The Brunel Museum

Babysitter booked, we headed here for a night out.

"A museum for a night out?"

"Yes."

I had it all planned, a perfect night out, appealing to civil engineer and museologist alike.

The perfect blend.

And it was...

We were welcomed with signs.

Road signs...

Heritage signs....

And refreshment signs...

With a Lavender Bees Knees in hand, we were invited into the underground chamber,

into the shaft that Brunel built in Rotherhithe to access the

"oldest tunnel in the oldest underground in the world, under the Thames."

That tunnel, since 2010, is now part of the London Overground,

and we could hear trains passing through underneath our feet.

Access into the tunnel was tricky.

Before you stooped through the 4ft high door,

you had to climb over a wall with small rungs set into it.

But our guide was on hand with top health and safety advice,

"Stoop low but believe! Left hand, right foot, spin, one, two, three, down."

Sorted!  

  

Then descend into the chamber, "half the size of Shakespeare's Globe."

On the walls you can see reminders of times gone by.

Those grooves in the wall were where the stairs once were.

"See those two people in silhouette halfway down, that's where we are now."

Photographic evidence that the door really was small.

The story of the Thames tunnel includes...

...engineering

This southern pedestrian entrance to the tunnel was built using the world's first caisson.

The tunnel was designed to take cargo under a very busy Thames,

accommodating around 3,000 ships every day,

but they ran out of money to build the shafts needed for the horse-and-carts.

...fundraising and marketing.

With only the pedestrian access finished,

they opened the tunnel as a visitor attraction to fundraise for the next stage of the build.

For the public in 1843, the idea of walking through a tunnel under the Thames was,

"science fiction, like walking on the moon."

Only those who had the nerve to pass under the Thames did so,

and bought souvenirs to prove that they had actually

been there and done that! 

 ... and years of manual labour.

Men in Brunel's Cutting Shield, each excavating in their own area by hand,

inching under the River Thames with short-handled spades.

This was all Marc's idea you know, he was the brains behind it,

his son Isambard was the resident engineer.

Back to our night out...

The Brunel Museum have created a beautiful roof-top garden on top of the shaft.

Which is open every Saturday evening during the summer.

For cocktails made using herbs from the garden

made by the Cocktail Gardener, Midnight Apothecary.

 With live music.

 And a fire to sit beside and have the finer points of engineering explained to you.

"They built that caisson above ground and by digging away underneath,

they gradually sank it."

I have to admit, I am impressed.

Pioneering engineering, museum, cocktails, garden, live music, history, food, marshmallows, stories of drowning, banquets, world's firsts and souvenir hunting.

What's not to love?

A great night out,

here in Rotherhithe, South East London.

The Brunel Museum is open every day

and has regular special events and late night openings.

As this dual-layer peep show shows,

the Brunel Museum tells the story of father and son, Marc and Isambard Kingdom Brunel,

who saw a busy River Thames...

...and set out to cross it by tunnelling underneath.

Life on board HMS Belfast

Who'd have thought that when we walked down the gangway

and stepped onto the quarterdeck of HMS Belfast,

it would have connected so much to family life at home.

Obviously, we don't have that view from our front door.

But we do have a kitchen...

...with a fridge, not quite as well stocked as this.

Mind you, we're not catering for up to nine hundred and fifty

and not able to pop to the shops, being away at for months at a time.

Fish. It must be Friday.

A question I never found out the answer to, was whether they caught their own.

18,000 meals were prepared each week.

Not sure what this dish is.

Food that looks like this doesn't seem to need a 'Do Not Touch' sign.

It's kind of lost its appeal,

suddenly I don't feel hungry any more.

Bread is such a staple.

For those of you who like statistics, each day six bakers produced...

...fifty-two loaves, 1,440 rolls,

plus pies, pastries and cakes.

They didn't just bake for their crew,

but also baked to cater for men on board smaller ships that sailed in the fleet.

The galley on board HMS Belfast is great as you get to wander right through it
and meet the crew,

without feeling at all guilty about not offering to lend a hand.

Whatever they ate, there's still the same old perennial argument

about who does the washing up.

With all that food on stored board,

it attracted mice and rats.

Meet Frankenstein, the ship's cat.

Now which is worse...

...the rat in the sack of potatoes

...or a cat climbing all over the food.

Washing up done, time to think about the laundry.

Before the 1950s the crew had to wash their own clothes in a bucket.

I bet they were pleased to get washing machines installed?

But you had to be careful!

You were warned.

This appeals.

Neatly folded, 'sorted into piles', clothes.

No scrabbling around for clean uniform on a Monday morning...

...and trying to work out whose black socks are whose.

 Then there's the ironing.

This isn't done on a Sunday night in front of the TV!

You've had your dinner, cleared away, washed up.

Washing and ironing sorted.

Now time for a little relaxation.

A snooze and letter writing.

Looks private.

 Dominoes and shoe polishing.

