Whenever my mum is in town (infrequently admittedly) I get to do touristy things. She doesn’t really want to, but I do. Most of my normal London time I either spend to busy or, more often, not wanting to look like a tourist.
So I use these moments to drag my mum around attractions under the pretence that she’s forced me into it – it’s pure genius.
So today we tramped across to South Kensington (saying goodbye to Lis on the way, the both like each other – woo).
The destination is the Natural history Museum. I have never been here, I want to, now I am.
And it was all very impressive. Lots of dead things and rocks. I am growing increasingly more fascinated with Darwin and the Darwin centre is certainly amazing.
But I have one slight gripe with the place.
It seems that in the early nineties old stuffy museums had become unpopular with the newsround watching kids. Everything had to become interactive or “hands-onâ€. It seems that around this time the Natural History Museum had a bit of a revamp
But whoever was given the job didn’t really grasp it. Lots of things had buttons to press or flaps to lift – very much hands on. But also dull. Some of the buttons are just to light up what the sign says, whereas in the old days the sign was just lit anyway.
My favourite was an exciting style competition quiz thing. There were two fossils shown and a question along the lines of, “which fossil is the skull to this scary ancient thing??†underneath there was a huge handle with a large wooden flap to lift.
What could be under here? A 3D flickering image? A computer animation of the beast? Things to smell?
No, it just had a small sign that said, “The answer is Aâ€
Wow.
Also, technology has moved on immensely since those days (the nineties, not the Jurassic period, though obviously it has) and the interactivity on show here is abysmal.
And I wasn’t allowed to play on most of them because little kids just come up and hit the buttons neither reading the instructions or learning anything.
Bastard. Hope they fail their future exams….