National Museums Liverpool Blog - Karen

More on the progress of this reconstruction project from Kathy Wedge (here's the background to the project in case you've missed previous instalments), plus progress snaps on Flickr.

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The finished clay sculpting has now been approved by Liverpool City Council, but that is only part of the story. We now have to produce the actual foundry cast bronze reliefs from these clay sculptures.

The clay panels which as previously mentioned are very heavy were loaded onto a van using a hoist and fork lift truck and taken to a fine art foundry.  The panels are being cast using the ‘lost wax’ method of casting. This involves a thin layer of silicone rubber being painted over the clay models which defines the detail of the sculpting, further thicker layers of silicone are then applied until an accurate mould is produced. But of course  silicone rubber is not rigid, so a plaster jacket to hold the rubber stable and reduce the risk of distortion also has to be made.

Once this mould and jacket have been produced, wax is painted into the mould to form a wax model. The mould is taken off leaving a hollow wax sculpture which is cleaned and the detail checked for imperfections. The hollow wax sculpture is cut into sections for ease of casting, particularly where there are extending features, and wax sprues are added to the sections of the wax model, that will act as air vents when the wax melts at the casting stage.

The pieces of the hollow wax model are the dipped several times into a ceramic mixture which form ceramic shell around the sections which are strong enough to withstand the high pressures and thermal shock of the molten metal used in the casting.

The molten bronze is poured into the shell via a cupped sprue or air vent and as it is poured the wax melts running out of the air vents leaving the bronze casting encased in the ceramic shell.

The ceramic shells are broken off the bronze castings and the sections are welded together very carefully, and polished so that the joins cannot be seen. That is the end of the actual casting process but not the end of the story. More about the rest of the process in our next post.

Ashley Cooke on the mummies in the new Ancient Egypt gallery.

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The museum has about 60 animal mummies of various kinds, from crocodiles to dogs. In the new Ancient Egypt gallery there will be eight animal mummies on display in a showcase dedicated to animals. One of the mummies appears to be that of a very young lamb (museum accession number M13648). It was given as a gift to the museum in 1867 by the jeweller and antiquarian, Joseph Mayer. The intricate pattern of the bandages suggests it is of the Roman period (about 30 BC - AD 200). The National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden has 3 similar mummies that have been X-rayed and proven to contain the bones of very young lambs. We decided to X-ray our mummy to confirm the identification and the mummy's association with the god Khnumn, who is often depicted with a ram's head. We used the digital X-ray machine within the Reveal exhibition gallery at National Conservation Centre. We are now examining the results with the assistance of other colleagues.
 
But why was this little lamb killed and mummified? From the 26th Dynasty and on into the Roman Period (about 664 BC - AD 395) animals would be mummified en masse at cult centres for gods that were associated with animals. One such site was the temple at Bubastis which was sacred to the goddess Bastet. Bastet was often depicted in the form of a cat and pilgrims would purchase mummified cats so that they could make a votive offering (a gift) to the goddess.
 
Hundreds of thousands of cat mummies have been found in catacombs in Egypt. In 1890 about 9 tons of cat mummies from a catacomb at the cemetery of Beni Hasan were shipped into the port of Liverpool. They were sold off by the ton to be used as fertilizer. Bidding started at £3 per ton and gradually advanced to £5 17s 6. Thankfully this no longer happens!  If you'd like to learn more about animal mummies and how you could help care for the largest collection of animals mummies in the world visit the Egyptian Museum's 'Animal Mummies' website.

We're cutting it a bit fine with the August 'name that object' competition, but are launching it on Tuesday 26th August (so the final clue will be on Saturday 30th). The prize this month is this fab but vaguely surreal set of Beatles figures. I say surreal because, as you may have noticed, there's a crocodile on stage with them.  The figures are 'straight from the classic Beatles cartoon series' that launched in the US in 1965, and apparently the croc featured in the series. The mind boggles.

Anyhoo, should you wish to give the Fab Four and their crocodilian friend a home you first need to name the object from our collection. It's an artwork, with a new detail being revealed each day for five days. Enter using the link on the competition page.

Should you fail to win I'm reliably informed that you can buy these sets in the World Museum Liverpool giftshop where they are on sale as part of the The Beat Goes On exhibition.

This morning I saw an article on the BBC site on the megalodon - a giant prehistoric shark - and the strength of its bite. It seems its jaws exerted something between 10.8 and 18.2 tonnes of pressure as it bit down which is pretty impressive for an animal that had a cartilege jaw.

It reminded me of a quiz we did a good few years ago now where a fossilised megalodon tooth was one of our exhibits (the quiz is here if you want a go, or just skip to the megalodon bit and see the tooth). It was pretty awesome handling that tooth.

Something that did strike a chord in the article was the bit about your average house cat. Apparently pound for pound the cat has the stronger bite, which if you've ever tried to push a pill down your cat's throat you'll know full well.

