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daibhidcSpent much of the day in Dynamic Earth. I've been a couple of times before but it's still neat.
In fact, it's neater than I remember, because I've not been there for a while. It now opens with a hologram of James Hutton giving a lecture about Deep Time, which I definitely don't remember (stuff about Hutton and Deep Time, yes, the hologram, no). The time machine sequence is the same, although I forgot how much the floor shakes when the Earth is being formed. And then we go through the extinction room, the submarine, and the Arctic room, all much as I remember them,
Now before, as I remember, between the Arctic room and the Rainforest room was another display hall with very brief overviews of the other biomes. And very nice it was too. Now, because no interactive museum is complete without the 3D Experience, we had to put on our safety goggles and get in a "plane" that would fly us from DE's Arctic base to the tropics, taking in the other biomes on the way. And it was brilliantly done.
(3D Experience rooms in museums and activity centres are my favourite use of the technology; they don't last long enough for me to get nauseous, and they're already stylised enough that the constraints of the medium aren't as big a deal.)
We seemed to get hurried out of the rainforest towards the Dome Cinema a bit faster than I remember; there's a lot of stuff to see there, and I didn't really feel I got a chance to. But the Dome Cinema film (it's been different every tine I;ve been) was pretty cool; a thing about the search for extraterrestrial life, narrated by Rupert Grint.
Lunch at the Food Chain Cafe, a bit of shopping, and then back to the hotel for a rest beforeFaust Eric in the evening.
Bit of a wait outside the theatre for it to start[1], but it was excellent. It was by a company called Duck in a Hat, and they were very good. Rincewind and Eric were excellently portrayed, and Ponce da Quirm's eccentricity and Laveolus's fed-up attitude to the war were also very good. I also thought the actor playing Astfgl did a brilliant impression of small-minded middle manager as Demon King, although for some reason his Ephebian sergeant never quite clicked for me.
(The same actors reprised parts, but my poor facial recognition ability meant I wasn't entirely certain which parts. I'm pretty sure the same actress played the parrot and the Creator, and was excellent at both. If I'm wrong, they were both excellent.)
The backdrop issue was cleverly done. One side of the stage was Astfgl's office (or, at one point, the Other End Of Time), and the other was dominated by a big book which initally was closed with the title and an octogram. Each scene change was heralded by the lights going out and the pages of the book turned to reveal an illustration of the new scene and a couple of lines of description from the novel. The only occasion when the page was turned without the lights going out was when the Creator turned from the blank pages of Before the Beginning to the desert island on the newly formed Disc. Very neat.
After that we went to the Elephant House across the road for dinner.
[1]I thought I maybe recognised the people in front of me in the queue from the Convention, but what with the anxiety disorder and everything, I didn't say anything. (If I'd thought I'd recognised them as people I'd actually spoken to, rather than just been in other queues with then, well, maybe.) I did say thanks when the ticket lady said she liked my UU t-shirt, though.
Okay, first off, I love the Elephant House. I think it's brilliant and quirky and the staff are really helpful and enthusiastic. But they're also rushed off their feet, at least they were tonight. You're in a tourist city advertising yourselves as the birthplace of Harry Potter, maybe you should be prepared for a crowd and have more than three waitstaff?
It took us ages to get our order taken, which was understandable. Then we waited for our meals to arrive. Mum's haggis didn't take that long, but when she was halfway through and I'd only had two mouthfuls of her tatties, she had to call over a waitress and chase up my nachos. The waitress was really apologetic and went to find out. She came back and said it had got lost in the rush, but would be another couple of minutes now. And indeed it was. She was still very apologetic and offered me a free desert, but I said that was fine. Honestly, once I saw the nachos and remembered how generous they were, I wasn't sure I could even finish them.
Which is just as well, because the next thing I thought was "That doesn't look like veggy chilli". Normally I'd think that was paranoia, but with all the difficulty we'd had with the order, I could well believe that this important detail had got lost somewhere. I didn't want to cause a fuss and give the waitress more work, and I really didn't want them to take it away and be another ten minutes, so I just ate the salsa side. Which was fine, because there were a lot of nachos. The tricky part was making sure this wasn't obvious to Mum, so she didn't make a fuss.
So that was unfortunate, but again, no criticism of the staff who were very helpful but somewhat overworked, and the salsa side was lovely. As was the pot of tea we had.
