And Did Those Feet

I thought I should create a new site called: Crimes By Architects.com while cycling past London Fields Lido - the original is London red brick, the extension is built with a cheap modern brick and the wall between the new bit and the old bit is breeze block! Hopefully it is an interim work but it looks awful and the architect should be shot. Also I was looking across the Thames at the buildings between London Bridge and Billingsgate - its not that they are 'bad' per se its just that they have no sense of being a frontage. If only architects would design to fit in with the surroundings. This would not obviate innovation after all the Pyramid at the Louvre is very modern and yet still fits in with its surroundings, the Gerkin also fits in.

1753 Old Bailey - Daniel Flude of Grub Street as a witness They found the defendant Peter Bockham innocent of the theft (for which I think he could have been hanged) but guilty of a felony which I suspect is selling the goods for which he was transported. The Proceedings of the Old Bailey Ref: t17530111-9 Trial Summary: Crime(s): theft : burglary , Punishment Type: transportation , (Punishment details may be provided at the end of the trial.) Verdict: Part Guilty: convicted of a lesser offence , Other trials on 11 Jan 1753 Name search for: Peter Bockham , Crime Location: Grub-street Original Text: 64. (M.) Peter Bockham , was indicted for that he on the 23d of Dec. About the hour of two in the night, on the same day, the dwelling house of Daniel Flude , did break and enter, and steal from thence, two iron vices, . 12 s. One iron back screw, one piece of iron burnisher, one pair of iron clams, one piece of iron, one brass coar, and two hammers ; the goods of the said Danie...

Our figures for 2007 were the best ever by a long way - we reached 30,000 for the first time - better by 4,000 than our previous high - which was before 7/7 and the 6 months closure of the Operating Theatre. January figures continue the trend despite increasing the prices: Total Visitors: 1,976 best ever Jan 25% up on last year School Groups: 578 6th 47% up on last year Medical Groups: 9 very low 7% of last year Other Groups: 157 2nd 76% up on last year Total Income: £9,887.07 best ever Jan 42% up on last year Hire: £860 3rd £0 last year Sales: £917.19 8th 22% down on last year Donations: £20.38 2nd 25% of last year

Time Out Top 50 London Web Sites Time out this week is running an article called London's top 50 web sites. This is much better read on line as you can link to the various sites mentioned. History is a major component of the list including including one on Pepys Diary and a great web site called derelict london. To access the 50 web sites follow follow this link to your browser: and click on the link to history.

Richard Norman Shaw RA: Lecture, 25th February Andrew Saint, general editor of the Survey of London, and author of the most comprehensive book on Shaw, discusses Richard Norman Shaw's originality and vision as an architect. Shaw was the most inventive of a group of late nineteenth-century architects who introduced a new freedom of composition which expressed London's increasing social and physical diversity. 6.30-7.30pm at the Geological Society Lecture Theatre, Piccadilly, London W1 This lecture is part of the Royal Academy of Arts Architecture Programme: The Architects Who Made London with Maxwell Hutchinson Lecture Series. £10/£5 concessions (includes a drink). For information or to book call 020 7300 5839, email Architecture@royalacademy.org.uk Back

Fearful of the difficulty of installing free mindmap on my linuz Asus EEEpc, I had a bright idea and looked for on-line mind map and found several. Mind42 works pretty well and I think will do the job. Mind42.com - Collaborative mind mapping in your browser

The Cathedral Group have begun building work in the area of the Museum - we now have a reduced entrance area and have portacabins outside the door.

After many years of hearing rumours of a London Bridge Museum - it has finally come to pass - after reading a Time Out piece on an overnight stay in the London Tombs, I walked past the entrance - which is just by Nancy's Steps, under London Bridge. The marketing is so depressing - it seems to be a London Dungeon's buster - with a London Bridge experience upstairs and a scary London Tombs visit downstairs. I suspect this is due to the huge queues outside of London Dungeon suggesting that horror not history is the way forward. Yuk! The London Bridge Experience - London Tombs - London Attractions

MLA, London are to suffer 35% cuts in funding as a result of this review designed 'to sharpen delivery'. MLA, London which has worked hard to develop an excellent service for London Museums will find it hard to maintain that role with 35% cuts. MLA - Press Releases -�MLA Board takes radical step to sharpen delivery

I'm working on a project to create the complete historical tour of London. have a look at this:

I have been emailing various people about blue badge guides - I have been making the point that, although its a good scheme, they do not have a monopoly on guiding skills. Sometimes what you want is an expert in a subject, or an actor, storyteller, poet. Sometimes the teacher/lecturer needs to lead the guided tour, but Blue Badge leaders seem to think, I think, that only Blue Badge guides should be allowed to guide. David Tucker of London walks made some pertinant points - although I would accept that maybe a couple of hours is optimistic but his point that it does not take 2 years is valid. '"Guiding skills" can be taught in a couple of hours. It's (to us) obvious stuff like having your back to what you're talking about so your guidees can be looking at it. Being audible. Having at least some "audience awareness". Being very safety conscious. Etc. etc. etc. You don't need two years to "cover that ground". And the whole business of p...