You might remember a while ago I mentioned a rather large painting that was about to undergo conservation, 'Flower Sellers of London'. A few people commented on it, thought it was an interesting piece. Conservation work has now begun and painting conservator, Rebecca Kench, has the latest.

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The painting came into the Conservation Centre for treatment at the end of last year. It's been in need of treatment for a while and we have finally been able to fit it into our schedule.  The painting was bought from the artist shortly after it was painted in 1875 by Henry Thompson. He gave it to the Walker in 1880.  "The Flower Sellers" is painted on canvas attached to a stretcher and the figures are a little larger than life size.  Treating this painting presents me with several problems. Firstly I need to deal with anything which could lead to paint loss. When the painting arrived in the studio, the paint was flaking and needed to be consolidated, or reattached, to the canvas.  This mainly affected the area of the flowers where there is damaged and broken impasto (thick brush strokes of paint), and old paint losses down to the canvas.   Although this area has been consolidated (stuck back down to the canvas) in the past, there are still some areas which are loose and fragile.  In order to fix this, I laid the painting flat on a table, with a support behind the canvas, and any flaking areas of the painting were laid flat and consolidated using a water based fish glue.

You might have seen that we're currently preparing for the opening of the new Egypt gallery in December, however the antiquities team are also working with some of the Near Eastern collections. Ashley Cooke has more.

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For the past few years the museum has been receiving visits from Semitic scholar Dr Eric Cripps. Eric is producing a new edition of some forty-five cuneiform tablets from the Old Akkadian period (2210 BC), held in the Near Eastern  antiquities collection at World Museum. These tablets are over 4000 years old and were excavated in Iraq and purchased by the Honourable Arnold Keppel, 8th Earl of Albemarle, who was a Member of Parliament for Birkenhead. The museum purchased the collection in 1956.

The cuneiform script was invented in the fourth millennium BC. Cuneiform is a wedge-shaped script that was developed by Mesopotamian cultures. Mesopotamia is the area  located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, that now incorporates Iraq and parts of Iran, Syria and Turkey.

The museum has about 335 cuneiform tablets which is a sizeable amount for a museum outside of London. One tablet dates to the Early Dynastic Period (about 2900 - 2350 BC), 47 to the Akkadian Dynasty (about 2350 - 2150 BC) and over 200 to the Third Dynasty of Ur (2100 - 2000 BC). The Near East collection also includes other objects such as bricks and cones with cuneiform inscriptions. Eric's new edition of the Akkadian Dynasty tablets will provide hand drawn copies of each accompanied by transliterations, appropriate translations and full cataloguing. Eric's new edition should be published next year and will make a valuable contribution to Mesopotamian archaeology.

Ashley Cooke

You may well have seen that the Tall Ships visited Liverpool over the weekend. I paid a visit to Wellington Dock on Friday evening while there was still room to swing a cat, but missed the Parade of Sail on Monday as I was here in work (boo!) Luckily (and lucky) other staff saw it though and took plenty of fab snaps. There's a selection on our flickr page (the slide show is here), taken from the old pilot's platform at the Pilotage on Liverpool's waterfront, including this one of a helicopter over the Brazilian entry with Cammell Laird's in the background.

Sorry to those of you who won't have seen the answer to July's Name That Object competition - slight technical hitch. The answer was 'Waiting for Legal Advice' by James Campbell, and the winner of the exhibition catalogue was A Porter of Liverpool. Another competition and another prize next month.

Basically, we need you to help us to help you. We're developing a new feature for our main site and need to understand how teachers - one of our biggest user groups - would use the system.

We've got well over a million objects in our care, ranging from microscoping plants to ships. Of these collections we currently have about 1,500 objects on our website but want to increase this number substantially. We also want to make our collections more easily searched and to provide much more in depth information, so are creating a single, comprehensive online collections system. We already know that teachers use our website in their work and want the new system to meet their needs as closely as possible.

The questionnaire, which you will find here http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/57097/online-collections, basically asks teachers how they are currently using the site and what features they would like to see. We've given you a bit of a shopping list to chose from plus the option to mention anything we've missed. There are eight questions which should take about 5 minutes. Any feedback teachers, or other learning professionals, could give will help us enormously and will in turn allow us to support you as best we can. I realise we're right at the end of term so any feedback would be doubly welcome.

Any questions just email me using the link below this post.

Plenty to look at here.

On our Flickr page there's a series of snaps from the build including some interesting angles that were recently taken. There's also a new group we've set up of public pictures of the build. Lots of nice sunrises there. Will be adding more to both of these shortly.

And on the Liverpool Echo website Samantha Parker presents the fourth of her video progress reports from the site.

We're getting to the business end of the John Moores competition process - judging the paintings that made it through the first round and picking a winner from them. Chair of the judges and director of art galleries, Reyahn King, has the latest.