In fact, it's neater than I remember, because I've not been there for a while. It now opens with a hologram of James Hutton giving a lecture about Deep Time, which I definitely don't remember (stuff about Hutton and Deep Time, yes, the hologram, no). The time machine sequence is the same, although I forgot how much the floor shakes when the Earth is being formed. And then we go through the extinction room, the submarine, and the Arctic room, all much as I remember them,
Now before, as I remember, between the Arctic room and the Rainforest room was another display hall with very brief overviews of the other biomes. And very nice it was too. Now, because no interactive museum is complete without the 3D Experience, we had to put on our safety goggles and get in a "plane" that would fly us from DE's Arctic base to the tropics, taking in the other biomes on the way. And it was brilliantly done.
(3D Experience rooms in museums and activity centres are my favourite use of the technology; they don't last long enough for me to get nauseous, and they're already stylised enough that the constraints of the medium aren't as big a deal.)
We seemed to get hurried out of the rainforest towards the Dome Cinema a bit faster than I remember; there's a lot of stuff to see there, and I didn't really feel I got a chance to. But the Dome Cinema film (it's been different every tine I;ve been) was pretty cool; a thing about the search for extraterrestrial life, narrated by Rupert Grint.
Lunch at the Food Chain Cafe, a bit of shopping, and then back to the hotel for a rest before
Bit of a wait outside the theatre for it to start[1], but it was excellent. It was by a company called Duck in a Hat, and they were very good. Rincewind and Eric were excellently portrayed, and Ponce da Quirm's eccentricity and Laveolus's fed-up attitude to the war were also very good. I also thought the actor playing Astfgl did a brilliant impression of small-minded middle manager as Demon King, although for some reason his Ephebian sergeant never quite clicked for me.
(The same actors reprised parts, but my poor facial recognition ability meant I wasn't entirely certain which parts. I'm pretty sure the same actress played the parrot and the Creator, and was excellent at both. If I'm wrong, they were both excellent.)
The backdrop issue was cleverly done. One side of the stage was Astfgl's office (or, at one point, the Other End Of Time), and the other was dominated by a big book which initally was closed with the title and an octogram. Each scene change was heralded by the lights going out and the pages of the book turned to reveal an illustration of the new scene and a couple of lines of description from the novel. The only occasion when the page was turned without the lights going out was when the Creator turned from the blank pages of Before the Beginning to the desert island on the newly formed Disc. Very neat.
After that we went to the Elephant House across the road for dinner.
[1]I thought I maybe recognised the people in front of me in the queue from the Convention, but what with the anxiety disorder and everything, I didn't say anything. (If I'd thought I'd recognised them as people I'd actually spoken to, rather than just been in other queues with then, well, maybe.) I did say thanks when the ticket lady said she liked my UU t-shirt, though.
Okay, first off, I love the Elephant House. I think it's brilliant and quirky and the staff are really helpful and enthusiastic. But they're also rushed off their feet, at least they were tonight. You're in a tourist city advertising yourselves as the birthplace of Harry Potter, maybe you should be prepared for a crowd and have more than three waitstaff?
It took us ages to get our order taken, which was understandable. Then we waited for our meals to arrive. Mum's haggis didn't take that long, but when she was halfway through and I'd only had two mouthfuls of her tatties, she had to call over a waitress and chase up my nachos. The waitress was really apologetic and went to find out. She came back and said it had got lost in the rush, but would be another couple of minutes now. And indeed it was. She was still very apologetic and offered me a free desert, but I said that was fine. Honestly, once I saw the nachos and remembered how generous they were, I wasn't sure I could even finish them.
Which is just as well, because the next thing I thought was "That doesn't look like veggy chilli". Normally I'd think that was paranoia, but with all the difficulty we'd had with the order, I could well believe that this important detail had got lost somewhere. I didn't want to cause a fuss and give the waitress more work, and I really didn't want them to take it away and be another ten minutes, so I just ate the salsa side. Which was fine, because there were a lot of nachos. The tricky part was making sure this wasn't obvious to Mum, so she didn't make a fuss.
So that was unfortunate, but again, no criticism of the staff who were very helpful but somewhat overworked, and the salsa side was lovely. As was the pot of tea we had.
