Tag Archives: museum

Aug 23 2026
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Daily Post, Transport

On guard

Saturday 22nd August 2026, 11.50am (day 5,476)

Didcot railway centre, 22/8/26

A first visit to Didcot, one of those towns that simply would not exist without railways, and specifically, the decision of Mr. Brunel (there he is again) that this was the best route for the Great Western line through to Bristol in the 1840s. This was, and still is, a major junction. Anyone who has a penchant for steam trains could do worse than spend time in the Didcot Railway Centre, which is full of them, whether standing in engine sheds or operating up and down the huge yard that nestles within the boundaries of the still-working main lines. Well worth a visit.

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Aug 11 2026
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Daily Post, Interior

The V & A Storehouse

Monday 10th August 2026, 11.30am (day 5,464)

V & A storehouse, 10/8/26

Our journey home from Bristol is being done via London, as we had cause to visit the capital for the David Bowie archive and exhibition which has recently set up home in the V & A’s ‘East Storehouse’, built on the former Olympic Park site. And here it is. It is like some giant retail warehouse, a huge Ikea or B & Q, only for art, not flatpack furniture or tins of paint. And, in fact, B & Q might well be more clearly organised. Obviously there will be some logic behind it (I guess the people running the V & A do know what they are doing after a century or more of professional work in this area) but it’s certainly not obvious to the casual visitor. All the various stairways and walkways just add to the impression of this being some giant labyrinth, a massive Escher print.

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Apr 01 2026
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Daily Post, Interior

Heads

Tuesday 31st March 2026, 12.55pm (day 5,332)

Neues Museum heads, 31/3/26

If I was more of an artist I would come up with some allegorical statement here, the heads appear as if they are flying — but really, they are trapped, objects displayed for the delectation of visitors to this museum, none of whom will care for more than a few fleeting moments, if at all. Then again if I were more of an artist I would dispense with these commentaries altogether; I did try it once, way back, but it never took. This is the Neues Museum in Berlin, by the way: our last full day here.

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Mar 30 2026
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Daily Post, Interior

Surveillance society

Saturday 28th March 2026, 11.40am (day 5,329)

Stasi museum, 28/3/26

What was formerly East Berlin still retains a sense of the Communist era, particularly thanks to the rather uniform tower blocks that sprout over most of it. And then there’s the former HQ of the Stasi, the secret police (officially the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit). This is now a museum. And while it could do with a bit more technology and a bit less running through the basics of Cold War history one does come to appreciate what insidiously awful wankers they were, and also how it was all proppsed up by a wide network of informers and ‘voluntary’ agents. The Stasi wouldn’t just surveill you — if they thought you were in any way subversive they were quite prepared to engage in the systematic erosion of your personal and profesional identity, setting you up to fail, turning your friends against you and giving the truth to the old saying, ‘are you still paranoid if they really are out to get you?’. This equipment is displayed in the place where it was used, concealed in the walls of a washroom on the Ministerial floor of the building, and so being used to spy even on those at the very top of the Stasi. Not that we’re a great deal different now — it’s just all done digitally instead. Orwell was close enough.

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Dec 20 2025
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Daily Post, Family Member, Portrait

Back of my head, x3

Friday 19th December 2025, 3.30pm (day 5,230)

Triplicate selfie, 19/12/25

Spent the first few hours of my Xmas break having an extended lie-in, then spent the next few wandering around Bradford, a place I have come to quite like down the years. This complicated selfie was taken in the National Media Museum (which lately has become the ‘National Science and Media Museum’ so it can continue to squeeze funding out of our reluctant state apparatus): a kind of ‘digital hall of mirrors’ installation. As you can see, despite my advancing years, my body still refuses to shed much hair.

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Sep 28 2025
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Daily Post, Interior

In the Water and Steam Museum

Friday 26th September 2025, 11.20am (day 5,146)

Water and steam museum, 26/9/25

A city the size of London is going to need a lot of water. And unlike, say, Manchester, there are no high hills particularly nearby, in which one can build reservoirs and let gravity do quite a bit of the work of moving that water to where it is needed (water comes all the way to Manchester from the Lake District a hundred miles away through gravity alone). Therefore, some serious pumping is required. What used to be the Kew Bridge pumping station, and is now the London Water and Steam Museum, contains the biggest beam engine ever built, a gargantuan see-saw with a steam engine at one end and the pump at the other. That colossal object was impossible to photograph adequately, but these instruments will do.

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Jun 22 2025
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Daily Post, Interior

Wool for the loom

Saturday 21st June 2025, 12.40pm (day 5,049)

Loom, 21/6/25

With little else to do today (the football season hasn’t started yet), I visited the Calderdale Industrial Museum and learned some things about local industry around the Halifax area that I didn’t know before. Like, John Mackintosh became very rich and successful, founding the company that bore his name, and whose successors still manufacture Quality Street chocolates in Halifax, thanks only to the cooking of his wife Violet. She was the one who invented modern toffee — he was the one who called himself “The Toffee King”, though.

But for the photo, I’ll go with this mass of red and blue strands of wool, all converging into the Jacquard loom that is currently operating to the right, having been turned on for a few minutes during which time it produced plenty of noise and a few dozen lines of carpet.

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Jun 09 2025
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Daily Post, Portrait, Stranger

The Great Tapestry of Scotland

Sunday 8th June 2025, 2.30pm (day 5,036)

A stop off on the way north to Dundee. There are various routes available, things not yet seen, including the Great Tapestry, with 160 panels created collectively by over a thousand people between 2012-13. So not as old as this blog, but with more history in it, if you see what I mean. What is seen here is just the first few panels, chronologically. Having toured the country for a while it is now on permanent display in Galashiels, which makes that the 499th different place to feature on here, and number 500 should be along before the week is out, possibly tomorrow.

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Apr 20 2025
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Daily Post, Transport

Superhero snowplough

Saturday 19th April 2025, 10.25am (day 4,986)

Superhero snowplough, 19/4/25

My Easter Saturday trip out found me in the Locomotion museum in Shildon, Co. Durham, at 10.30ish. This snowplough looks almost absurdly macho, like it’s Thor’s snowplough (Marvel Comics version). Look at the light beams that shoot off as it steams along! The watching human simply stands in awe and wonder as it zooms past. “Me? Put ME in a museum!? The impudence!”

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Jan 07 2025
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Creature from the inside of Tim Burton’s head

Tuesday 7th January 2025, 12.35pm (day 4,884)

Tim Burton spider, 7/1/25

Another movie reference, courtesy of the exhibition currently running at the Design Museum in London, featuring a range of drawings, models, photos and other artefacts that have poured out of the head of director Tim Burton over the last 50 years or so. Two things are apparent; 1) the guy can have done very little in his life other than pour out this endless stream of creative work, more or less constantly; 2) there is some seriously weird shit going on inside that head. Worth seeing though.

An early post today as I now sit at Heathrow Airport waiting for an overnight flight. Unless something goes seriously wrong, the next three weeks of posts will all be coming from places a damn sight warmer than this one.

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