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Paintings have been arriving from depots all over the UK to our judging venue in Liverpool over the last few weeks. Jurors arrive in the city tomorrow and I am rushing to get back to Liverpool in time myself after a trip to London. Two of our jurors, Jake and Dinos Chapman, have an exhibition on at White Cube which I went to see today - painful and painstaking revisitings of Hell - and appropriately enough new paintings. Their paintings are literal comments upon old bad paintings so I fully expect them to be tough critics in front of all the competition entries tomorrow.

If you're in Liverpool you won't have failed to have noticed that there's been a veritable fall of Superlambananas around town the past few days (apparently 'fall' is the collective noun for lambs). That includes our own colourful trio. Just been sent this snap of the Cloudorama at the Lady Lever being lifted into place outside the gallery. Thankfully the 'fall' noun wasn't appropriate to the operation and it made it to the ground in one piece.

Next Tuesday Radio 4's Making History programme features an interview with Sharon Brown, NML’s curator of land, transport and industry. Sharon will be talking about our overhead railway carriage, which is currently undergoing conservation work. Listen out on Tuesday 17 June at 3pm, or 'listen again' over the following week.

There's just a few days left to submit your application for one of the 10 Creative Apprenticeships on offer. A number of Merseyside-based cultural organisations, including National Museums Liverpool, are involved in a project to foster emerging talent and give young hopefuls a solid grounding in the arts and culture industry.

By the end of the year-long apprenticeship you'll have earned a Level 2 Certificate in Creative and Cultural Practice, and a Level 2 National Award in Community Arts Management, but perhaps more importantly you'll have developed the skills and contacts you'll need for a career in the industry.

More details are available on the Creative Partnerships Liverpool website.

Claire Olson summarises National Volunteers Week, and thanks all the willing souls who help out here.

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Last week the Volunteers Team were out and about at different venues and events in the North West promoting volunteering opportunities at NML.

During the week we met with lots of people who are keen ‘volunteers in the making’ and eager to find out more. We also received lots of positive feedback about our museums, with many families telling us how much they enjoyed visiting! We also welcomed the launch of Mersey v’s; our new Young Persons' Steering Group, who will be championing volunteering across NML.

National Volunteers Week may only come once a year, but we would like to take this opportunity to thank our volunteers for all their support and hard work throughout the whole year – their positive involvement is much appreciated – as acknowledged by our director, Dr David Fleming:

“I have nothing but praise for volunteers, who devote their own time to helping make museums more popular and accessible. Volunteer effort is often overlooked, but without volunteers most museums would provide an immeasurably poorer public service.”

If you wish to find out more about becoming a volunteer at NML please contact the Volunteer Team on 0151 478 4775 or volunteerenquiries@liverpoolmuseums.org.uk and keep an eye on the blog for more volunteer updates coming soon!

The answer to last week's Name That Object competition was Salem by Sidney Curnow Vosper which hangs in the Lady Lever Art Gallery. Coincidentally, this year sees the centenary of the painting, and this weekend S4C is showing a programme on the painting. It will be broadcast at 8.30pm on Sunday 15 June (in Welsh with English subtitles).

If you don't know the painting it's really quite a strange piece but one which, I'm told, has hung in many a Welsh home after Lord Leverhulme bought the original and then gave away prints with his soap. It's said to show the Devil's face in the folds of the shawl of the central character, Siân Owen. There's more on the programme on the icWales website.

In this week's final post Amina tells us why she enjoys her volunteer role in assisting our Trading staff on the information desk at World Museum Liverpool. Amina is one of our vinvolved youth volunteers - she may even have welcomed you to the museum on your visit!

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Day 5: Amina

Hi, my name is Amina. I am a volunteer at World Museum Liverpool. I have been taking part for over a month now. I love working here because I learn new skills and enjoy working together with the staff. They are friendly, helpful and kind. They always have a smile that lifts up my day.

I would recommend everyone to get involved, you will love it! I know I have and it has changed my life.

If you want to find out more about volunteering at National Museums Liverpool, please contact the Volunteers Team: volunteerenquiries@liverpoolmuseums.org.uk or 0151 478 4775

Or for more news on youth volunteering opportunities (aged 16 – 25), please contact vinvolved@liverpoolmuseums.org.uk or 0151 478 4017.

For more information about ‘v, the youth volunteering charity’ and for local volunteering opportunities to match your interests and passions, visit www.vinspired.com

In today's volunteer's tale, Margaret describes the various volunteer opportunities she has enjoyed during her 3 years with NML.

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Day 4: Margaret

I became a volunteer with NML nearly three years ago, when I started my degree course in History of Art and Museum Studies at Liverpool John Moores University, and I love it! To begin with I worked in the staff library, tidying and sorting books and journals, cataloguing and generally looking after the library. After a while I also started helping the Manager of the National Conservation Centre in the office – admin duties such as answering emails and phone queries, using a database to log work, ordering stationery, filing and so on. Every week there is something new and interesting to deal with, from assisting with the delivery of exotic items to be quarantined in the Conservation Centre freezers, to helping design a poster to advertise a series of Sunday dances in the Conservation Centre café.

