Driving standards don't half improve when there's a police officer on every corner...
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Commuting
Can we have more royal weddings please?
(22 posts)-
Posted 13 years ago #
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I assumed it was for all the crowds heading to the re-opening of the Museum. That's far more interesting.
Posted 13 years ago # -
There is going to be an animatronic dinosaur. My husband is going to see it, as he keeps telling me. :-(
Posted 13 years ago # -
I was about an hour earlier than usual today so everything looked even more spookily quiet.
Fortunately, I might get to pop to the museum this afternoon as I have to skive off to deal with an infected child.
I'm somewhat nervous that it'll have been all interactively Kelvingroved, which the picture on the website of an hippopotamus dangling from the ceiling isn't helping much with. Hippopotamuses belong in glass cases on the floor, leaving the air space free for narwhals and whale bonesets. I'll be very disappointed if they've got rid of the case full of hominid skellingtons, the entomology gallery where you could play identify-my-appropriate-local-hymenopterids and the spot-the-seagull diorama.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Yeah, I read about the dinosaur and was most upset when I saw it was 2.30pm... :(
And Hippos in the sky??? Dammit, wingpig is right, the sky is for sea creatures! (strange how that works really).
Posted 13 years ago # -
Well the sea is the same colour as the sky...
I though the T Rex was at 9.15?
Posted 13 years ago # -
I love how in the space of a few posts this forum can go from a Royal Wedding to the lack of Narwhals suspended from a museum ceiling, and everyone just slots in to thinking that perfectly normal.... :P
Posted 13 years ago # -
and the spot-the-seagull diorama
And (I hope this filthy language is allowed) the wonderful case full of stuffed birds from a 1970s refurbishment entitled "TITS" in big letters in a beautiful old typeface
Posted 13 years ago # -
This makes me realise just how incredibly long it's been since I was in the NMS (no, not the National Midnight Star). I used to feel sorry for the big elephant, because its straw stuffing was coming out through the sutures on its underbelly. I used to press my nose up against the glass cases of the birds, and felt sorry for the Dodo because I'd read about the way it was hunted.
I used to marvel at the UV lamp that illuminated the strange rocks and crystals, and from the model of its skull try to imagine how big the Triceratops must've been (about nine metres long, I think).
I remember thinking how amazing it was that they had a sectioned car where you could see all the mechanical bits. I used to press the button to watch the model steam engines' connecting rods, but never had the patience to watch the full demonstration.
I remember getting egg sandwiches for lunch for about 25p, and then sitting on the marble walls in the main hall and endlessly watching the goldfish. I used to climb the stairs and be absolutely awestruck by the size of the sperm whale skeleton.
Then I went to secondary school and uni; everything else became more important and I more or less forgot about the place.
I shall definitely need to pay a visit.
Posted 13 years ago # -
I've been to the added on bit a few times with my children. I have visited the old place a few times before I moved south in 2005 and we had a comapny Christmas meal there once which was nice.
Posted 13 years ago # -
"endlessly watching the goldfish"
They were re-homed in Glasgow and will be missed.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Sent this thread to someone I know
"
Hello. I'm out of the office on the morning of 29 July as we open our bigger, better museum http://nms.ac.uk/scotlandI'll reply to your email on my return after 12:00.
"
Posted 13 years ago # -
"Then I went to secondary school and uni; everything else became more important and I more or less forgot about the place."
I was first introduced to it via first-year uni-course zoology components, when we were given a school-trip-style worksheet to work through.
I always particularly enjoyed glowering and muttering at people who were misinforming their children about something or other. An "oooh look at that nasty long vicious beak!" does not make a bird a predator.
Posted 13 years ago # -
I went to university elsewhere where we had the wonderful Bell-Pettigrew zoology museum, a proper university departmental museum, glass cases lining the walls absolutely stuffed full of exhibits with little hand-written or typed cards just telling you the scientific name and other important things like specimen age (mostly over 100 years) and where it was shot. The taxidermy was amateurish, but quite amusing.
Posted 13 years ago # -
"I always particularly enjoyed glowering and muttering at people who were misinforming their children about something or other. "
I wonder how many children have memories of the museum as having a strange muttery glowery man in it? :-P
Posted 13 years ago # -
"I always particularly enjoyed glowering and muttering at people who were misinforming their children about something or other."
Edinburgh zoo. Ned family. "Look at they monkeys, what's 'at!?" shouts child. Dad reads name board, "That's a Makka-cue."
"I went to university elsewhere where we had the wonderful Bell-Pettigrew zoology museum"
Aberdeen Uni had a great zoology building, and their computers lined the viewing balcony. Always quiet and able to get a machine (long before every student had their own computer y'see) and something slightly surreal about typing out a legal essay with a Blue Whale's skull suspended beside you...
Posted 13 years ago # -
Posted 13 years ago #
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imagine how much space would be needed to park all those cars if everyone had driven in!
Posted 13 years ago # -
"
There is going to be an animatronic dinosaur. My husband is going to see it, as he keeps telling me. :-("
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalmuseumsscotland/5987402492/in/set-72157627307101672
Posted 13 years ago # -
We usually went to the NMS when we were in Edinburgh when I was young. I was terrified of heights and could only get around the top galleries by keeping close in to the walls. Otherwise I loved it - especially the working models of steam engines.
Posted 13 years ago # -
I thought the wedding wasn't until tomorrow? I was almost the last vehicle allowed up the Canongate at about ten to four (some were being prevented from coming down as I passed) and the pavements were lined with people clutching cameras, occasionally jumping out on front of me where there were gaps in the fence. Perhaps there's a rehearsal taking place this evening. Fortunately not diverted, I proceeded to the museum, eventually finding a parking-rack in the central reservation. Good news: all the Victorian ironwork in the great hall is intact. Bad news: all the Victorian labelwork and taxidermy and arrangements are gone. There's a new cakearium in the basement and it looks like they might be intending to open the gate to Potterow at some point, though it was quite handy that it was closed as it made the south corridor look out-of-bounds which meant that there was no queue for the baby-wiping room.
Posted 13 years ago # -
They should store all that Victorian labelwork in a museum of labelwork
Posted 13 years ago #
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