LOOK OUT!!! He's got an umberella? Part 2

The science museum is packed, I suppose that museums in general probably like rainy days, people will in all probability stay in the museum longer and therefore possibly spend money, instead of going outside and getting wet.

Inside we meet up with F and the girls, the two girls are both dressed in bright girlie pinkness and F is pushing a bright orange pushchair packed with everything. During later conversation I learn that it is a wise mum who brings everything because when your little darling starts to greet it may not be immediately obvious what the child needs to shut it up.

So all formed up into a group we head off into the main body of the science museum, everyone in our little group has been there before except me. My eyes are trying and failing to take everything in at once, on the ground floor where you enter there are some old steam engines, some of the stationary type and some of the first passenger pulling locomotives ever made.
Here's a few pics of beam engines...

As you can see, some of them are a little on the big side...
And some are on the tiny side...
The grandad of all modern trains, ladies and gentlemen I give you the Rocket...

it was only a few short years until this style of train was a common sight throughout the civilised world...


We continued on through to the next part of the ground floor where you could see some more modern forms of transport and transport related things, here we have an early diesel engine powered truck
and now for the lens out of a lighthouse, a truly brilliant bit of glass and steel that has saved countless mariners since it's creation...
This next piece is, in my view one of Wernher Von Braun's low points. O.K. I know, he would have been killed by the Nazis had he not cooperated, he was trying to develop a method of rocket travel and payload delivery then the war starts and he and his chums are forced to make a terrible weapon, thankfully the slaves that the Nazis had to assemble them would sabotage as many of them as they could in a number of different and inventive ways, unfortunately for Britain they couldn't get them all and so the south of England did the duty of a catchers mit for German V2's...
The great man himself, shortly after the end of the war. We can all be thankful that he and his team surrendered to the allied forces and where not captured by the Russians and forced to work on their projects like so many of his contemporary scientists...
And now for the top bit of his masterpiece...
And now for the bottom bit...

So Von Braun and the Americans where trying to get to space on bloody great big rockets, here's what we Brits where getting up to...
For those of you who don't know what you're looking at, it's common name is the "flying bedstead". What it's code name was I have no idea, but it is the granddad of all vertical take off and landing aircraft.
Both the rocket and the bed had one thing in common, their pilots had nads of steel.

Now we go upstairs to see what's up there.

Does anyone remember this?
Anyone for toast?
On the right is something a little like my last cooker...
But what you have to ask yourself is, how many people is the person using the cooker on the left doing beans on toast for? That's a big pan and it's full to the brim for bobs sake!

And as for this lot, if a designer tried to sell any of these ideas he'd be locked up by the health and safety police, not for his own good but for everyone else's. The thing is there are some of you out there who can remember seeing something like this in their grandparents house when you where a kid...

As a refrigeration engineer I found this very interesting, sad I know...
And then I saw this and the health and safety part of me screamed in horror, this thing was actually used in homes! I once went on board the royal yacht Britania to do some maintenance and saw something a little like this in the engine room...

Ok not the bottom bit but the top bit where all the electricity comes in, it belongs in Frankenstien's lab for bobs sake.

We go down to the basement to get something to eat and drink, the girls O and C had something nice too...
It's about now that J says he has to go, things to do people to see, so he goes and the rest of us stay in the basement and rest our feet while we have a mini picnic, we stay here for about 30 mins and then head to the lifts to go up to the top floor, plan being to mooch around up there for a while and then to return back to I's and F's place.
When we get to the top floor I's phone rings and he answers it, it's J. There is a rather serious and subdued conversation. I turns to me and says that J said that we should head to the ground floor and to the entrance.
I'm way ahead of I on this one and I have a big suspicion what's in store for our happy little group and to me in particular and none of it is going to be any good.

The lift deposits us on the ground floor and we head for the entrance where I can see a LOT of police officers and most of them have guns, I now know for sure what this is all about and so taking a deep steadying breath I step up to the first armed officer I come to...
... and say,
"Good afternoon officer, I believe you've been looking for me."
He looks at me suspiciously and then turns to some of his chums and announces.
"I've got him!"
I now belong to London's SO19.
Now bearing in mind that I'm ex-military, I can't remember the last time I've seen so many guns all in one place and this time they're all for me, so to speak.

