Museum Morning
I spent a delightful couple of hours this morning listening to some knowledgeable women discussing Victorian life. The proposed new layout, the items in poor and middle class houses and the ability to die from hundreds of diseases we never think much about today. Jolly interesting I say! I learned a great deal, most notably I was again reminded of just how little I do know, and just how much knowledge there is out there in this world! As we had mentioned in passing the difference smell makes to daily life, and the Late Victorians had a variety of aromas to inhale that we miss out on today, I had a quick look to see if there was any way we could 'imitate' the daily fragrances of the time. Sadly the only think people appear interested in imitating is fake vomit, and I found that hard to swallow. The health we posses and the economic power we possess, even in such recession times, makes us greedy, keen to grumble at slight losses and ensures we find it difficult to endure today in a way our forefathers took for granted. Then it was a case of 'get on with it,' as there was no other option. I am usually adept at creating sniffs and I am sure one will turn up somewhere.
My surfing for smell was interrupted by the landlords handyman who had come looking for a leak. I misunderstood at first and proferred a carrot but having been shown what to do with it i declined. It appears the washing machine connection has been leaking for a while on the drip below and dripping on the chap downstairs. So instead of having fun I had to stand and watch an imitation plumber swear at the pipes. That is no fun I can tell you. What seemed like hours later I got back to business but by then it was time for 'Flanders Stew' and 'Eggheads.'
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9 comments:
Lovely building, Adullamite!
xxx
A lovely old school, used until the 60's at least, and now containing a 'Victorian classroom' to teach the kids past ways.
You actually hit on some very good points! How did that happen???
Fish, I might hit on you if I had a hammer nearby.....
Take me off your blog roll NOW!!!!!
Leaz, No!
Why??? I demand that you DO!
I was thinking about this post, I was thinking of all those years ago when site work for what was to become the coppergate centre, in York, started to turn up the remains of an old Norse port, a village where people had lived, trading between britain and the viking lands. Some clever person came up with an idea that would attempt to recreate that village in situ, beneathe the city streets, complete with sounds and.... smells. I think the Yorvik Viking Experience was probably the first in britain to use smell as a central part of its 'immersive' experience. But I also always wondered, as I went there, just whether the visitors, trundling around, laughing as they said "poo!", and "what a whiff!", realised just how watered down that museum scent was.
The museum, as you went through the village, safely esconced in little 4 seater electric robotic cars, had sounds, seabirds, conversation, children singing. In order to be as close as possible to old norse, they'd used the language of the sagas, and recorded icelandic schoolchildren and fishermen.
But, they didn't get the smell right. I suspect they couldn't, because the real thing would make us soft folk puke, it would stick to us all day.
Hmmm sounds just right!
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