Nice web site by the folks at Campell Works, Hackney Mind Mine | neurological conditioning and brain process | educational art project

I have now owned an EEC pc for 2 weeks and have tested it in action. After an initial disappointment or two I can now say it is fantastic and shows the way the future is going and the future is not going the way that Bill Gates and Microsoft would like! The combination of facilities for £200 is really very good - the wireless works really well, the webcam is good, the open office software as good as ever. The small size of the hard disc not a problem if used for portable work only. It really works as a light weigh device you can take away from your main computer. It is not good enough to be your one and only PC but is great as a lightweight - only 0.9kg I can take it everywhere. I now need a lightweight projector and I am fully mobile. Some nagging issues with linux but really it does show that it no longer matters if you use windows, linux or mac - I think this is the lesson I have learnt and this means the end for Microsoft and the dominance of operating system. Who cares which...

Business link has a useful section on business planning which can be seen here: Prepare a business plan for growth | Business Link

We went to the Battersea Arts Centre's The Masque of the Red Death underwritten by the National Theatre. It was a very enjoyable evening - the kids in particular loved it. The whole place has been taken over and dressed up as one huge and varied set of Edgar Alan Poe's book. The audience explore the space dressed in a very awkward mask (if you wear glasses that is) and discover the narrative. Various parts are quite scary - I was one of a few people watching one of the cast being bricked up in an subterranean crypt - no one was prepared to stay behind on their own in the room - we virtually ran out. The sets are great and the proximity to the actors and the weird presence of the public - certain hairstyles looked extremely bizarre with those longed nosed masks! So, a successful evening but narratively a bit of a failure - we four walked around separately, and for the entire evening and yet, comparing notes, none of us discovered as much as 50% of the narrative. Personally...

The nice support team at Belkin have finally sorted out my network problems - I had set it up myself a year or so ago and it worked - mostly - but every 3 weeks or so it stopped and you could not get it going again for a day or 2 till it suddenly started again. It was very frustrating, but 4 long calls to Belkin finally got me through to some who who knew what they were doing. It consisted of connecting to the Router control page by IE and typing in 192.168.2.1 and clicking home and setting up something or other in control panel networks - can't remember exactly, but I now have all the computers working and the EEE PC connected.

SE! London reports that the Fashion and Textile museum has reopened in Bermondsey Street Fashion & Textile Museum reopens its doors [7 February 2008]

(text from Salon IFA) The British Empire and Commonwealth Museum, Bristol, for ‘Breaking the Chains’ on the abolition of the slave trade The British Library, London, for ‘Sacred – Discover What We Share’, bringing together Jewish, Christian and Islamic holy texts The International Slavery Museum, Liverpool – a new museum uncovering the issues behind the transatlantic slave trade Lightbox gallery and museum, Woking – combining an innovative presentation of local history with a dynamic display of modern art London Transport Museum , exploring the link between transport and London society The National Army Museum, London, for ‘Helmand: the soldiers’ story’, an exhibition created by soldiers, exploring the British army’s first campaign in the Taliban heartland of Afghanistan The Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney, containing a collection of twentieth-century British art Shetland Museum and Archives, Lerwick, telling the story of Britain’s most norther...

An american study of East Spittlefields skeletons excavated in rows up to 5 deep by London archaeologists suggests that the mortality amongst the frail was particularly high so that although healthy people were also susceptible it was the weak who had the most to fear from the disease. The evidence is consistent with an emergent disease striking a susceptible population. Black Death targeted the weak - Telegraph

This is a museum project in St Georgen which displays the museum collection in display windows and empty shops - they claim this makes it the first 'lean museum' futab_rfa

My reading up of Lean Manufacturing and its application to the Service Industries has lead me to wonder how it might be applied to the Museum world. Google only reveals one hit which is a display of collections in empty shops in St Greigen. It counts as 'lean' as it maximises public enjoyment while minimising the overhands - shops get the collection to the people without having to invest in Museum premises. I suspect that the Old Operating Theatre Museum might have aspects of lean philosophy behind it? I'm not implying we are necessarily a paradigm in all arreas but the are some aspects we do particularly cost effectively and may be useful to build upon in an exploration of the idea of 'the Lean Museum Service'. Firstly, we have mostly done away with an out-moded hierarchy and line management structure. Staff work cooperatively (mostly) and largely control their own time tables (although the public dictate a lot of the timings). Staff tend to do that which ...

It has been suggested that their are only 7 basic plots and that all plots are a variation on the seven. The following has a short discussion on the idea: Archetypal Stories : "seven" Christopher Booker discusses the issue in his "Seven Basic Plots -- why we tell stories" Another summary can be found here: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=210539 To me the search for archetypal stories is similar to stating that all songs are made up from 8 notes plus sharps and flats. i.e. it is not very important because a finite set of components can be used with infinite variation.

Following on from Radio 4 Business programme on the philosophy of lean production - concentrating on maximising value for the customer and eliminating waste - I have been looking for a museum that has adopted the philosophy - no luck but did come across this article on the history of lean. Superfactory Article: A Lean Walk Through History by Jim Womack