Tag: The Natural History Museum

Accepting Extra Walking: The Natural History Museum

A look at the Natural History Museum and possible alternatives to a straight to/from South Kensington, plus a related twitter thread. Note that the ideas around the museum are strictly for thinking about for the future.

To start a brief warning: the main attraction at the heart of this post is closed at the time of writing and even if things go according to Johnson’s ‘road map out of lockdown’ it will be some while before it reopens and before travelling for leisure is again safe. By all means note the things I write about here down for future reference but please do not attempt to put plans into practice just yet.

This post was inspired by a thread posted on twitter by the Natural History Museum earlier today, which I shall be saying more about later.

POSSIBLE ADDITIONS TO AN NHM VISIT

The Natural History Museum is served along with a number of other attractions by South Kensington Station (Circle, District and Piccadilly lines, subject of two station posts on my other site – here and here) and you can choose whether to use the underground passage that links the station to the museums or walk at surface level, where you will see some fine wrought ironwork.

Once you have enjoyed the museum, the logical next step is to visit Hyde Park, and there are stations all around that park that you could use as the station from which to begin your journey home. You could also head into London’s West End, where after Marble Arch you could choose Bond Street, Oxford Circus, Piccadilly Circus by walking along Regent Street, or go a little north to Baker Street, home to the Sherlock Holmes Museum and Madame Tussaud’s. Also you could extend your walk in a westerly direction, aiming for Notting Hill Gate. For those interested in a longer walk you could continue beyond Baker Street and take in Regent’s Park. Here are a few map pictures of various kinds to conclude this section:

THE TWITTER THREAD

The Natural History Museum today put out a superb 13 tweet thread about a very recent meteorite strike (a tiny meteorite which did no serious damage – it’s journey through the earth’s atmosphere lit up the skies on the night of February 28) and about that object’s journey, a story four billion years or so in the making and yet 13 tweets in the telling. A screenshot of the start of the thread is below, and you can read it in full by clicking here.

For more about these sorts of objects I recommend the book “Comet”, by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan:

PHOTOGRAPHS

A very brief usual sign off – I have been unable to get out today since I am waiting for someone to examine an issue with my drains – they should have been and gone by now…

A MIXED BAG

Some social housing related links, pointers to some stuff on http://www.londontu.be and a couple of extra pictures.

INTRODUCTION

This post has two main strands, pointing you in the direction of items on my website, www.londontu.be and also sharing links to some excellent articles on social housing in the wake of Cameron’s announcement regarding “sink estates” this weekend.

SOCIAL HOUSING ARTICLES

The social housing situation in West Norfolk, where I have lived since December 2005, is such that I was unable to find social housing for myself, and was only ultimately able to move into a place of my own by renting privately. Thus, my first concern with the Cameron plan as announced is that we have not been told what effect it will have on the overall availability of social housing (though we can all guess, given the Tory record on this issue, and Mr Cameron’s steadfast refusal to give a straight answer when questioned). The second and more serious concern is the laughable inadequacy of the £140 million figure quoted by Cameron if the intention was actually to improve the situation, rather than opening up another front in the Tories ongoing war on social housing. A housing estate a stone’s throw from my own flat in King’s Lynn has recently seen a redevelopment project stutter to a halt because £10 million proved insufficient for the purpose. More detail on the Hillington Square project is available on their official website.

That is enough of me on social housing, now for some links:

SOME HIGHLIGHTS FROM WWW.LONDONTU.BE

The Natural History Museum at South Kensington has a new exhibition coming up which is featured in this youtube clip, which I pressed on to my own website earlier today.

Also, nicely combining public transport and responsible shopping practices, here is a post about my latest London Underground themed purchase.

Finally, I have made use of the fact that the Dafabet Masters, one of Snooker’s triple crown (along with the UK and World championships), is now under way at Alexandra Palace by putting up an appropriate post.

Alexandra Palace

This picture came via google: https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-rVSI8L_R9pw/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAAOQ/iOf_mQ2ABr8/s0-c-k-no-ns/photo.jpg

A COUPLE OF PHOTOS TO FINISH

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A Patum Peperium lid with a classic picture.

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A Caspian Gull (?) in central King’s Lynn.

 

A Wonderful Weekend of Sport

INTRODUCTION

As well as the sporting events that I shall be writing about I have some important links to share. Faced with more sport than I had time to follow I had to make choices, and with I settled on cricket and athletics (in the form of the European Team Championships). I will write about each in turn starting with…

A FINAL MATCH THRILLER

To set the scene for Saturday’s action, the series was level at 2-2, and records had been tumbling left, right and centre throughout. The actual result was pretty much a secondary consideration given the quality of the cricket that had been on show through the series.

NEW ZEALAND BATTING

Very early on in their innings New Zealand passed their all-time record aggregate for a five match ODI series, a feat that England had achieved in the previous match. For the first time in the series batsmen found it difficult to really get going, and it took some big hitting in the closing stages to get New Zealand to their eventual 283-9, the lowest first innings score of the series.

