Parliament and the Games Exhibition YAWN
Parliament and the Games is an exhibition that is currently taking place at Westminster Hall until the 28th of August and after visiting it today, I found it to be a bit of a bore. In fact it was a huge bore and almost a complete waste of my time.
I arrived at the Houses of Parliament at around 12.30pm this afternoon and fortunately the queue wasn’t too big, which was a bonus. When I did the Palace of Westminster tour earlier on this year the queue was a nightmare and took around 60 minutes. Today a mere 20 minutes and I was thorough the security checks and inside Westminster Hall, ready to check out the Parliament and the Games exhibition.
The exhibition took me about 15 minutes to look at the various Olympic pieces of memorabilia, models of some of the venues and read every single word of information. It took me 15 whole minutes and believe me I was taking my time…the queue took me 20 minutes to get in and the exhibition took me 15 minutes…they are having a laugh!
The highlight of the Parliament and the Games exhibition was a 1948 Olympic Torch and a pair of running shoes worn by Sebastian Coe at the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games. And that’s it folks. Not a lot to get excited over, unless your some sort of wackjob that has a fetish over old pairs of Seb Coe running shoes!
Even though the exhibition was free, I still felt short changed, so I wandered around the magnificent Westminster Hall soaking up the history of the place for 15 minutes or so, which was a hell of lot better than the exhibition that I wished I hadn’t bothered going to see.
I read a funny quote at the exhibition. During the 1948 London Olympic games food rationing was still in place following World War II and British athletes were entitled to the same extra rations as those working in heavy industry. When asked in the House of Commons if British athletes would be allowed extra rations for the games, John Strachey, Minister for Food responded ‘Like anyone else, our own athletes can go to a restaurant as often as they wish.’ I find it funny because I’m pretty sure that John Strachey being a politician probably was eating out most nights of the week and I bet he wasn’t paying the tab!
Parliament and the Games
Enter Via Cromwell Green Visitor Entrance
Entry is Free
Until the 28 August
Monday to Saturday: 10am – 5pm (last entry at 4.30pm)
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