I found that the volunteering experience was very relevant and beneficial to my degree course and it enhanced an internship module which was part of my second year.  I’m now also helping the art handling team with the John Moores 25 Exhibition which is really exciting. Apart from the pleasure of seeing the competition entries close up I am learning how to handle and transport paintings, which again will give me invaluable practical experience.

Volunteering at NML is a great way to find out more about how galleries and museums really work and what goes on behind the scenes. 

If you want to find out more about volunteering at National Museums Liverpool, please contact the Volunteers Team: volunteerenquiries@liverpoolmuseums.org.uk or 0151 478 4775

Today, as part of National Volunteers week, Adam explains his volunteer role within the Weston Discovery Centre at World Museum Liverpool. Adam originally contacted the Volunteer Team to arrange a work placement for his university course, however he has enjoyed his time here so much he has stayed on as a volunteer.

Day 3: Adam
I started volunteering at National Museums Liverpool in January 2008. As a student at John Moores University, I completed a work placement in the Weston Discovery Centre in World Museum Liverpool. After finishing my placement I really wanted to continue to volunteer my time in the Discovery Centre. Since working in the museum I have discovered a love for Palaeoanthroplogy and in particular human evolution. I have been able to develop my own ideas and at the moment I am developing a Key Stage 4 school session in human evolution. In order to do this I have spent time researching the topic and working with museum curators. My background is in Art History and Museums Studies but since volunteering in the museum and finding a new passion I have now decided to work towards a Masters degree in Archaeology.

If you want to find out more about volunteering at National Museums Liverpool, please contact the Volunteers Team: volunteerenquiries@liverpoolmuseums.org.uk or 0151 478 4775

Each day this week to celebrate National Volunteers Week we will be handing the blog over to our fabulous volunteers, as they tell us about their different volunteer roles at NML. Today, Gerard tells us about his volunteer role within our Office Services department.

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Day 2: Gerard

My name is Gerard and I have been working at NML for four weeks on a volunteer work placement. I am working in the Typing and Office Services department and also in the post room. I have learned many new skills and tasks and have met a lot of new colleagues. Everyone has made me feel very welcome and I hope to set a good example for future volunteers.

If you want to find out more about volunteering at National Museums Liverpool, please contact the Volunteers Team: volunteerenquiries@liverpoolmuseums.org.uk or 0151 478 4775

Each day this week we will be handing the blog over to our fabulous volunteers as they tell us about their different volunteer roles at NML.

Today, Harriet talks us through her time volunteering on the Ben Johnson residency earlier this year at the Walker Art Gallery. Harriet is also a member of Mersey v’s.

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Day 1: Harriet

Volunteering on the Ben Johnson Cityscape project was a real privilege.  I was lucky enough to get to engage with the visitors and also work with Ben and the team on the practical side. As I talked to the public about the piece I met some brilliant characters with lots of interesting tales to tell about their city. I thoroughly enjoyed being able to do the hands on part too; I will always be able to point out which little bit I helped make the stencils for or try to guess where the paint I mixed was used!

Youth volunteer officer, Claire Olson, reports on the first meeting of the young volunteers group

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To really get National Volunteers Week off to an exciting start, our new Young Persons Steering Group met for the first time yesterday at World Museum Liverpool.

The founding five members are all aged 16-25 and whilst some have volunteered before, for others volunteering is a brand new experience!

The group talked about their interests and why they want to be involved with the v-involved Youth Volunteering programme at NML. They also toured World Museum Liverpool to think about existing and future volunteering opportunities that could be developed. We will be keeping the blog posted on any new developments.

Breaking News: 'Mersey v’s', it is!

Most importantly, the group now have a less formal name than Young Persons Steering Group, having unanimously chosen as their new name: Mersey v’s. The v standing for ‘volunteer’ and also a nod to ‘v, the youth volunteering charity’ who have funded the 3 year youth volunteering programme at NML.

Mersey v’s will meet once a month to champion the v-involved Youth Volunteering programme across NML; meeting with staff to develop new ideas and projects and also visiting other museums to meet with their volunteers.

If you are aged 16-25 and would like to find out more about youth volunteering and v-involved at National Museums Liverpool, or how you can become a member of Mersey v’s, please contact vinvolved@liverpoolmuseums.org.uk or 0151 478 4775.

The eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed that there wasn't a May Name That Object competition. We were rather busy with the redesign for the main site (check it out if you've not already) and it kind of took a back seat.

Anyway, June's is now up with the first clue available here. As ever you need to figure out which object from our collections (and our website) the detail is from and email us the answer using the contact link on the competition page. There's a new clue every day this week.

We've had lots of enquiries from people wanting to buy the Art In The Age of Steam exhibition catalogue so that's this month's prize. Good luck.

