Hi everyone and welcome back to Britain under the Microscope. Hello, Anlan.

Hi, Lulu. Hi, everyone.

We've talked about eccentric quirky things, topics, kind of got into that. Shall we do one more episode about it?

Yeah, I was actually thinking the same thing as well. As you know, I come from London. Today I'd like to talk a little bit about some of the unusual museums of London. So I know that you’d lived in London for some time. What museums did you go to?

I go to the British Museum and also the National Gallery. There's some amazing exhibition going on.

You probably haven't actually been to some of these museums then.

What museums?

The first one is the Old Operating Theater.

Old operating theater. Isn’t it like a theatre for shows, plays?

No, it's an operating theater. It's where operations, surgery used to take place.

So hospital?

Kind of yes, kind of not. There's a church in South London called St. Thomas 's. So St. Thomas’s hospital is still there. It's a very famous hospital. And this old operating theatre was in the attic of the church. So you would have the operating table in the center and all around it, you would have seating for students and also paying visitors.

Hang on a minute, I know for a fact that when students are learning, if it's a teaching hospital, even nowadays they are allowed to watch some more experienced surgeons operating, but paying customers?

Yes.

So by that logic, if I paid for the ticket price, I could go in and watch people getting operated on?

Yeah, absolutely. This whole operating theater was forgotten about and they only found it again in the 1950s. It was completely intact. Someone basically just boarded it up, closed the door, covered it up and left it.

Please don't tell me they still could see the blood on the table.

No no. There were still some of the equipment inside.

WOW. Is that why in English, these手术室are called operating theatres?

Yes, because people would go to watch.

Students go to watch to learn and people like other paying customers just went there for fun?

Pretty much.

Ok, definitely eccentric.

The next museum I’d like to talk about is the Clink Prison Museum.

The Clink Prison Museum. Is Clink the name?

The Clink is the name. And the museum is close to what used to be one of the most infamous prisons in British history.

Is it because the most notorious criminals were held there?

No, it was notorious because it was one of the worst prisons. Most people were in prison there for debt.

Debt, like they owed money.

Yeah.

Ok, not huge crimes.

No, but it was quite common crime back then if you were in debt and you couldn't pay it back then you were put into prison. And this place was so notoriously bad and filthy and horrible. That is now actually part of British slang to say: to be thrown in the Clink actually means to go to prison.

Because it was so bad. Now it’s part of the language.

Yes. The reason for that was the jailers weren't paid very well. So prisoners had to pay for their own food, their own heating, their own clothes.

It's gotta be like the worst hotel you stay in.

Pretty much. If you were poor, then there's not much you could do. You probably die. If you were quite rich, you could even pay to have lighter chains or no chains.

So it's also very corrupted.

Very, very corrupt. And it was very sadistic. Lots of prisoners were often whipped as a punishment.

Or probably just for the fun of the jailers.

And the people that went to go and watch, same as the operating theatre.

Actually, there's one thing that I always find quite funny in English. It’s you have jail. You have prison. They are both places that hold people, right? But prisoner means the people being held. Jailer means the ones that are watching the jails.

That's true. That's correct.

And it's not still a prison.

No No No. The actual original prison was burnt down in a riot in the 1780s.

To be expected.

Yeah, this museum is actually quite recent, but you can go in and see how prisoners were kept, the conditions that they were put in. It's a really interesting, quite gruesome museum.

But those type of museums and attractions are getting quite popular, the gruesome ones比较猎奇, 像暗黑系的这种.

Yeah, for example you have the London dungeon as well, which is quite similar.

I’ve been to the London Dungeon. Alright, can we have a slightly more light-hearted because operating theatre cutting people open, and then the jail.

Let's go to something a little bit nicer. Let's talk about the Museum of Childhood.

Museum of childhood. Never heard of that.

It's actually part of the more famous Victoria and Albert Museum, but this museum is dedicated to everything related to childhood, clothes, pictures and especially toys.

So it's kind of like a childhood memory, like the best memories of childhood that sort of thing.

It has thousands of dolls and over 1, 000 action figures.

Sounds like a very nice place.

That's not the best bit. I's free to visit but for only ￡40, you can stay overnight in the museum and play games.

You can play with the toys?

You can play with some of the toys not the really expensive, rare ones.

That must be a dream come true for a lot of kids.

And also adults as well, a lot of adults would go there.

To go back to your childhood and just have one-night real fun without worrying about the reality.

Exactly. I thought after that we can finish off by talking about a museum that I know you definitely have been to -- the Sherlock Holmes Museum.

You know I have. We've talked about Sherlock Holmes before. I'm a huge, huge Sherlock Holmes’s fan. I’ve been to that museum actually more than once. I would say that is definitely an eccentric museum because if you think about it, Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character. They made a museum about someone who is essentially never existed.

Exactly. Probably the only museum in the world dedicated to someone who doesn't actually exist. It's also one of the newest museums, it only opened in 1990. And as you know, it's designed to look like Sherlock Holmes his flat.

221B Baker Street, although it's not 221B, is it?

No, the museum is 239 Baker Street.

Is there an actual 221B?

It used to be part of a bank. I think now it's an insurance company.

I see.

But we talked about at last time that 221 Baker Street still actually gets mail.

That's so sweet. But for Sherlock Holmes’s fan, definitely go and visit if you in the future get a chance to go to London. You can get a great picture taken in front of the house, in front of the museum, because there is a copper, there is a policeman dressed up in the period costume like the policeman you would have seen described in Sherlock Holmes novels.

Yeah, the only thing that it is not a cheap museum though. It's about￡15 per person to go and visit.

And it's a very small museum.

Vey, very, very tiny you can see it in about maybe 20 minutes at most.

Actually they aren't that many interesting pieces in the museum. There aren't a lot of like exhibition because he never existed.

How can you show exhibits of someone that never existed.

Exactly. It's not really like, look, these are the toothbrushes that Sherlock Holmes used.

Exactly. You can't do that.

But one great thing you can do in that museum is you can sit by his desk and then write down your name or write something down and then have your friends or take a selfie of yourself.

It's more a place to go to take a selfie, I would say, post on your moments.

Definitely, definitely, but they do have a great museum shop that you can buy lots of Sherlock Holmes’s themed things, books and also like notebooks and all these souvenirs.

I think we will finish off there for today. But if there are any interesting museums that you have been to maybe in London or anywhere else in the world or even in China that were a little bit quirky, let us know in the comment section.

Yeah, we would love to see some of your recommendations.

See you next time.

See you.

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