Kate and Bron's Diary for 2002-07-15

Stayed the night in London

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From: brong@zebkrahn.brong.net (Bron Gondwana)
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 19:20:18 +1000
The big museum day.

We went to Sainsburys, it finally being open, and purchased lots of
breakfast and lunch foods. There was a really nice bread for 45p, which
went fantastically with dip.

We caught the train to the British Museum, arriving a little before
midday, and proceded to walk around. Kate had already seen part of it,
and we look at different speeds anyway, so we split up, arranging to
meet back in the courtyard every hour. They have recently (last couple
of years) covered the central courtyard, and made it available to the
public for the first time in about 150 years (from memory). It was very
nice and shiny.

I started in old Egypt, and proceeded through all sorts of places. They
have lots of giant sculptures! It was quite clear that most of history,
even if not actually written, still goes to the successful types who
managed to kill off the competition. They're the ones who can afford the
number of slaves that would have been required to produce some of this
stuff, so despite being impressed with all that intricate work, I was a
little saddened at how many lives must have been spent to produce it all
- but enough philosophy.

There is an amazing collection of coins, giving a history of money
through the ages - right through to the birth of the Euro. The other
thing that really impressed me was the collection of clocks - so many
intricate mechanisms for translating a spring or pendulum's energy into
accurate movement of the hands. Even more impressive were clocks with
movement of the planets, seasons, dates, even phases of the moon - all
with separate hands. I imagine leap years may have required manual
intervention - at least the 100 and 400 year cycles, the exact
mechanisms weren't shown.

We finished at 5:30, when the museum closed. With completely fried
brains, we went to the pub over the road, where we were served by a girl
from Melbourne. Big surprise there, I believe a lot of bar staff in the
UK are from Australia.

I cooked dinner for the household when we got home, and then we slept
(at least Kate did, I wrote some diary entries first)

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