More from Reyahn King and the judging of the 25th John Moores prize.

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After what can only be described as an excitable breakfast, the jurors got going this morning in great good humour. They have reached a remarkable degree of agreement about what they are looking for. Their approach is to look not just for good paintings but for paintings that have a sense of “time and place” – in other words, that have taken on board the history of art and painting, that are intellectually up to date.  And they have  great enthusiasm for originality and unpredictability in works. At least twice today their comments made me look again, harder, at works the subtlety or cleverness of which I had initially missed. I think by the time they’d gone through all the entries, there was only one of the around 150 they have selected to go to the next stage that I would disagree with – I’ll never reveal which!

Watch this space for stage 2 when we get together with the actual works in Liverpool! I for one am really looking forward to June!

Director of art galleries, Reyahn King, is in London at the moment, presiding over the judging of the 25th John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize. Here's her report from the end of day one (yesterday).

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Today, 1 May 2008, the John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize jurors started stage 1 of judging the exhibition and prize. The jurors are artists Jake and Dinos Chapman (shown), Paul Morrison, Graham Crowley and critic Sacha Craddock. Jake and Dinos are in the midst of preparing for a big show, Paul Morrison's work is on currently in lots of places including Liverpool, London and Japan, Graham Crowley has been on the news commenting on the state of art teaching in London and Sacha Craddock is a legend for her longstanding reputation as a critic and Chair of another competition, New Contemporaries. Given all this it is wonderful to me that these five will come together to spend two days in a darkened room selecting work for our exhibition in Liverpool.

At the beginning of the day over breakfast I stressed the sheer volume of art to see. With 3,448 entries I was worried that the process might run beyond the two long days everyone had set aside. Judging started at 9:30am and went on to 7pm with food breaks. Incredibly we finished ahead of schedule - the jurors were really keen, taking only short breaks before itching to get back to it.

My role is to keep the jury on schedule and coordinate with the technical team. In the main this means checking that all five jurors have agreed whether a work is to be selected or are they still pondering? Yesterday they were focused on a first sift, and if any one person liked a work it got put to one side without much debate. Already though you can see preferences for kinds of work emerging and I expect debate to really get going when we revisit the first sift.

Today we'll finish looking at all the entries and then go back to all those put on one side and reconsider them.

By the end of tomorrow, 2 May, we need to have decided which 250 or so artists will be invited to send their work to Liverpool to be judged at stage 2 in June. Watch this space!  

Our trading arm, NML Trading, is holding a Recruitment Open Day on Saturday 10th May. They're looking to recruit Team Leaders, Catering Assistants, Venue Supervisors, Chefs and Banqueting staff. They're looking for people who are passionate about catering for their daytime operation plus occasional evening work. You'll be working in Liverpool’s world class museums, providing high quality food and refreshments to over two million visitors each year.

To find out more about the roles on offer, bring your CV to World Museum Liverpool, William Brown Street, Liverpool between 10.30am and 4.30pm.

Today is day one in April's Name That Object competition and here is today's clue. To win a copy of the rather nice catalogue that accompanies the Art In The Age of Steam exhibition all you have to do is identify the object in question (it's an artwork this month) from the clues given every day this week, and email us your answer using the link on the competition page. Best of British.

On Monday night at 9pm Channel Four are featuring a Time Team special - The Lost Dock of Liverpool. It focuses on arachaeological excavations of what's known as Old Dock - the first commercial wet dock in Liverpool and the world - plus other sites at the waterfront as they've been cleared for the canal extension, Museum of Liverpool etc. The programme will be looking at the growth of Liverpool as the world's first global city, and will feature several members of the museum archaeological staff. Quite looking forward to it.

As you may know the Pier Head is undergoing a bit of a transformation at the moment, and that extends to the statues there. King Edward VII atop his horse has undergone a face lift, spending the last few months in a studio at the National Conservation Centre - he almost didn't fit in. Work to remove the grime is now finished (this photo was taken pre-conservation) and you are invited to come along and meet 'King Eddie' before all 16ft of him is hoisted back on top of a granite plinth at the Pier Head. There's a special open day this Thursday - 17 April - from 1-4pm when you can chat to conservators and see long-obscured features up close. Just come to the information desk at the main entrance on Whitechapel and you'll be shown through to the studio.

The second of Samantha Parker's Museum of Liverpool progress videos is now available on the Liverpool Echo website. Fills you in on the progress with the steel structure, the next stage of the build and the view from those big windows at the end of the building.

Thank you to all the people who have posted comments about their experience of the International Slavery Museum on the Art Fund Prize webpage. It's really good to know that the museum is appreciated by our visitors as well as the judges.

If you've not posted your comment yet, and would like the judges to hear your views before they make their final decision next month, you still have time. Just visit the Art Fund website and tell the judges why you think the International Slavery Museum should win the prize. There you'll also find details of the evening reception we're holding on 2 April.

