Of Bomb Shelters and Art Deco

 Hullo! After the essential Starbucks visit, we are off for an adventure day in London!

We got off at Russell Square and headed off.

Some places are beary well-decorated for Christmas!

OK... ready? We saw something cool on the bus the other day, and came back to investigate!

It's just down here, near Goodge Street station... Do you see it?

It's this thing!! It's one of the deep bomb shelters that the Brits built during the early years of the war! They were over 100 feet deep and could hold 8000 people with dedicated canteens and medical posts.

They weren't really used as civilian bomb shelters though because by the time they were done building them, the Blitz was pretty much over and Germany had moved ton to Russia.

But this particular one DID get used later for Eisenhowers command post! Hence... it's called The Eisenhower Centre.

But today, they're just used for data or achive storage. This one had a sign up high saying "Iron Mountain" - probably data storage.

There's a war memorial in here too!

There are pretty cool! There are 8 in total, and sometimes... if you're lucky, the one down by Clapham gives tour!

We're not at Clapham Common though... and this wasn't actually the exact thing we saw from the bus the other day. This is the East Entrance to the complex. We saw the West Entrance! Let me show you!

It's not far but we saw this cool deer made out of wood, in a furniture store window...

It also had towers of old books as decorative props... Um... for a book lover, that seems a bit scandalous!

It's over there!! We had seen an outdoor food market and then a weird brick thing.

That's it, in behind the tree and the blue tent, all covered in graffitti.

I wonder how many people miss this as they go by?

Right. I'm starving, let's check out these food stalls!

There was a stall selling paella! This looks good!

It was chicken and chorizo and quite yummy!

Then we got back on the Northern Line and went up a few stops...

It's a beary deep tube line... and they have elevators that take you up and down, but there's also these spiral stair cases that go up... if you want to do 100+ stairs!

We got out here, at Mornington Crescent Station and... yowza!!

We saw this!!! This is the Carreras Cigarette Factory (or used to be). It is outstanding art deco!!

Beanie told us we should check this one out! And he was right... wow...

It is beary spectacular and well-kept too.

Even the railings are nifty.

It has kind of an Egyptian vibe going on too.

When it was converted to offices in 1961, the Egyptian detailing was lost, but in 1990, there was another big reno, and they restored it!

Including the two cats!! Aren't they gorgeous?

Well, we think they're gorgeous. Other stuffies of the rodent variety might not agree.

This is amazing... and definitely worth a trip out here.

Gorgeous!

I'm glad we came out here. 

Then we went to catch a bus and we saw this thing, across the street from the tube station!!

It's a music venue called Koko but when it was built in 1900, it was called the Camden Palace. It is definitely NOT art deco... but more Baroque Pastiche style...

Then we went to The British Library (again) to see if we could find a spot to sit down and do some work (it was starting to rain)...

But they were full up... so we found a Starbucks near Tavistock with excellent wifi and electrical plug-ins! And watched it rain... and happily blogged.

When we headed out... we came across this building less than a block from Russell Square tube station! 

It's the old Daimler building and is another gorgeous art deco!

It looks quite pretty at night, all lit up.

And then we headed home. We love this vintage signs!

Of Mice, Music and Bears!

 Righto!! We got off to a later start this morning cause we're waiting for the Musical Museum to open at 10 am.

We're waiting for the Mischief of Mice to join us here...

I think I see them!

Yay!!! Let's go in!

How exciting can a musical museum be?? Well... you'd be surprised... we wandered through the displays and saw these "machines"...

But they weren't doing anything (just wait for it)...

They have these rolls of paper which we think let's them play their own music...

It's beary old-fashioned stuff!

Sandy wants to know if Mama remembers these things...

Or these! We're moving through the decades now... Gramma might remember these... they are called Gramma-phones aren't they?

Heh-heh... or maybe it's 78 records?

Ooohhh the RCA dog!!!

Ah, here we go!! An old reel-to-reel machine!! Grampa had one of these!! And Great-Grampa would record long tapes on the goings-on back in the old country and send them in the mail! That's an 8-track cassette in the bottom right... Mama remembers those too!

Does your human remember these things??

And then it speeds up! We've got regular cassette tapes and walkman's!

And then cd's and discman's... we never had a discman...

And then... iPods... we had (still have) one of those!

And now... everything in a phone!

Wow... how music has changed in a century!!!

They had organs....

And pianos too...

And a display on how those paper rolls (that played those weird machines) was made. There was a whole industry for making music paper rolls!

Wow... when you think the industries that history has left in the dust!

Then there's the synthesizers... which are like those old machines... but waaayyyyyyy more... everything...

And this... this is Leon Theremin who invented an "electronic" music instrument back in 1920 in the USSR... it had only one note... but the player could adjust it by waving his hand over these two metal bits... and vary the volume and pitch... It was called... the Theremin (go figure).

That's it there... weird looking thing... it's kind of an early synthesizer... Leon took his device out to the USA and Europe but then was apparently kidnapped by the KGB... He was sent to the Gulag, to a secret lab where he worked on secret things. He created a listening device that from 1945 onwards, hung in plain view in the United States ambassador's Moscow office and enabled Soviet agents to secretly eavesdrop on conversations. It was called "The Thing"... and looked like a big wooden seal... but had a contraption inside... go figure!

OK... that was like a fascinating story!! In case you're wondering what it sounds like... its music was used in cult films like "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "The Thing from Another World". Kind of that eerie... otherworldly sound... 

Oh, and in Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys! When they start singing "I'm picking up Good Vibrations" in the refrain! Escept they used an Electro-Theremin where the sounds are controlled by a knob rather than waving your hands around like a mad magician... Watch from 3:33 to see the electro-theremin in action...

Or watch this one... a guy playing Over the Rainbow on a real theremin... fascinating stuff!

But now... we are back to those first machines with their paper rolls... cause they turned some of them on for us!! Most of these were first developed in Germany in the late 1800s... and were placed in cafes where they could be played by inserting money... So, like... an early jukebox!! Ready?

OOoohhhh... it plays all by itself! 

This one was another one... same idea, with the instruments...

In behind... wowzers...

But this one... had a violin that it played!!

The museum had quite a collection of these paper rolls... they have a concert room where they screen silent movies and then their big Wurlitzer plays the music with these paper rolls!

Wowzers...

All that from a little paper roll with holes in it. Go figure.

Do you think these were the precursor to those early computers that used cards with holes in them? Mama remembers them... And then we said goodbye to the mice crew. They had to get back home and had a few buses to catch!

We headed off to Ealing Broadway and saw this nouveau art deco (it's recently built)... beary nice.

And caught the Elizabeth line to Paddington Station!

Oooh... Ben would like Chef Paddington! Maybe not his messy kitchen... but... the outfit is cute.

They have tonnes of Paddington stuff and we bought a bit!

Then we had lunch here...

It's a Lebanese place...  and yes... we've had Thai, Italian, Persian and now Lebanese... we also had Japanese and Spanish too!

We had a Beirut drink...

The bottle had a weird pull cap which is beary strange... not like a bottle cap... but strange.

We had lamb kofta and some focaccia with olive oil. Yum!!!

Then we caught a bus back but had to wait a bit cause some of them were packed to the gills!!!

Whew... massive adventure day and we still have one more!!