Elin Gregory

There are some blogs that just make me smile. A lot of them belong to writers and reviewers, where one can usually find something informative or entertaining or both, but because I work in a museum I poke around a lot of museum websites too.

One of my favourites is the blog for the Royal Armouries in Leeds. 

Two of their recent post have amused me greatly.

Click on the picture for an account of how they have added a full sized suit of Iron Man armour to their Steel Gallery!

Hands up everyone who would like one of those? Preferably with contents?

It was commissioned from a local car mechanic who had previously made himself a set. Just brilliant.

And in the previous post they have a vampire killing kit. Holy water , stakes, a bible and everything you need to cast and shoot silver bullets.

Provence slightly dubious I suspect, but isn’t it beautifully put together?

The post before that concerns the armour belonging to the Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, which has been loaned to the British Museum to be on show in their summer exhibition “Shakespeare: Staging the World”. Southampton seems to have been very passionate about the theatre and is the only acknowledged patron of Shakespeare. The effusive dedication in this copy of the Rape of Lucrece should not be interpreted as anything more than the natural gratitude of an artist to a patron who enables him to work, tempting though it might be.

And finally, the Armouries don’t just exhibit armour and weapons, they also published relevant books! Here is a post about the oldest fencing manual in the western world. I want a copy of that too. 🙂