AIBU to ask if you've been to the Keswick Pencil Museum?

[BlooferLady]

Oh! Oh! I am HOWLING with laughter!

They have the most fantastic website - it's priceless, I can't see through my tears -

From 'Plan Your Visit' - "Explore the museum before you come and discover all the great things to see and do. You can journey through the history of pencils and pencil making!"

It's only a tenner for a family ticket but for £15 you can visit the bungalow museum as many times as you like during the year!

And the cafe is called SKETCHERS!!!!!

And there's a genuinely spine-chilling wax doll stuck helplessly in a cavern underground - WTF is he doing, mining for those erasers you stick on the end???

Reassuringly, they can take large numbers, and there's a Drawing Zone where you can get hands-on with the pencils

Oh Lord I'm laughing so hard I've nearly thrown up my prawns - surely some MNetter has been there? Is it as AWESOME as it looks?!

Right, I'm off to CW to stalk reacquaint myself with it all.

But what counts as being a Good Girl if that is the nature of Heaven? I am picturing the twin children from The Shining, silently embalming a mewling, still-living six-headed kitten.

Sounds good to me. After all I am the Bloofer Lady, who spends her nights prowling the dark parks of Hampstead eating small children. And it wouldn't take me long to run up a creepy blue chiffon party dress on the old Singer...

RIGHT. Now kindly desist with the eccentric charm on this thread. I have a thesis that isn't writing itself. I'll be back to see if anyone has any recommendations for bonkers attractions in Norwich, which is my next city-break destination, because that's just how I roll.

My home town has a lawnmower museum. When we visited the owner was so excited that people had come that he let us sit on all the ride on mowers, and treated us to a long monologue about lawnmowers. It was actually quite fun, if possibly the strangest place I've ever been, and they have a letter from Brian May that accompanies his old lawnmower. :-)

Oh yes of course. I had forgotten that and didn't get your name. So, whilst "garlic up the bum" is allegedly a protective against me, garlic round the neck defends against your parasitism.

We could write reviews of each attraction. 5 pebble award for best fudge, photo opportunity, themed gift...
Maybe we can ask the designer of the pencil museum's website?

I have not had the pleasure of the Pencil Museum, sounds excellent though. Most of my weird museum visting came pre-DH, and I don't think I'll be able to talk him into that one.

My favourite UK one is Cornish Witchcraft

And why has no-one mentioned the Amsterdam Sex Museum? I know it's not a family attraction, but it's v. good value for money. You come out feeling like you've been looking at a penis shaped lightbulb, the shape stays in front of your eyes for ages.

Penis

I'd go if I was in the area! But then I like crazy eccentric museums. Think the OP is being incredibly patronising and a bit short-sighted, TBH.

The pencil museum is probably in Keswick because of the long history of British watercolourists and, um, pencil-users in the Lake District. Derwent pencils are probably some of the best professional pencils in the world. I like art, and I like drawing with Derwent pencils, and I like finding out how mundane things are made, so therefore I'd probably enjoy this. (I wouldn't drag the DC round, though! )

Virgowoo we drove up to Amsterdam a couple of weeks ago. DD wanted to go into that museum. We said no. We are bad parents.
The most bizarre museum I've ever been to is in Bangkok. It is in a hospital where I was offered the chance to watch a post mortem with a monk. I declined.
The museum itself is full of really odd stuff. There is a man who was hung and now stands in a cuboard with his feet in a roasting tin (he is still oozing), there are umpteen conjoined twins, parasites in glass jars, organs in jars, photos of suicide victims and a peculiar diorama of a man with elephantosis actually sitting on his bollocks.

Oh that must be Numberwang! kreecher. The absolutely best possible museum. Nothing beats oozing and a diseased man sitting on his bollocks for a rainy Sunday afternoon trawlabout.

www.bangkok-photos.com/bangkok-museums.htm
Is that a good thing threadworm? i believe there were a number of your kind there too.
One of the strangest (and saddest) parts to this place were the number of small children (2 upward) who were there. Part of the type of Buddhism practiced in Thailand is reflecting on death, but still

Sorry, the link should have taken you straight to the one I am describing. In the thing, it is quite clear which one it is.
Another odd museum is in Billericay high street. You can spend literally three minutes there. It is free though.

I've been to the Pencil Museum, I've also endured the Shoe Museum and assorted other piles of shite I've been dragged to on school trips.

Jorvik always struck me, even as a kid, as being incredibly crap and of note - you queued for like months to sit on a glorified dodgem, watch lots of bad papier mache figures and then came out the other end... was never impressed with it.

I LOVE these kind of museums. Germany has loads of them too. I think it's anywhere with lots of rain. I used to collect leaflets for museums like this in my rain jacket pocket. My favourite is the Museum of Soup in East Germany
www.suppenmuseum.de
Also have leaflets for marzipan world a beret museum.

I remember the stuffed kittens museum vividly even though I must have seen it about 40 years ago

YABU for not having heard of Keswick and knowing it's a lovely place. Get yourself up to the Borrowdale Valley, bring a tent before you start skitting a quaint little museum.

I believe the Museum of Soup has now gone into liquidation.

Please develop a sense of humour, adamschic. This is a happy, jolly thread which is in fact celebrating the delightful wackiness of museums who may be passionate about small things, obscure things.

Godammit I knew there was a soup museum pun just begging to be made but I didn't spot it. Though in fairness to me, my mental imagary of museum-related fluidity has been a bit off-key since the oozing-into-the-roasting-tin display.

We used to have a Buoy Museum and a Pilchard Museum. They have shut down now. I cannot imagine why :(.

Pilchards? Glad they closed it down. Sounds a bit fishy to me...

Whoever floated the idea of the bouy museum must have thought it would be an ideal way of keeping hassled parents' heads above water when their children are demanding entertainment. You leave the place feeling lighter, more on top of things.

Fuck, you guys are good.
I'm shit at puns

BADDDDOOOOOOM TUSHSHSHSHSHSH!!

I know. It was sad about the Buoy Museum - the market for it deflated.

I can't remember what exactly we did/saw. I just remember I really enjoyed myself and still have a 'pencil museum' pencil.

Oh yeah - I had my picture taken next to the giant pencil.

FinallySpring on that note, we have a snuff museum in the town. Snuff in the old fashioned sense - the stuff you sniff, its still pretty popular round here (Bavaria).