Can't believe no one's got this yet - thought it would have gone yesterday. The prize in this month's Name That Object game is still not won and today is the last day. This is today's clue - bit of a give away. All of this week's clues, plus the link to enter the competition, are on the Name That Object page. The prize is the catalogue from the recent Joseph Wright of Derby in Liverpool exhibition.

Here's what I think is a really rather sad post from John Millard, Director of World Museum.

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Sometimes at World Museum we get asked about the seal that lived in the museum before World War II.  At first we thought that maybe memories had been playing tricks, but as more people spoke of remembering a seal at the museum, we began to wonder if it wasn’t true.

A press cutting book in the Central Library has revealed the facts.  A seal named Paddy was kept in the aquarium at the museum from 1919 until 1936, and he was probably an Atlantic Grey Seal. 

A cutting from the Liverpool Post and Mercury for 20 September 1933 said…

‘Paddy, Liverpool’s pet seal, lives in the Museum.  He is sleek, intelligent silver-grey creature, spending his time gazing at visitors and swimming round his tank – preferably on his back.

‘He was caught with seven other seals in the North Sea seventeen years ago, but his companions did not survive. When he was presented to the city in 1919 by the New Brighton Tower Company, Mr. Evans, who was to be his keeper, inquired what his name might be.  “Well!” said his late master, “my name is Paddy so you had better name him after me.”

‘Paddy lives almost entirely on herrings.  When herrings are difficult to obtain whitings are substituted, but he does not like them nearly so much.  At 3.30 every afternoon people gather to see him make very short work of 4lbs of herrings...

Underwater Sleep
His coat, which he changes every August, is brown for the first week or so then changes to silver-grey.  Although he does not have his coat pressed, he has it sponged down every morning while his tank is being emptied.  The toilet over he has an underwater beauty sleep of about fifteen minutes.  Some authorities contend that seals do not sleep under water - they should see Paddy.  The extraordinary thing is that he can glide around his tank when it is empty, with a perfect swimming motion.

‘Although Paddy is the very soul of good nature he is not without a little jealousy.  Should Mr. Evans look into another tank too long Paddy makes a great fuss and lashes his water into a foam.  Thousands of children would not consider their holidays complete without paying Paddy at least one visit.’

The Liverpool Post reported the death of Paddy the seal on 17 August 1936 saying…

‘Many thousands of Liverpool people, old as well as young, will be sorry to hear of the death, which took place on Saturday morning, of Paddy the seal at the Liverpool Museum Aquarium.’

Some people have said the seal was called Sammy and back in 1928 a press cutting mentioned Edgar the seal at the museum, but the story of Paddy and his keeper Mr Evans seems to be the most authentic.

Today it would seem cruel to keep a seal in a tank in the museum, but for seventeen years Paddy the seal was a star attraction at the museum.

The second of what will hopefully be a monthly feature (prizes allowing) begins on Monday. Name that Object shows a new detail from an object in our collection every day for five days. Could be from any venue and any collection.  To win the prize all you have to do is identify the object and be the first to mail us the correct answer (use the 'contact us' form link on the competition page). As there's only one prize - the rather excellent catalogue that accompanied the recent Joseph Wright of Derby in Liverpool exhibition - most of you will be 'playing for fun', and it is fun as you'll discover if you check out last month's game - bit of a warm up for you.

Here's a snap of last month's prize - a Superlambanana now christened Hogarth (I'll leave you to figure out why) - happily ensconced in his new home. His new owner got the answer right on clue one so you'll probably have to be there from kick off on Monday to be in with a chance. To make it a bit easier I'll tell you it is a painting and it is featured on our website.

You can also play via the rss feed so there's no chance of you missing a clue.

Thursday saw the 2008 Academy Ambassador Awards which celebrate excellence in customer care in Liverpool. Three members of staff were nominated: Emma Calver from the Weston Discovery Centre in World Museum, Ros Appleby from the Learning team at the Walker, and Eddie Harvey from Gallery Services at World Museum. Emma fills us in on the night's events.
 

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We all had a fantastic night. The awards ceremony was at the Crowne Plaza hotel in the city centre, and as it was Valentines night there were lots of hearts decorating the ceremony, and the theme of people leaving their hearts in the city when they come to visit.
 
Several NML staff attended plus the nominees and their partners, and we were treated to a lovely three course meal.
 
Ros won the Family Friendly Award, and I won in the Arts and Culture category. It was a real surprise to win - I was over the moon.
 
Edwin was highly commended in the Visitor/Event award, and judges commented that the quality was so high in his category that any of the nominees could have won.
 
After the awards we all danced along to the Merseybeatles band.

Emma

Chris from the learning team at the National Conservation Centre has been to the top of Liverpool Cathedral (featured in the previous post oddly enough) and taken this snap of the view east-ish, out over the river to the Wirral and the Irish Sea beyond in the haze. You can see a larger version on our Flickr page (I've linked to the large version so you can see the detail but there are other sizes to view as well).

