ash
Inittogether
Although the HC members room is weird it's like entering someone else's grandparents flat.
Anyone been to Tower of London to see the poppies?
- Thread starter Minnie_the_Minx
- Start date
The old one at the BM was similar - only one room though. Like someone's sitting room, with sofas, bookshelves and a disused fireplace. The new one is able to handle more people, but doesn't quite have the same cosy feeling.Although the HC members room is weird it's like entering someone else's grandparents flat.
It was always a bit weird, sitting in what felt like someone's house, then being able to walk straight into the museum.
ash
Inittogether
When we went to the HC one there was an elderly couple who welcomed us and showed us the coffee machine and I got it wrong and felt really naughty and over monitored. If there was a toilet there it might be worth using, but otherwise I'd rather eat my sandwiches in the beautiful grounds.
quimcunx
imprimeo, lamino, distribuo
I was going to say but what about war poetry. Things can be beautiful and dark, and condemning. But then I googled Rupert Brookes and found this fabulously poignant rendition of one of his war poems.
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/1914-iii-the-dead/
It's all in the intonation.
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
I guess so, but war poetry I like, while often beautiful, makes me feel anger (and sorrow).
I don't get any sense of anger from those poppies and that light. No sense of the terrible waste.
I don't get any sense of anger from those poppies and that light. No sense of the terrible waste.
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
Nope.
There's usually a volunteer in there, but they usually leave about half an hour.....or hour (can't remember which) before closing, so if you go in then you can have the place to yourself. I usually go in at the end of my visit, before I catch a train home, so I'll be in there at the end of the day. I tend to eat elsewhere too. Dinner in a pub.
There's a poem written to go with the ceramic poppies, which you might or might not like:
Red Ceramic Poppy
Imagine yourself a red ceramic Poppy,
placed with care into the English soil.
One hundred years ago you were a soldier,
a frightened teen in a chaotic world.
You'd been sent, by King's command, into the battle-
A mindless melee John French thought he'd won.
Perhaps some yards of France had been reclaimed
at a mind numbing cost of mothers' sons.
You were one of those shot, gassed or burned.
Hit by a shell and blown to kingdom come.
(In ‘fourteen they had funerals for the fallen.
Mass burials became the norm before Verdun.)
That's how you went from the playing fields of Eton
to an unmarked grave somewhere in Northern France.
So now you are a red ceramic poppy,
a symbol of an Empire, now passed.
Placed in English soil by teenaged hands.
one of nine hundred thousand home at last.
John F. McCullagh
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Minnie_the_Minx
someinenhhanding menbag and me ah bollox
I heard last week they were telling people to stay away now as there's massive queues
Minnie_the_Minx
someinenhhanding menbag and me ah bollox
I went to the IWM a few weeks ago. Liked the WWI exhibition and could have spent hours longer there. Not sure I like what they've done with the main entrance/ground floor thingy though and those steps.
It's lost its small museum feel. Can't explain it properly but it just didn't feel as intimate and friendly
oryx
Sitting on the bok of the day
I went to the IWM a few weeks ago. Liked the WWI exhibition and could have spent hours longer there. Not sure I like what they've done with the main entrance/ground floor thingy though and those steps.
It's lost its small museum feel. Can't explain it properly but it just didn't feel as intimate and friendly
That's sad - haven't been since the refurb and want to.
A bit more representative of WW1 than pretty ceramic poppies. If people are interested in art and the real version of WW1, read 'Disabled' by Owen or look at pictures by Harold Gillies.
Minnie_the_Minx
someinenhhanding menbag and me ah bollox
You may like it. It may grow on me, but as it is... not sure I like it. Will have to go and give it another try when I'm in less of a rush. Maybe I'll appreciate the new layout
oryx
Sitting on the bok of the day
He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,
And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,
Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park
Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,
Voices of play and pleasure after day,
Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.
About this time Town used to swing so gay
When glow-lamps budded in the light blue trees,
And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,-
In the old times, before he threw away his knees.
Now he will never feel again how slim
Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands.
All of them touch him like some queer disease.
There was an artist silly for his face,
For it was younger than his youth, last year.
Now, he is old; his back will never brace;
He's lost his colour very far from here,
Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,
And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race
And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.
One time he liked a blood-smear down his leg,
After the matches, carried shoulder-high.
It was after football, when he'd drunk a peg,
He thought he'd better join. - He wonders why.
Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts,
That's why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg,
Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts
He asked to join. He didn't have to beg;
Smiling they wrote his lie: aged nineteen years.
Germans he scarcely thought of; all their guilt,
And Austria's, did not move him. And no fears
Of Fear came yet. He drought of jewelled hills
For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;
And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;
Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.
And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.
Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.
Only a solemn man who brought him fruits
Thanked him; and then enquired about his soul.
Now, he will spend a few sick years in institutes,
And do what things the rules consider wise,
And take whatever pity they may dole.
Tonight he noticed how the women's eyes
Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.
How cold and late it is! Why don't they come
And put him into bed? Why don't they come?
