Ten Minutes

Heading to Charing Cross station,

we had a little time before the 14.47 to Catford Bridge.

"We've got ten minutes!"

How to fill them?

"Right I'll take you on my tour of the National Gallery."

Not my tour, but a friends, I hadn't been to the National Gallery for ages.

"Are you sure we have time?"

"Yes, I'll show you all the paintings I look at with my family."

"Oh you turn right, I usually go left."

We begin a whistle-stop tour.

"Van Gogh, those are fabulous colours."

"Monet's Water-Lillies, you don't need to go to Paris."

"There's a painting of South East London somewhere around here.

Pissarro did a painting of Sydenham."

"Is this it?"

"No that's France."

"Upper Norwood, near Crystal Palace, getting closer."

We ask. It's not on display at the moment.

"It's all here, Lady Jane Grey."

"Up through here to the Stubbs."

"It's absolutely huge. It's life-size."

"Those eyes."

"I had forgotten how beautiful the National Gallery is."

"My turn,

I usually head left when I come in here, I'll take you to the paintings I usually see."

The Four Elements by Beuckelaer

Earth

Water

Air.

Fire

"I love the way they are hung, in the round, facing each other."

"They remind me of Grayson Perry's work, all those objects, large compositions,

so many things happening."

We had at one time, seen his tapestries together.

"Have you seen the painting with the skull?

You know, the painting where in order to see it properly,

you have to be standing to the side of the picture, looking at it from an angle."

They hadn't.

That's what happens when you always turn right in the National Gallery.

Mind you I couldn't talk as I usually headed left

and didn't know that Monet's Water-Lillies were even in here.

It's through there.

Holbein, The Ambassadors

"There's the skull,

and this is what happens when you look at it from this angle."

"Clever, the kids would like that."

"Right, we'd better get that train."

We did.

Of course I don't generally advocate for ten minute trips to galleries

but once you get to know a place share it with friends, then head off in a new direction.

And next time you see people spending so little time in front of paintings,

seemingly just stopping to take photos,

it may possibly be part of a longer term relationship with that gallery and those paintings.

One flying visit amongst many, taking it all in.

Like popping in to see old friends.

Hope you enjoyed Eva's tour of the National Gallery,

made possible by my camera phone and free admission.

Details on the National Gallery website, click here.

Engaged

It's 1943.

The latest and most innovative technology is being used by the British and the Americans
to communicate with each other via transatlantic radio-telephone
during the Second World War.

For security, a 40 ton scrambling machine, Sigsaly, has been installed

in the basement in Selfridges department store, Oxford Street, London.

A private extension is being installed at the Cabinet War Rooms,

for the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill's, private use.

A direct line to President Roosevelt.

Secrecy is of the utmost importance.

Where to put that extension?
For the Prime Minister's ears only.

The Transatlantic Telephone Room disguised as a toilet.

Perfect!

To keep this telephone top secret, a toilet lock was put on the door.

Surely Churchill's staff would never guess that when 'engaged',

behind that door Churchill was not spending a penny

but talking to the president of the United States of America.

No point waiting for the 'vacant' sign to appear, they were told.

This toilet was especially reserved for the Prime Minister, for his sole use.

It was to be kept locked at all times.

It was 'said' to be the only flushing toilet in Churchill's secret underground war rooms.

However, there was no running water in the underground Cabinet War Rooms.

Everyone else, his wife, Chiefs of Staff and office staff

had to make do with one of these,

the Elsan Chemical Lavatory.

Nice.

Or they could go upstairs to the ground floor of the building above.

However arrangements were made in case you were caught short in the night.

Clementine Churchill's bedroom.

more 'toilette' than toilet.

Perhaps a chamber pot was deemed too unseemly

for the bedroom of the wife of the Prime Minister.

Churchill doesn't seem to care though.

Nonchalantly on show at the end of his bed in his study bedroom.

The Cabinet War Rooms, now Churchill War Rooms

have been open to the public since 1984

and reassuringly do have public toilets with running water and a flush.

Details on the Churchill War Rooms website, here.

Five on Friday: Please take the stairs

Taking five minutes to enjoy five things...

1. Stairs invite us in.

Like into Dr Johnson's House,

up the stairwell,

 into his attic where facsimiles of his dictionary await your perusal.

2. Stairs can lead us down.

Into the First World War tunnels at Vimy Ridge,

in France but a National Historic Site of Canada.

Fourteen miles of tunnels leading to the front line,

built by Welsh miners for Canadian troops.

3. Sometimes it is necessary to make temporary arrangements.

Awaiting new stairs at the Brunel Museum.

The only way in and out of Brunel's underground chamber.

