20 July 2019
Flying museum visit
The RAAF museum is still free and still great
As I predicted, when I woke up, it was raining, followed by 2 seconds of blue sky, then a huge amount of rain and even some thunder. Therefore I decided to make a return visit to a musuem I visited 10 years ago that has apparently now tripled in size, the Royal Air Force museum. I enjoyed it last time, and I enjoyed it this time, despite being much bigger it is still very cramped, they have crammed in too many planes to appreciate properly.
As it was last time, the highlight this time was the giant Vulcan bomber. This time I got a story that went south fast.
I was crouching down to take a photo which you can see below, and an old guy decided to tell me about the history of the plane in the Falklands war. So far so good. We briefly discussed its huge wing area and how loud it is when it takes off. Then he tells me he thinks they should bring the bombers out of retirement, to 'deal with the darkies, stop the bastards from coming over here'.
So it was time for me to move on.
Then I got another humorous story on the tube on the way back. I was not involved in this conversation, but a 'girl' who looked older than me, was talking to a very dapper older black gentleman in a suit with bow tie about her long history of attending psychedelic hard trance raves in a nearby forest.
The older fellow described how he would like to go but fears he would be too old and not admitted, the girl assured him that lots of 80 year olds go. So far... not too bad.
Then the 'girl' proceeded to explain how shes been attending since she was 12, generally goes 3 days without sleep, and has taken anything and everything in every combination and quantity, which is the only way to truly get in touch with the forest. So thats concerning, but I kind of expected it, she went into the usual shopping list of every kind of drug and their chemical properties, but assured the old fellow that no one does heroin, 'just everything else'.
The old fellow was very interested in this, described his 1970's LSD trip.
Now things turned for the worse.
The 'girl' explained that she was much more into drugs when she was 15, and they made her some kind of super genius that can see things no one else can. She spent 2 years in a hospital where authorities tried to study her powers, before she escaped, and she has lived undercover ever since.
Now she secretly works as an alternate neurologist, mixing different chemicals to combat peoples mental illnesses that the government controls via vaccines forced onto the population. Ketamine was the main ingredient from what I could gather, which is animal tranquilizer.
A sunny wet and rainy street.
In Australia new Chinese stores get a few bouquets of flowers out the front, here they ring the entire store with plastic flowers.
I walked down the equality tunnel and pretended I was playing Mario kart. The cleaning lady was very concerned when I threw a turtle at her.
ITS A HELICOPTER. More to come. I culled many plane photos, really I did.
Giant flying boat and cafe.
You can get inside the flying boat and peer through darkness into the light.
World war 1 hall, no ones really interested, everyone goes straight to see the newer planes.
The latest in British design. Faily McFailFace.
The fighter hall has way too many Spitfires. You can pay an exorbitant amount to sit in one briefly. The actual museum is completely free! All London museums are.
Long helicopter is long.
I made a helicopter view stop for a coffee.
Here is a Phantom. Photo makes it look small, it is huge.
The inside of the Phantom looks quite terrifying.
This is a lightning, I think when it was new it was the fastest fighter in the world. Note the extra fuel tanks on top of the wings.
The mighty Vulcan. Potential future eradicator of darkies!
A Lancaster, we have one of these in the war museum in Canberra I think.
They decided to only paint this Buccaneer with undercoat.
Signs are a feature of England. I realised a while ago its best not to question the sign, just do what it says, so I sat and sketched this trolley.
The modern fighter hall. I took a photo of this same hall in this exact spot 10 years ago. The chains holding the jets up have not snapped yet.
DUCK!
The area around the museum is all new apartments. I guess its no more than 10km out of the middle of London, its still on the tube line, a couple of stations before the end of the Northern line.
Check out that storm heading this way! Time to get back to the city before the end of the world!