Wilfred Owen
This, and works by Siegfried Sassoon and Vera Britain as well as Nash & Nevinson etc. are the true artistic version of WW1. Not a load of ceramic poppies over which the establishment are creaming themselves.
It disturbs me that in the centenary year of WW1 people might be seeing the ceramic poppies and not thinking any further than that.
And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,
Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park
Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,
Voices of play and pleasure after day,
Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.
About this time Town used to swing so gay
When glow-lamps budded in the light blue trees,
And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,-
In the old times, before he threw away his knees.
Now he will never feel again how slim
Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands.
All of them touch him like some queer disease.
There was an artist silly for his face,
For it was younger than his youth, last year.
Now, he is old; his back will never brace;
He's lost his colour very far from here,
Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,
And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race
And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.
One time he liked a blood-smear down his leg,
After the matches, carried shoulder-high.
It was after football, when he'd drunk a peg,
He thought he'd better join. - He wonders why.
Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts,
That's why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg,
Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts
He asked to join. He didn't have to beg;
Smiling they wrote his lie: aged nineteen years.
Germans he scarcely thought of; all their guilt,
And Austria's, did not move him. And no fears
Of Fear came yet. He drought of jewelled hills
For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;
And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;
Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.
And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.
Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.
Only a solemn man who brought him fruits
Thanked him; and then enquired about his soul.
Now, he will spend a few sick years in institutes,
And do what things the rules consider wise,
And take whatever pity they may dole.
Tonight he noticed how the women's eyes
Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.
How cold and late it is! Why don't they come
And put him into bed? Why don't they come?
Wilfred Owen
This, and works by Siegfried Sassoon and Vera Britain as well as Nash & Nevinson etc. are the true artistic version of WW1. Not a load of ceramic poppies over which the establishment are creaming themselves.
It disturbs me that in the centenary year of WW1 people might be seeing the ceramic poppies and not thinking any further than that.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
I'm at tower bridge right now and there are an absolute shitload of people trying to see them. Good thing I'm not here for the poppies.
I eventually got around to looking on Friday morning around 10am crowds weren't too bad and mainly consisted of pensioners (like me) and Japanese tourists.They were still adding flowers.Monday or Tuesday morning might be OK for anyone wanting a shifty.It's also floodlit at night so 3am is probably a good time.
It's only floodlit up until midnight, and then again from 4:30am. They will be installing poppies right until the 11th
story
Changing the facts
I agree with this.
I went to see them a few weeks ago.
A few people on here have said it was "lovely" . I didn't find it lovely at all. It was pretty to look at, and it was impressive, and it does give a powerful sense of the huge numbers involved, especially when you take on board that it's only the British soldiers who are represented here.
But the whole notion of filing past the designed, made, produced, sold, bought, positioned poppies was horrible. And the path left for dignitaries to walk along, and the crash barriers placed in preparation for large crowds and the media was so much staging and puppetry. It made me angry, and it left a very bad taste in my mouth.
There were people taking cheery photos and giving thumbs up, bored school kids, laughter and chatting. I know that life goes on, but it just felt like so much marketing.
And it being a commemoration of the start of the war is uncomfortable too.
One other hand, the gush and flow of the blood red poppies, and the way they filled the moat and washed around the corners gave a powerful sense of the senseless pointless wasteful slaughter: the huge swathe of it was a powerful way to render into physical form the abstract numbers of young men lost.
But I have to be honest, it wasn't thought provoking. Once I'd looked at it and walked about a bit, that was it. It just didn't feel profound or important as a piece of work about the war.
I was in the area after dark not long after I visited, and I thought momentarily of getting of the Tube to have a look at it again, but decided not to. Even though I had time and it was free and I was already right there, I still wasn't interested enough to have another look. But it has made me want to go back to the Imperial War Museum, which is a place I mostly avoid, because I always get so fucking depressed when I go.
I've no idea what you're talking about. You make it sound like the poppies were machine-made in some factory in china then installed by employees of some large corporate or something, and then were being sold for a huge profit for someone, when in fact all the poppies are hand-made and being installed by volunteers, and the majority of the money is going to 6 charities.
And yet you've got people on TA saying that they think HRP have been caught out by the crowds........
Where is the "staging" and "puppetry"? Once the number of visitors become apparent, something had to done to ensure safety.
Minnie_the_Minx
someinenhhanding menbag and me ah bollox
Well maybe lovely was the wrong choice of words but i'm not great with words
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
Tbh like story I didn't find it profound. Not because of the crowds so much - that can add to the effect with the right piece - but it just seemed like an empty spectacle, nothing that was saying anything. The poppies don't represent the people who died any more than a big digital counter would, for a start.
Of course public art that actually did say anything might not be considered politically correct by the powers that be.
Of course public art that actually did say anything might not be considered politically correct by the powers that be.
Not really. The poppies show scale far, far better than a meaningless number readout would.
Parts of the display are going to be extended until the end of November, and then go "on tour", and then go on display at the IWMs: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29965477
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