You can see where the stairs used to be,

helpfully illustrated on souvenir cups.

4. Stairs provide convenient places to hang portraits

Going left up the stairs to the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons,

you are introduced to past presidents.

Not gowned up (surgically speaking), but wearing RCS ties.

As the fashions for portraiture, ties and gowns have changed,
fortunately so have surgical instruments.
Doubt Professor Peter Morris here, ever had to work with the chicken bone or razor shell
that we had just seen in the Hunterian Museum.

5. Some stairs are best approached with caution

 Down the hatch on HMS Belfast.

Always face the ladder and best wear trousers.

Perhaps head to the Shell Room below the water-line.

Ladders and hatches on HMS Belfast accessing all nine decks.

I am joining in with Amy with Five on Friday,

taking five minutes from our day to enjoy five things.

Please visit the other bloggers who are also blogging about Five on Friday this week.

Kristie from North of 49

Patricia from A place for everything.....

Selma from Eclectic Home & Life

Marion from my two girls
Teresa from Knit Bake Cultivate

Amy from Love Made My Home

Want to kmow more about Dr Johnson's House, Vimy Ridge,

the Brunel Museum, the Hunterian Museum and HMS Belfast?

Click on the headings below to read my previous posts about them.

Dr Johnson's House

Vimy Ridge: The Trenches

The Brunel Museum

Hunterian Museum

Life on board HMS Belfast
HMS Belfast a War Ship

Money

The irony of visiting the Citi Money Gallery at the British Museum

just after having had my debit card refused in a pizzeria didn't escape me.

What with my card refused and my friend not remembering her PIN,
we would have perhaps done better with cash.

Cold, hard cash,
from Egypt 1352-1336BC.
Back then it was all about weight. Gold and silver cut up to produce the exact change. 

What weight for a pizza and a couple of drinks, I wonder?

In China we could have paid with strings of cowrie shells, 1000BC.

You'll have to trust me on this one...

"Decorated bronze axes" from Brittany, France, "may have been used as currency".

800-650BC.

What's that in new money?

Perhaps not small enough change to pay for a pizza?
These gold bars from the Roman Empire, AD250-400, were used to pay taxes.
Careful though, that coin's a fake.

Plenty of change in this hoard, shipwrecked in the 1630s

off the coast near Salcombe, Devon.

In the 17th century, carrying your money around

wasn't simply a case of shoving your purse in your handbag.

 This cash box, used to transport money, is hardly what you'd call discreet.

You couldn't pay in a hurry, it had three separate locks needing three different keys.

I love this. Money to subvert, to circulate messages.

Although illegal, the Women's Social and Political Union used coins for Votes For Women.

Small change for a big change.

Illustrating modern consumerist society,

the British Museum really does have a 'Shop with me' Barbie cash register on display.

"Complete with a miniature credit card".

At the beginning of the 20th century in London,

not only did cash registers record sales and do the adding up for you,

it was important that they looked good too.

This cash register's case was made by Tiffany & Co, New York.

As a little girl, I know which one I would have chosen to play with,

I wanted buttons, cash, drama, drawers that opened and a bell that tinged.

I wanted plastic money, payment and change.

 If a cashless society is the future, what will happen to all that plastic money? And chocolate coins?

It is illegal to copy currency in Britain,

so when Dr Who needed cash to confuse the enemy in 2006,

Cybermen if I remember correctly,

the BBC made these fantastic Ten Satsuma notes.

There's even a short film to watch, Dr Who saving the day/tampering with

a cashpoint (ATM) using his sonic screwdriver.

Money, the subject of art.

Nine dollars from Andy Warhol.

Art, made of money.

Trillion Dollar Poster 2009.

Money as protest in 2009.
During Zimbabwe's time of hyperinflation this artwork was made of worthless banknotes,
in protest against a 55% luxury tax, which included the independent newspaper,
The Zimbabwean.

I think the Money Gallery in the British Museum houses one of the most diverse collections

on one theme that I have ever seen.

From the beginnings of money 2500BC, to shop-keeping and 21st century art.

Details about the Citi Money Gallery are on the British Museum website, click here.

Thinking about a previous museum visit, I spotted a connection,

between the British Museum and the National Portrait Gallery,

between this 16th century church offering box in the British Museum from Italy,

and the Jesus Army Money Box by Grayson Perry in the National Nortrait Gallery.

From the 'Who are you?' exhibition, which I posted about, click here.

I don't know whether Grayon Perry had drawn inspiration from the 16th century offering box or not, but in spotting the two, I felt like I had found a little bit of treasure, a discovery all of my own.

Just in case you were worried about my financial situation, had I overspent on my card?

It worked fine the next time I used it,  must have been the card reader at the restaurant.