Cutty Sark Theatre

I finally got to do some proper visitor facing work over the last few weeks helping out at the Theatre on Cutty Sark. A broad range of acts has performed over the last few weeks including Robin Knox Johnson (I held his coat), Folk musicians, Richard Herring, Alan Davies and Ross Noble. I have worked on two of the nights and even got promoted to having a radio with an earpiece and having to learn the emergency evacuation procedure! Joking aside it was really great to work with the public again, I have missed it having spent much of my time in offices around the site.
I also got chance to talk to the VE team at Cutty Sark about my job and how things work at the Needles, which they found interesting. They were mortified at only getting 30 minutes for lunch and not having a mess room - they don't know they're born!

Binnacles as far as the eye can see!

I spent last week with estates and got to see some brilliant things, drains, gutters, a lawn that might have had Henry VIII's boatyard on it! I also got to see a couple of the other outstations and meet some of the very talented curatorial staff.
One of the storage rooms is packed to the ceiling with binnacles, and most of the compasses still point north - the man in the stores seemed surprised! There were also a number of Nelson's swords and the table of Longitude!
Obviously I can't tell you where it is and exactly what it contains but I did manage to get a sneaky picture. Warning - this maybe the most boring picture you ever see, I was under pressure!

But I promise it was way more exciting in real life!
I also met a man who can identify ships purely from their silhouette which is pretty impressive and useful as his job is identifying and cataloguing slides of ships!

Up on the roof!

Over the last 6 weeks I have been involved in a project looking at new exhibitions at the Royal Observatory which has been a very interesting experience. I get to play the first time tourist and slag off their current exhibitions! It's like my kind of heaven! However, last week it stepped up a gear as we were looking at change to the visitor route which somehow ended up with the team on the roof of the Royal Observatory!

It's a shame the weather wasn't better but the view was still pretty impressive!

#Museumselfie

So combining my love of social media and museums museum selfie day was right up my street and the fact that the Astronomers at the ROG were all on board too made it lots of fun!
You basically took a selfie in a museum and tweeted about it with the hashtag and people from all over the world got involved.

Here are the highlights from my #musuemselfie day http://storify.com/custard1980/museumselfie

I'm sure it won't mean much to many of you but seeing thousands of people across the globe taking pictures of themselves in museums was thrilling. With over 20,000 #musuemselfie tweets over the day is just brilliant.

Jupiter and it's moons!

I am working at the Royal Observatory Greenwich (ROG) this week with the astronomers. I'm not going to lie, I was a bit daunted as most people there have at least a doctorate, and I was asked how my physics was. To which I replied about C Grade in 1996! However, I have been welcomed warmly, I have seen some of the schools sessions learning about day and night and stars with year 1, about the earth the sun and the moon with year 4 and been on a space safari with a teddy bear called Ted!
I saw a planetarium show lead by one of the astronomers this afternoon, where I learned loads about the night sky and I was lucky enough to follow it up with a visit to the ROG's 28" telescope in the beautiful dome.
I was able to sneak in while the astronomers set up for an astrophotography evening, I got the chance to see Jupiter and some of it's moons and Capella bright in the night sky through the huge telescope, and later through a smaller one. It was an amazing if not rather chilly experience that I was very lucky to have a chance to do. And I got chance to do it before it clouded over!

Bit of Culture!

I thought I'd better make the most of being in London town and spend sometime doing Cultural stuff and getting new ideas and things, after all there is only a few weeks left until I have to plan these things around ferries and trains and getting hotels and things. Using my time wisely!
My staff pass get me into exhibitions at National Museums for free so I have been to see all the current exhibits at the V & A (one of my favourite museums). They have such excellent exhibit there and the building is amazing. The Club to Catwalk exhibit was brilliant, seeing some iconic 1980's fashion was brilliant, the Pearls exhibit was beautiful and the Chinese Art was not really to my taste but it was good to see! I even found time to sample the tearoom - these are most important parts of any museum!
I also took a trip to the theatre to see Jeeves and Wooster - I managed to get a very good value ticket (I'm on a budget you know!) and although the seat was rather uncomfortable, the view was good and the show was excellent!

I have a plans to get out and about a bit more over my last few weeks, so I'll keep you posted ;-)

Play Tuesdays, Pirate school, the Drunken sailor and Sir Francis Drake

I spent the week with the learning team, much bigger than I expected and it covers a wide range of sessions from school visits and family learning to Play Tuesdays - weekly sessions for the under fives learning through play with themes around the National Maritime Museum.
I was invited to join the Play Tuesday's Art session, a 50 minutes session that is repeated 4 times over the day. It is attended by a wide range of people from Nannies with their charges, Mum's, Aunties and Grannies, all willing to get stuck in.
The sessions are designed so that a wide age range can join in but it is essential that you get a bit messy and there were more than a few painty hands and pen covered faces by the end.
We drew creatures from under the sea, painted sea monsters with loads of scary eyes and views from a porthole. We also looked at what sinks and what floats and read stories about fish with beautiful scales!

As you know I am never one to shy away from an art project so here is my view from a porthole!

I also joined Pirate School with a Year 2 class, a female pirate no less told us all about becoming a Pirate. This included having a pirate name (mine was Sleepy Joe), repeating the pirate promise which mainly consisted of stealing treasure and not washing! We learned about pirates weapons, pirate ships, pirate flags and sharing treasure fairly. We learned that the food was rubbish, there was a big chance you would get caught and life was hard as a pirate!

I also joined one of the costumed interpreters from the Queen's House who played the part of a Tudor seafarer, who talked the children through a voyage on the Golden Hind to collect treasures for the queen and a more traditional schools session on the Cutty Sark where we pretended to be a cabin boy on board on a voyage to Australia to buy wool.

It is such a broad choice of sessions covering large topics and it's only the start the Royal Observatory covers a whole other part of the curriculum and the sessions are fun and very engaging, Many of the local London schools visit, although getting 28 7 year olds on the Tube is not for the faint hearted!