THE INTERVAL AND DUCKWORTH-LEWIS

During the interval between innings it rained, and it kept raining for some time (this is England after all). Eventually, by the time play was possible again there was time for England to bat for 26 overs, and the Duckworth-Lewis calculation (a very complicated formula that has produced the least unfair way for resolving rain affected ODIs yet devised) gave England a target of 192 off 26 overs.

ENGLAND’S CHASE

The England innings got off to a disastrous start, with three wickets falling in next to no time. The fourth and fifth wickets did not take a whole lot longer to fall, and at that stage England were looking down both barrels. Then Eoin Morgan and Jonathan Bairstow, the latter only playing because of an injury to Jos Buttler (scorer of the first and second quickest ODI centuries by an Englishman) shared a good partnership. When Morgan was out, England were still second favourites, but Adil Rashid joined his fellow Yorkshireman Bairstow for a partnership that gradually brought the asking rate back to manageable levels. Seventeen were needed off the last two overs when for the first of them the ball was given to a debutant who until his late call-up had been playing Devonshire League cricket. Bowling the penultimate over in these circumstances would be tough for anyone, and in the end the last over was not required, as a combination of fine strokes from Bairstow and Rashid and a loss of nerve by the bowler settled the issue.

A RAPID TURNAROUND

Just a few months ago England were having their all-time worst ever World Cup campaign, being hammered by all and sundry and being exposed as being sadly behind the times in their approach to one day cricket. To have come from that to even taking part in a series that is a jewel in the crown of international cricket (and ultimately winning it) is an extraordinary transformation. What brought this about? Well England were forced to recognise by the sheer awfulness of that World Cup campaign that they had to change. The new picks for this series were guys noted for 20-20 (ultra-short form) success. Also, however there has been an attitude change. In this series, England never went on to the defensive, there was never a period of seriously slow scoring. Even when those three early wickets went down on Saturday, there was no ‘consolidation’. In the second half of the summer England have another set of visitors from the antipodes to contend with, and it will be interesting to see what kind of account they can give of themselves in that situation.

EUROPEAN TEAM ATHLETICS

The European Team Athletics championship, which I watched on i-player, is decided on a points system. The top nine countries from last year, plus three promoted from the second group, do battle. Twelve points are accrued for winning an event, down to one for finishing. A disqualification in a track event, or a failure to record a valid distance/ height in a throwing or jumping event results in a zero.

In the end, after a some excellent results, and some very bad ones, Britain finished in fifth place, behind Russia (winning comfortably on home  soil), Germany, France and Poland.

Probably the person who overachieved the most for Britain was Rhianwedd Price who, on international debut, came third in the 1,500m.

LINKS

CAMPAIGN TO PROTECT THE FAIRY POSSUM

This tiny marsupial is on the critically endangered list, and the campaign to protect it by creating a preserved environment for it is being run by The Wilderness Society. I have two important links for you:

1)The article which gives full detail about what is happening.

2)A petition which I hope you will sign and share.

WAR ON WANT PETITION TO CANCEL GREEK DEBT

Just a single link, which I urge you to follow up.

AN ACCOUNT OF A TRIP TO THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

This is an excellent piece detailing both the visit and what was seen, and the differing approaches taken by Autism Mom (the author of the piece), the Navigator and Autism Dad. I have already shared this piece with my twitter and I am delighted to include this link to dinos-photos-and-his-own-world.

CONCLUDING REMARK

I hope that you have all enjoyed this post, and that you will be encouraged to share it. For those of you who have stayed with this post right to the end I have a final message…

TY3

Special Post: South Kensington

EXPLANATION

This is a whimsy on my part. While I was out walking this morning I had an idea come to me about London, specifically as a public transport user covering London on a station-by-station basis (for those not terribly familiar with me, I grew up in London), and the one the came into my mind, partly because one of fellow bloggers is visiting London and will almost certainly be making use of this station was South Kensington. If it works well I will try to come up with others.

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South Kensington is served by the District, Circle and Piccadilly lines, the first two since 1868 and the third since 1906. As a destination it means one thing to me: museums. I cannot really say much about the Victoria and Albert, but the others, namely The Natural History Museum and the Science Museum are both old favourites of mine (there used to be a Geological Museum as well, but that has long since been amalgamated with the Natural History). Either would merit a visit, or if you are up for really giving the brain some exercise, you could do one in the morning, have lunch (a picnic in Hyde Park if the weather permits) and then do the second in the afternoon.

There is an underground passageway from the main station concourse to the museums, with clearly marked exits for each museum, or you can do the walk at surface level, passing some decorative wrought ironwork as you leave the station.

To complete the post I have two pictures of recent London Underground maps (actually the same map, but the second picture zeroes in on the central area)…

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