Games, magazines and newspapers.

There weren't many places to go on board HMS Belfast.

Where you hung out, you also slept.

So mind your head on that hammock above!

There were so many men, in order to accommodate them all,

many hammocks were hung amongst the ship machinery.

A quiet night's sleep?

Frankenstein was comfy though.

This is one of the most creative uses of taxidermy that I've ever seen.

Washed and dressed, it was important you were ready for action.

Yes, this really is a museum mannequin!

One last connection with urban life in the 21st century.

Shopping!

The NAAFI

Home from home,

Kit Kats, Bountys, Cadbury's chocolate, Brylcreem, Bovril and Ovaltine. 

And of course,

Fishermans Friends.

Were they though? They're not my friend.

So if you came on board expecting war, battles, guns, explosions, planning, strategies, operations, missions

and the like,

hold fire, we'll get there.

There is so much to see on HMS Belfast. There are nine decks.

HMS Belfast is open all week, it's free for kids and sitting on deck provides one of the best picnic views in London.

Details on the website here.

Designs of the Year 2014

Designs of the Year is now in its seventh year at the Design Museum.

It features the best in design across seven categories:

Architecture, Product, Fashion, Furniture, Graphics, Digital and Transport.

We went to see it, all six of us, ranging in age from eleven to forty-seven.

I mention our ages, as what you consider to be good design or simply a waste of space,

does vary according to your age group.

One of the first designs you see is this electric powered concept car, where the body is made from polystyrene, and the interior uses alot of bamboo, making the car very light weight and energy efficient.

The car looked great but I couldn't help harking back to all the useless, yet very entertaining, uses of polystrene when you were a kid. For example poking holes in it, breaking it into tiny pieces that were impossible to clear away as static sent them buzzing in the opposite direction from any hoover, plus the squeak that it made, that set your teeth on edge, when you rubbed pieces together.

I wondered how long this car would be out on the street before someone began to mess about with the bodywork. It did look very inviting and playable with.

 There is a winner in each category and you are invited to choose
and vote for your favourite design.

That's where the age difference caused a problem.

We had one voting slip and one pencil.

What were we going to vote for?

This 3D printer won approval.

It prints with liquid resin.

"You know they're selling them? We should get one. It says they're affordable,"

said one child hopefully.

These Clever Caps have been designed to reduce waste.

Instead of being thrown away they can be washed

and added to your child's collection of building blocks.

They're compatible with a very famous make of building blocks.

A design much appreciated by our eleven year old son.

I can see where this is going. How many would you need to build a Union Jack box?

"What if all the drinks were horrible? What if those bottle tops were only available on drinks that were bad for you with too much sugar and too many additives?"

"Ah but what if they made ALL drinks use the same bottle top?"

replied our fourteen year old.

This is mobile phone app is called 'Generations Game'.

Great name, lost on our kids.

Impossible to finish in a lifetime, it designed to be played over many centuries.

Obviously the game will outlive you, let alone your phone,

so it is designed so that you can choose who inherits your game, when you die.

"That's a rubbish idea!"

said a frustrated dad who's has enough hassle trying to limit screen time. 

These are Behaviour Changing Syringes.

When exposed to the air, they change colour and the unsafe use of syringes accounts for 1.3 million deaths, 15 million Hepatitus B infections and 5% of all HIV infections globally.

"Brilliant idea!" exclaimed a forty seven year old, ever practical.

However, slightly overlooked by his kids.

Good design?

Watches for the blind and the sighted.

Appreciated by father and son.

This is a font designed to be easy to read by children with dyslexia.

A font to teach handwriting,

not appreciated by our seventeen year old,

"There's no point in joined-up writing."

Another font. Chinese characters.

Characters as illustrations.

Put together in a book to help people learn Chinese, with the best name ever!

'Chineasy'.

There are 20,000 Chinese characters in the Chinese language.

A serious amount of designing had to be done, a design for each character.

 This lego calendar really appealled to us.

Perhaps it's coming from a large family, the need to see what everyone is up to

and make sure you all get to where you need to be.

If you look top left, you all get your own lego character.

However this is more sophisticated than it looks.

They have designed software to not only use this on your wall, but also digitally.

An ever practical seventeen year old,

"But three months would take up an entire wall of your house".

It would but it would make a couple of us, girls who like to try and organise things, very happy.

With the majority family vote, this is what we voted for.

So what is good design?

I'd say it depends on who's asking.

Who's choosing.

The public are voting for their favourite design

at Designs of the Year 2014, at the Design Museum.

You can see from this graph who's winning so far.

But as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

It's all very well voting, no strings attached.

But when it came to choosing, and spending your birthday money,

putting your money where your vote was,

our eleven year old son bought the Chineasy book.

And taught us Chinese all the way back to Catford Bridge!

Designs of the Year 2014 is on at the Design Museum until 25th August 2014.

Details here.

Which design will you choose?