I am now violet! Ah ha ha! That means I am better than everybody who is only a feeble blue or lower....
I am now violet! Ah ha ha! That means I am better than everybody who is only a feeble blue or lower. Cower before me, minions. Ahem. Shame it's a bit of a girl's colour though.
Member since:15.11.2005
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Now in my opinion, museums can be the most boring places in the world. Have you been to the British Museum, for instance? No? Well, good, don't bother. Unless of course your idea of a good time is to look at a rusty arrowhead and then read a bit of card saying 'This is a rusty arrowhead.' Or perhaps you like looking at a shabby old coin and then reading a bit of card saying 'This is a shabby old coin.' Honestly, that's all the British Museum contains. A rusty arrowhead and a shabby old coin. All right, there's probably some rubbish, crumbly old statues and that, but it's all very much of the same ilk. You've seen one, you've seen 'em all. Yeah, we get it. It's all old. What do you want, a medal? A dusty, broken, boring old medal?
Why so dull? I think the problem is that everything is TOO old. You can't
quite bring yourself to believe that anyone ever actually used the stuff. It's from an era so far removed from our own that it might as well never have existed, so when you see a placard saying 'The ancient Egyptians may well have used this pot to eat rice out of probably or something' you just think: So? I'm not denying that the ancient Egyptians existed, or even that they ate rice out of a pot. I'm just saying that if they did, it bears no relation to us now, and is therefore not particularly interesting.
So, to the Bank of England Museum. A whole different kettle of fish. Let me tell you why. Well, obviously the Bank of England hasn't been around for thousands of years. Or indeed even one thousand years. Only a couple of hundred in fact. So it means there's no danger of a rusty arrowhead appearing in any of the exhibits. Instead you get interesting things like really old bank notes, which are normal paper on which someone with terrible handwriting (or Parkinson's disease) has written 'This is a fiver'. They used to be legal currency, y'know, before some clever chap realised that you could write 'This is a fiver' on any piece of paper, and all of a sudden you'd have a fiver. So you get to see things becoming gradually more sophisticated, as the printers and forgers compete with each other. Good, no?
Also, and get this, you get to touch an ACTUAL gold bar. A proper big one, like off films. Sadly it's encased in a big thick plastic box with a hole for your hand, so there's no chance of you strolling off with it, which I think is a little untrusting of them. But still. An ACTUAL gold bar. That's pretty cool. When I'm touching the gold bar, I think of the idiots in the British Museum staring at a piece of fluff, and feel a little bit sad for them. But then I feel instantly happy, because I'm touching gold. It's a fine situation to be in.
All right, there are some pretty boring bits in there too, like an old wooden chest. Or "satirical" cartoons about the Bank that are about as funny as the satirical cartoons you get nowadays: not at all funny. But just when you're getting a bit tired, you round a corner and LOOK! It's a tenner from the 1970s! Look, it's all brown! That's when the museum really comes into its own.
What else? Oh, I can't be bothered describing everything in there, and besides, that would just ruin it for you. At the end, there's a section on modern banking, and a computer game that simulates a trading desk, which is plainly impossible for anyone who doesn't already work on a trading desk to understand. But at least you get to press buttons and say "Just made 50k on the Dow Jones" or something. Okay, it's all pretty poorly thought out, but you have to give them credit for trying.
So how much, you ask, must you pay to be allowed entry to this hall of wonders? You'll never guess, so I might as well tell you. No, actually, you can have one guess. Go on… What's that? Four pounds? Ha - you idiot! In actual fact, it's free! Absolutely free! I would happily have paid upwards of a pound for all this entertainment, but I didn't have to. Now THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is a good deal. Not as good as if the tour had included a complimentary drink of your choice, but still damn good.
And that's about everything. Where is it? Oh, it's in the Bank of England. By Bank tube station. In London. Opening hours are 9 to 5 or something, I don't really know. But what I DO know, and I'm going to repeat this just in case you fail to recognise its impact, is that it's a joyous day out for all the family. It's a joyous day out for all the family.
It really is a joyous day out for all the family.
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Nov 2nd, 2006
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