Full steam ahead

Ashley & I finally visited the Kew Bridge Steam Museum yesterday -- only 15+ months after moving to this area. As you can see if you visit the extensive website, "Steam Power comes alive at London's Kew Bridge Steam Museum" And it did - there was a massive 90 inch Cornish Engine running while we were there - by random chance, we visited on the 1 weekend per month it was running. (no - I didn't know what that was either, before going... basically a huge steam-powered piston or some such thing - but I'm no engineer!)

I was more intererested in the history - there were several displays illustrating the progression of water engineering in London - from water carriers to piped infrastructure. I particularly liked the story of the woman in Kent who, in 1959, insisted she did not want to be on the water mains for the town, but "The Council forced her to take water".

I was also impressed with the display explaining water purification, through sand and other layers - reminded me of my friend Beth's thesis project as part of her engineering degree from Swarthmore, the mini-water treatment facility, very cool.

So - with all the interesting and educative displays, the grammar police in me was extremely disappointed to find this museum was the site of the most egregious displays of apostrophe abuse I've ever seen in a public place. So much so that I quickly became distracted looking for more instances! I wasn't the only one to notice these - as in a few places at least someone had used a pen to try to cross out errant apostrophes... sigh - it's tough to be an apostrophe cop in this modern world...