Weekend-Monday Reportage

The weekend has been fairly eventful. I mean, I've had way more eventful ones, ones where an entire 2 litre bottle of Coke didn't magically disappear, but oh well.

As I'm sure some of you are aware, this weekend saw the final flight of the space shuttle Atlantis, closing a chapter on space travel, but opening another. Because I gush over space travel, I decided to tune into NASA's live feed of the event half an hour early. Got a few prolonged shots of the shuttle being prepared for flight, and some inspirational quotes thrown in for good measure.

As you can see, I was able to get a few good angles of the launch site, which looked needlessly complex, but what do I know, I'm not an astronaut.

Yesterday I decided to travel to town for two reasons; one, I needed to get my hair cut (a vast improvement from what it was before), and two, to visit one of my favourite places in Manchester; the Museum of Science and Industry.

Sitting in the hairdresser's waiting to be seen to, I was stared down by a poster for BEDHEAD products (do the same as the usual hair products but cost a fortune). I had a few minutes to kill so I thought why not?

At least she wasn't Photoshopped.

After leaving the hairdresser's, I made my way to MOSI, to do science. My first stop when I got there was the air and space hall, filled with vehicles and other nifty bits. The space section upstairs was closed though. Bummer.

Now what we have here is a Bristol 192 Belvedere HCI, built in 1961. At first I thought it was a Chinook, what with the way it looks EXACTLY LIKE ONE.

Flat out forgot the name of this plane, and the pilot(s). The only thing I remember about the one at the top is that he seemed to be doing Trollface (the "cool" kids on the internet will know what that is).
After leaving the air and space museum, feeling disappointed that I couldn't have drawn things like the Viking probes and whatnot, I made my way to the main building, where the disappointment only served to sink in deeper.

Dude.

There's nothing there any more. At least I couldn't get to it. It seems nearly every time I go there, large portions are closed off for refurbishment. Must just be my luck. The same with that Camelot fairground.

Anyway, there were still lots of engines there. Old engines. And text. And this man, whose name also escapes me.

Oh and also, there was a peculiar hang-gliding apparatus in the air and space museum I rather crudely sketched. Not my proudest of works so I made up for it by drawing a true man of science... uhh... that guy.

Leaving the museum, I spotted a multi-story car park, with a decent view of some of the city, so I sat up there for a bit and sketched this.

So there we have it, a trip out to town which, I have to say, could have been better. I was told there was an exhibition with skeletons etc on at MOSI too... which was closed. Brilliant.