h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A22083068

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/

This museum is my Brilliant Big Brother’s choice. He is very very keen on animals. And dinosaurs. So regular visits here are a bit of an inevitability.

The problem with this, from Mama’s point of view, is that my Brilliant Big Brother is actually interested in the exhibits. He wants to stop and look at them and discuss them.

I, however, am not. I want to run around and find something random to fixate on, like a rope barrier (oooooh) or a leaflet holder (aaaaaah). This means that Mama is constantly either having to coral me in the pushchair, which is difficult as the big people have not yet made pushchair straps I can’t get out of, or drag my Brilliant Big Brother away from a stuffed swan, plaster of paris crocodile or fossilised triceratops, which is also difficult because acquiescing gracefully to Mama’s unreasonable demands is not one of my Brilliant Big Brother’s skills.

Still, we usually manage to spend a certain amount of time in the exceptionally crowded bird hall, where Mama cannot restrain herself and insists on setting my Brilliant Big Brother questions designed to better his understanding of how animals work. ‘Which birds,’ she is wont to ask, ‘eat meat? How do you know?’ This is sometimes successful, sometimes not, and sometimes my Brilliant Big Brother silences her by keeping up a running commentary of random factoids about the lives and loves of the feathered exhibits therein. Which isn’t that surprising given her tepid interest and my Brilliant Big Brother’s close attention to nature programmes*.

The mammal room is also popular. As is the fish corridor. And the bug exhibition. And… well, let’s just say that all the bits with animals are equally as thrilling to my Brilliant Big Brother, and equally as packed with other nature obsessed children equally as unfriendly to toddler expeditions as each other.

Except the dinosaur exhibition, which is even more so. In fact, Mama recommends that the Natural History Museum should be avoided at all costs during school holidays and especially in half term, when everybody within easy reach of London decides to visit in the same week. Not only are there lengthy queues to get into the Museum, but the entire entrance hall is given over to the hour long line of people waiting to go and see the animatronic T-rex, with only the huge, iconic brontosaurus skeleton to entertain them.

This, these days, can be very entertaining, mind. They’ve rigged it up so that you can light it up different colours and even make it roar. But only if you pay an extortionate sum of money, which Mama, well, Mama doesn’t. About the only thing in favour of a half term visit is that there will be many many desperate parents, and so the roar gets played quite often. Still, this does not compensate you, in Mama’s opinion for the wait, which is swiftly followed by the news that the lift to the walkway you have to use in order to reach model dino heaven is out of order and no, you cannot just abandon the pushchair at the entrance and come back for it later.

The T-rex, mind you, is almost worth it in Mama’s opinion and TOTALLY wirth it in my Brilliant Big Brother’s, which is why we all keep coming back and back. I am less convinced, being much of the opinion of my Brilliant Big Brother on his first visit (< wobbly voice > “Teef, Mama, TEEF!”< /wobbly voice &gt, but I am generally overruled.

There s also a whole other bunch of galleries about the earth, the environment and, I dunno, plants and such, but we only go there when my Brilliant Big Brother thinks they might have hidden a few more animals in them. Although the rocks room is an unexpected hit. To Mama one bit of quartz looks very much like another, but Granny the geologist is proud that her Grandson can spend hours and hours and hours in there getting Mama to read the captions (“Quartz. Quartz with iron. Quartz with copper. Quartz. Quartz. Quartz with gold. Oooh. Quartz.”) and I am happy because it is really quiet up there and Mama let’s me play hide and seek round the quartz cases.

Anyway, on to the coffee, or not because Mama never stops for refreshments here. The cafes are too open plan and busy for someone with two children who will probably run off in different directions with that much stimulation just as she has taken her first sip. There’s a restaurant, but that is particularly expensive and even a balloon per child cannot compensate for that. The best option on rainy days is the basement, where there is an extensive lunch room for school parties and other picnicers. On better days, there is a nice bit of grass outside and it even has its own snack kiosk.

*Mama basically thinks that nature in its entirety goes ‘they have sex and then something eats the really cute baby’. Which is especially true if you watch David Attenborough’s Planet series, except that there it is done to ominous music. Nature missing a trick there. Anyway, Mama finds this both boring and traumatic. My Brilliant Big Brother does not.

Ah yes, rope barriers are amazing. You can swing on the ropes, which brings their pillars clanging down. And if you do it right, the pillars knock over a lot of cool, noisy things, too!

I agree about half-terms, too. I went* on Easter Monday this year, and there wasn't room to breathe. Go on a dreary, unremarkable day in November, if you can.

*Different museum, but the principle's the same in all of them...

I love the NHM, my first visits must have been aged around 3 as well. In those days there was a walkway between the NHM and the Science Museum and my mum had 3 children under 4 to amuse for free. We went there a lot!

Do pop by and say hello to the coelacanth next time you're there. It's in an alcove off the main entrance hall, on the left as you look at the stairs. It used to be hung from visible strings, but several years ago it was mounted on horizontal rods and looks much happier.

And in my experience, the best time to visit the dinosaurs is around 3pm on a school day.

[Amy P]

Another fantastic read

Deb

How old is Brilliant Big Brother now?