The taller red cranes mark the site of the Grosvenor/Liverpool One development, then to the left and towards the river you can see more red cranes around the emerging Museum of Liverpool. The Liverpool Echo are planning to do a month-by-month video update on the museum's building progress, with the first on the Echo website now.

If you've not been to the top of the cathedral it's well worth going on a nice day, if a bit windy. The view is fabulous. There's a lift part of the way up.

Well, the proportion who have visited the Walker in the past few weeks have. We've been asking visitors to the Ben Johnson residency to tell us their favourite building in the Ben Johnson cityscape of Liverpool. The winner, if you hadn't guess by the image, is Liverpool Cathedral (that's the Anglican Cathedral) with the other buildings we love on this Valentines Day being:

1. Liverpool Cathedral
2. The Liver Building
3. St George's Hall
4. The Metropolitan Cathedral of Liverpool
5. Port of Liverpool Building
6. St. John's Beacon
7. St. Nicholas Church
8. Albert Dock
9. White Star Building
10. Walker Art Gallery

Despite asking visitors for their favourite in the painting we got several strange suggestions including the Pilgrim Pub, which if you know Liverpool you'll know is difficult to see from the end of Pilgrim Street never mind on the artwork. It amused me though.

Today we've launched what will hopefully become a regular feature on the site - our 'Name that Object' competition. We'll be revealing a new detail of an object (it's an artwork this time - bit of a clue for you there) every day for a week with the answer at the end. This is today's clue. There's a prize of a miniature Superlambanana to the first person to correctly identify the piece and to email us the answer using the form on the competition page.

If you're as forgetful as me you can always subscribe to the rss feed to get updates, or just click backwards to see previous clues. And as a final hint I'll tell you that the object is somewhere on our website. There, I've said too much already...

Alan Bowden, curator of Earth Sciences, told us a good few months ago now about a palm frond we'd acquired (more here). Now it's finally on display he tells us about its journey from subtropical Wyoming to the wall of World Museum.
Images from its conservation are on our Flickr page.

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Dinosaurs and their relatives may be on most children’s minds whenever they visit World Museum but there is another new exhibit which is worthy of mention.  This is a fossil leaf.  Not any ordinary leaf but an example of exquisite preservation which has given us a glimpse into a long vanished world.

The story of the greening of the Earth - the flora of our planet and how it has evolved to achieve the wonderful diversity of today - is a bigger story than that of the animals as it contains a record of all the changes that have occurred with our atmosphere and climate, and has the potential of demonstrating where our future lies. 

The newcomer to the museum is a frond of the extinct fan palm Sabalites sp belonging to the family Arecaceae.  This fossil leaf is 50 million years old and was found in Folly Quarry on the Lewis Ranch, near Kemmerer Wyoming, Western Lincoln County, Wyoming, USA. At that time Wyoming was a warm subtropical area with lush and exotic vegetation at the edge of a series of large fresh water lakes which were larger than the Great Lakes Region of Canada.  This is very different from the Wyoming of today, which has a high mountain desert with long winter snows and freezing temperatures.

It was found in a limestone rock known as the Fossil Butte Member of the Green River Formation.  During the Eocene (50 million years ago) this formed as sediment that was being deposited in the fresh water lakes.  A lack of oxygen in the water caused many of the lake’s animals and plants to die, and also stopped bacterial action on the bottom of the lake. This meant that the dead animals and plants which would normally have rotted away were preserved in exceptional detail.  Complete fronds like our specimen are extremely rare.

The fossil shows numerous rays with bifurcating tips branching out from a sturdy woody petiole.  The petiole is well preserved showing a fibrous structure.  The basal attachment of the frond is of an unusual shape which indicates that this specimen may belong to a new, previously un-described, tribe.

The palm frond has spent a year being prepared by members of our conservation team and earth sciences staff. When it arrived it had been crudely covered with an acrylic based paint to ‘enhance detail’ with car body filler to hide cracks. The acrylic, body filler and some rock was very carefully removed to reveal extra details such as the natural colour of the specimen, extensions to the leaves, fragmentary remains of fossil fish beneath the leaf, the fibrous nature of the petiole and unusual features of the basal attachment. The fossil is now displayed on the 4th floor of World Museum and serves as a reminder of climate change over geological timescales.

You can't have failed to notice that Liverpool is European Capital of Culture this year. The official People's Opening takes place this Friday, 11th January, at St George's Hall plateau on Lime Street. Took a snap this morning to show you the progress made with staging. The blue containers seem to form a stage area at either end of the plateau with another stage in the centre. Also looks like there's going to be staging around Steble Fountain, just outside the Walker.

As well as Ringo Starr on the roof and a community choir there's also what the Liverpool 08 website is describing as, "an epic aerial ballet of dancing cranes, containers and scissor lifts, as Liverpool celebrates the transfromation of the 'Big Dig' into the 'Big Gig'". All kicks off at 8:08pm (20:08?)