We get split up, well I get taken to one side and get told to take the bag off my back and place it on the floor. Next I get told to step away from the bag and keep my hands out to my side. Next I get told that you are about to be searched for weapons and get asked if I have on my person anything I shouldn't have, then I get patted down for weapons.

I must say that this is the first time I've had this done to me for real, lots of times when practising the skill in my old job. They where very professional, if a lot up their own arses.
They're now happy that I have no weapons on me and can now have a look in the bag happy in the knowledge that I can't pull a gun on them while they do. I'm still surrounded by some grim looking bobbies who are armed and I stand there, not making any sudden moves and watch as the police look thru' the bag.
which they broke...
...see the missing toggle?

At one point one of the two peelers going thru' the bag pulls out the silencer for the new gun...
...and turns to me with eyes the size of dinner plates and asks,
"Why do you need this?"
To which I reply,
"It's way more fun than paintball and a damn sight less messy"

Once SO19 where happy that the "guns" in my bag where indeed toys, they handed me over to the local police units. And so the questions begin (While this is happening I look over to I and F and to my horror/delight I is also being patted down for weapons, is nothing sacred), name, address, DOB, phone number, how long have you lived there? These questions where asked twice, once by the local lads and then by one of the SO19 blokes, all this was checked out over the radio, its called a PNC.
A Sargent then comes over and has a little chat with me, and explains why all this happened and if it wasn't for the receipts in the bag indicating that the gun in the box, the silencer, the bb's, the gas and the broken down Glock 23f(that had been checked) I would now be heading to cells for the offence of carrying weapons in public. He also said that it's not an offence to own or use them on private property but I mustn't carry them around with me (no shit Sherlock!). And now you're free to go.

Ah, I nearly forgot. There was an Oriental looking police officer among the group that where questioning I and when he found out what it was all about and what shop we had been to his face lit up and he said,
"Oh! {insert shop name here}, that's a great place. I got a great gun from there last week."
That proves that even "sane" people enjoy airsoft.

While all this was going on, everyone in the museum who could see what was going on, was using every type of phone and camera to record the event, all I could think of was,
"Just as long as I don't make it on to the evening news."

It seems that the police had been informed that three tall white men brandishing police warrant cards and carrying a rucksack full of guns had entered the museum and where walking around.

And now to tell you what I deliberately withheld from you dear reader.
We got to the museum and had to have a bag search before I could continue into the museum, as I step up to the table I inform the lady bag checker that I had just been shopping and that I have two toy guns in my bag, and I'm with two met officers, I and J show there cards for the good lady and she looks in the bag and says,
"O.K. in you go, just don't take them out of the bag."
Like I would, I may be foolish sometimes but I'm not a complete derrbrain.

What the woman should have done was turn me away or call her supervisor (who it turned out was ex-RN) and get him to make the decision.

So we go in and a little while later she thinks maybe that was wrong and presses the panic button, so to speak. And so my rucksack and bb guns trigger off a large terror alert in the centre of London, enough to have approx 8 ARU's (armed response units) and an ambulance turn up at the museum.

When the police got to the museum and started looking for us it's anyone's guess as to what description they where given, as we passed the searching offices three times without being challenged, it turned out that the police where looking for us for a little over 2 hours before I gave myself up.

Here's what they should have been looking for:-
Three tall white men in company with a dark haired tanned Italian woman pushing a bright orange pushchair and corralling two little blonde girls dressed in pink
This is how inconspicuous I was, I'm 6' 1" dressed in a black t-shirt and black jeans and carrying a small black rucksack on my back that has a big orange square patch on it facing out, I am sporting a freshly shaved scalp and a PURPLE goatee, with a blue and white stripped golfing umbrella.
And this is how invisible I was, a t-shirt that says "federal agent" on it and is wearing a baseball cap with the initials "N.C.I.S." on it and is walking with a stick.
And J, he's 6' 11"

Lessons where learned:-

1. The security staff need to use eyes, brains and good sense.
2. Don't carry anything gun shaped in the capital.
3. SO19 need regular eye checks.

6'1" in black, bald
PURPLE GOATEE

COME ON!

I tell you it's just been one of those days.

All the pictures of the police where pulled from the internet, as you can imagine I wasn't allowed to point anything at anyone for a while.

Next it's a trip to the Imperial War Museum, we'll let them supply the guns this time though.