Thursday 25 February 2010

Rocking the Silent Disco

A queue snaked around the side of the Science Museum last night. We stood under umbrellas, chatting happily as the night darkened around us and the rain steadily fell with ever increasing drips. An organiser in a fluorescent yellow coat came around and pressed a candy whistle into our (sadly eager) hands. Tonight we were the children at the adults-only Science Museum Lates, although the few self-conscious toots from the whistles indicated that shaking off the grown up mantle takes a while.

Like until you see the first button on an interactive display.

It is funny how some things never change. As a child fuelled by the excitement of a school outing, I used to run around pressing buttons. As an adult fuelled by wine, my attention span is exactly the same as it ever was.

Me: ‘Ooo button!’ *stabs button*
Good friend R: ‘What does it do?’
Me: ‘Dunno. Lights up that bulb.’ *stabs button again*
Both of us: Give printed text a second’s cursory glance, spot the word ‘bulb’. Glance around for next exhibit.
R: ‘This one has a button as well!’
We scurry off.

It was ever so much fun to be let loose in the science museum, especially with alcohol! We sat on the floor and did a brass rubbing, and then tried to complete a sound-trail quiz which satisfied my love of social history – look, a Rubik’s Cube! An old typewriter! The first computer! Memorex cassette tapes!

We made magnets float, tried to wire a circuit board, played with magnetised steel discs, and whirled a few dials to see what happened (stuff lights up!). I learnt some highly important scientific stuff, such as… um… and then we decided it was high time to check out the silent disco.

Held on the ground floor, it had two DJs – not that anyone walking past could hear any music. But the people busting moves while listening to headsets certainly could, they were dancing and twirling – all in supposed silence to the passer-by. On being presented with a headset, me and good friend R started off rather self-consciously at first as we threaded our way into the crowd. There were lots of pulling off the headphones and ‘isn’t this weird’ delighted conversation at each other – and then the DJ played Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ and the dance floor (silently) erupted! So much fun – after that we were rocking with the best of them. Bring on the silent discos!

Even better, all this is completely free! I love London sometimes.

6 comments:

Katie Anderson said...

Two of my friends were twittering about this disco last night, and I was pretty jealous. Reading this, I'm even more jealous!
Why oh why did I fall in love with a Glaswegian rather than a Londoner?!

Katie

Fran Hill said...

Oh wow. That sounds like the most fabulous evening out. I'm definitely going to look this up next time I'm in London.

Rose said...

Wow that sounds amazing! MJ always gets the party started ;-)

Happy weekend

Kit Courteney said...

Just caught up on your last 3 posts. Jeez you're good.

I know you have this crisis of confidence thing at times, but you genuinely inspire me.

(Read your mail yesterday but hotmail is playing up yet again. Most frustrating as I've got 'time' to reply today!!)

Jayne said...

Hi Katie! Oh but you're in love, and Glasgow is lovely - good compensations! And recreating a silent disco isn't amazingly difficult I think. ;)

Hi Fran! Do check it out, I think each month they have a different theme, for March it is apparently geo-engineering. Hm... I had to go look up what that meant. *blushes, feels thick*

Jayne said...

Hi Rose! It was good - well worth a visit. :)

~~~~

Hi Kit! Aw thank you. I do have an awful crisis of confidence thang going on... wish I didn't. But it is so lovely to hear I inspire you. Funnily enough a few people have said that over the years to me - it's a nice thing to be able to somehow do!