To mark the occassion, and because we are literally a minute away from the main event, both the Walker Art Gallery and World Museum Liverpool will be staying open until 10pm, with last entry at 9.30pm which is also when the venue cafes and shops close. If you're planning to take the kids to Big Art at the Walker we suggest you go early rather than later as it will be closing at 7.30pm.

The museum will be hosting a number of environmental organisations, which will complement the launch of an international school environmental project exploring climate change and disaster risk reduction.

And to cap it all there will be fireworks! Huzzah!

Last year (!) the Antiques Roadshow visited St George's Hall and unearthed the usual hoard of gems. While there Michael Aspel popped over the road to see some more treasures at the Walker Art Gallery. If you're a fan of the AR, the Walker or both tune into BBC 1 this Sunday (13th) at 6.40pm to see the show. 

Just when I was feeling hard-done-by for being back at work after Christmas when someone people have until Monday, I was sent this image which had the dual effect of being both depressing and uplifting. It's a rather huge piece by Gustave Doré called ‘Flower Sellers of London' which entered our collections in 1880.  The reason I'm flagging it is because it's about to undergo pretty extensive conservation before going on display at the Walker, where I'm sure it'll be very popular with the public - a nice painting with a sad story, pretty protagonists and a bit of social realism thrown in.

Doré was a French illustrator and painter who, like other Romantic artists, often visited London specifically to paint such scenes of poverty. At the time London was the largest and richest city in the world with extremes of opulence and misery. Apparently Doré "was touched by the sad beauty" of such flower sellers, many of whom are thought to have been prostitutes.  

Will keep you posted on the progress of the conservation work.

Not long now until Ben visits the Walker to finish The Liverpool Cityscape. In the meantime there are a few more progress pics on Flickr - all are named 'Jan 08' and are towards the end of the set. As you can see from this image lots of progress has been made on the Albert Dock area, including the building that holds the Merseyside Maritime Museum and the International Slavery Museum.

That hardy soul, John Moran, donned his duffle coat and ventured out into the freezing night last week in search of meteors. And in case you missed the shower this Shadow and Substance animation shows what they should look like.

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The last time I wrote a piece about one of the annual meteor showers was the 13th August Perseids, and back then I had to comment on what other people had seen, as I had no chance because of the cloud cover.

This time I'm happy to report that I had quite a successful Geminid meteor hunt. My viewing conditions were far from perfect as I was surrounded by street lights. Nonetheless within 30 seconds of bending my neck upwards, I had seen two Geminids streak just below their target constellation Gemini. As it was a very cold night, I had wrapped up well but was still only able to stand outside for about an hour before finally succumbing to the cold.  In the first half hour alone I had seen 7 and the final half hour I saw 3 more. The actual date of the Geminids maximum was to be 14th December but since this window started at 10.30pm on the 13th I thought I'd start looking from my back garden, which is more or less in the city centre of Liverpool, hence all the street lights, and my plan was to take a drive somewhere nice and dark on the 14th. I'm very glad I decided to have a go from the garden as the next day on the 14th there was the usual depressing cloud cover that normally defeats me.
 
The Geminids are one of the most abundant meteor showers of the year, with a Zenith maximum rate of 75 meteors per hour. They are also quite unique in that their parent comet isn't a comet at all but an asteroid called Phaeton, and because of this the stony material that forms the shooting star is denser and so can take longer to burn up in our atmosphere giving us a better chance of making our wish before it burns out. A colleague of mine was driving to work on the morning of the 14th and as she was looking out of her windscreen she saw probably one of the last Geminids of the night before it started to get light.
 
So as you can imagine I'm feeling quite smug about actually getting the chance to see one of the better annual meteor showers of the year. And my smugness isn't due to the fact that I got to see them while others didn't, but because I usually end up cursing the weather for spoiling the opportunity, and always feel that it deliberately clouds over just when I get excited about it. So the score for the year is Weather 9 v John 2.
 
One more thing, don't forget about the last meteor shower of the year, the Ursids, which peak on the 23rd December and has an hourly rate of 5. Although this is quite low they can be quite rich and so are still well worth a look.
 
John.

Yet again the Walker has won an award, this time it was the Visitor Award at the Juice FM Style Awards on Friday night. For the last 6 weeks Liverpool has been voting through street surveys, web votes and focus groups for who they want to see crowned the people's style favourites. The Walker fought off the Tate Liverpool and Albert Dock to claim that accolade. Tracey McGeagh (Director of Marketing and Communications) and Reyahn King (Director of Art Galleries) collected the award which is now on display in the gallery foyer. The image shows Tracey and Reyahn in the centre with Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace from Big Brother on the left and Naomi Mills from Shipwrecked on the right.

Update 06.12.07: Forgot to credit Juice FM for the use of the photo - thanks very much chaps!