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Sunday 17th March 2024

7770/20711
A family day out to Duxford Imperial War Museum. I am not really into war and its machinery, but was still impressed by the range of aircraft on display here and how they fit so many of the fuckers into each hangar. You could board some of the commercial planes so we got to go on a BOAC plane which would have cost the equivalent of £6000 to fly on (though you could get your nails done and eat off china) and a test Concorde. I assumed Concorde had gone out of service due to it getting too old and because of the infamous crash, but it was also a lot to do with falling demand for the supersonic service, partly because 9/11. Forty of the plane's most regular customers died in the attacks which was enough to make the enterprise unprofitable. Which is mind-boggling for all kinds of reasons.
Whenever I see a timeline of the history of flight it's incredible to see how quickly things went from people trying to fly with flapping wings and the Wright Brothers getting a plane just off the ground for a tiny but significant distance to planes being efficient enough to use in war time and then commercially and then mankind being able to escape the bonds of earth. 1903 was the first powered flight. All those millenia of not being able to fly or thinking you were cool cos you could use a balloon and then in 66 years you'd got to the fucking moon. Try that in a balloon, Montgolfiers, you wassocks.
We also saw Elvis Presley's initials scrawled (by him allegedly) into the side of a plane and in the same hanger a bit of the twisted steel from the World Trade Centre. Was it wrong to be in awe of the initials, which frankly might have been done by anyone and I can't find any mention of online? Yes it was. But I still am.
Then we went in a flight simulator which weirdly came from the POV of a German pilot in a Messerschmitt at the Battle of Britain. We got buffeted around and it looked like the Germans had had the better of the encounter, but then (spoiler alert) a Spitfire comes out of nowhere and took out our fellow German and we had to skulk back across the channel (though think it would be a better experience if we crashed and exploded). It was a weird choice to see all this from the perspective of a Nazi, but apparently we won the battle so that's OK then.
Ultimately a lot of this museum is dedicated to machines of death and war. I've been lucky to have had a life that has so far steered clear of conflict of this kind, though it all just made me fearful that my kids would not be so lucky. Which takes the gloss off of the Elvis initials. It's a fun day out but a monument to slaughtered youth. Perfect Sunday.



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