aimed-at-under-25s-only music is like a noisy machine. It cannot be ignored as it is usually too loud to allow normal conversation and too irritating to permit relaxation of any sort.
I think I can date when this musical malady set in. . . It was years ago when the BBC lost the Light,Third and Home radio programmes . What do we have now.
Radio 1 Excruciating if you are over 25
Radio 2 Plays what was on Radio 1 last year
Radio 3 Music from the highest stratospheres which is pleasant enough but pray come back to Earth once in a while.
Radio 4 Good. . .But I think "Desert Island Disks " should be sunk with all hands as the celebrities sharing their likes have never heard anything other than aimed-at-under-25s-only music which as I said earlier is everywhere anyway.
Radio 5 News. . . and phone ins. No music here and thank goodness for that!
Classic FM. . .Nearest thing to the old Light Programme but due to its name plays mainly classics!!?!
Jazz FM Nowhere to be found.
And as for the rest of the radio stations. They may as well combine as to me they are indistinguishable from one another.
Thank goodness for the iPod. I can now superimpose my own soundtrack on the worst excesses of aimed-at-under-25s-only music. . .
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