Just as well I went to the Museum of Automata (hem hem), in La Rochelle this afternoon. We didn't know, we really didn't. We thought it would be full of quite serious bits of mechanical stuff, and old advertising and nicely made windy-uppy stuff. But it wasn't. "300 Animated People" it said on the sign outside. Not just people though. Oh no. Milkmaids milking cows (his tail moves as his eyes roll and she bleats a bit); glassy-eyed clowns with spinning heads; endless mechanical hedgehogs; ladypuppets drinking tea; monkeys pushing rats in carts; crosseyed flying fairies dressed in Christmas wrapping paper and a pig on a ladder. 
And Judge Judy.
And, um, Roy Hudd. (Not the Emu bloke, the other one. You know the one. Looks like this.)
The thing that's beginning to trouble me, though, is the apparent inability the French have to make sure that their 'models' (moving or not) have adequate facial hair. You may remember Genghis Khan from Day 35. One eyebrow. You know. That one. Look. Here's his bloody brother. Where's his beard gone? What's the matter with his eyebrows? Why does no-one care except me?I'm not even going to start on what happened when we went next door to the Museum of Tiny Models and saw a) the biggest model railway I have ever seen; b) the last 600 years of naval history re-enacted with the help of dry ice and models moving apparently independently through glassy water; c) a strange panel depicting Early Man, complete with a baby that waved even though it didn't have any hands. And that's without the bloody mechanical piano playing Simon and Garfunkel over and over again in the background. "Are you (plinky plink) going to (plinky plink) Scarborough Fair? (plinky plink?)" I am beginning to think that all of the French are on crack all of the time.
7 comments:
Genghis Khan looks like one of the terrorists from Team America: World Police. Hohahee.
A place like that would freak me out. I worry about those types of things coming alive.
I live in china and as i trot round the gob-smackingly bad diaramas of Revolutionary China (tissue paper fire! mouldy clothing! detaching pig tail!) its easy to forget how crap european museums and stately homes can be. Having said that, its still got a long way to go to beat the neolithic village in Xian, its a nightmare wrapped in a joke wrapped in paper mache.
please stay unemployed, i'm enjoying your blog.
I'm starting to get a feel for your travel interests. If you go by Chinon, there's a "Musée Animé du Vin" that I think you'd much enjoy - haven't had the wherewithal to go myself, but I'm sure it is replete with partially hairless winemakers.
In a previous post, you said this:
"Me: (want to say The Moon) GOOD GOD, no. Brixton. (Same as Streatham, but has public transport and more middle class"
Middle class..? Brixton..? Did he get the sarcasm there? I do hope you were joking, otherwise, who are you trying to kid!?! ;-)
No no, I think I said 'full of more middle class wankers like me who read the Guardian'. I didn't SAY it to her, I was thinking it. In my head. What I SAID was: good god, no. Brixton.
Or something.
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