{"id":903,"date":"2011-01-05T21:56:39","date_gmt":"2011-01-05T20:56:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jude.hanlon.co.uk\/blog\/?p=903"},"modified":"2011-01-05T21:58:46","modified_gmt":"2011-01-05T20:58:46","slug":"the-beatles-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jude.hanlon.co.uk\/blog\/?p=903","title":{"rendered":"The Beatles Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s actually &#8220;The Beatles Story&#8221; (not endorsed in any way by any of the surviving Beatles, although they are aware of its presence)(and haven&#8217;t forced them to close down, thus implicitly endorsing them)(according to their website!) at The Albert Dock &#8211; we went there in the holidays to meet up with Mandy &amp; Arnoud.<\/p>\n<p>The first bit was a little dry for the kids, although a top &#8220;can you find these things&#8221; discovery sheet was provided. The audio tours meant that near the beginning there were groups of adults standing around like zombies listening to the early history of the band.<\/p>\n<p>Joel got a bit bored.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"IMG_1571 by stephen_hanlon, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/stevehanlon\/5306188174\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5087\/5306188174_f7e1a2fd6e.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_1571\" width=\"375\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The highlight at this point was the fake water coming out of a fake downpipe in fake Hamburg (spot the fake German hooker).<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"IMG_1573 by stephen_hanlon, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/stevehanlon\/5306188998\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5049\/5306188998_c5c4ea2318.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_1573\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When we went into the reconstructed Cavern the kids looked really worried because they know children aren&#8217;t usually supposed to go into pubs, however they were reassured and then wanted to move on when mummy started dancing to the music that was playing.<\/p>\n<p>Bizarrely, that was pretty much the only music we heard while going round the museum\/visitor attraction. Which for a place about a band seemed a little odd.<\/p>\n<p>Lily wasn&#8217;t sure why I got her to pose in front of the Abbey Road picture that&#8217;s there for posing in front of, but she played along anyway.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"IMG_1575 by stephen_hanlon, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/stevehanlon\/5306189800\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5044\/5306189800_a77c32063a.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_1575\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>(I liked the FAQ on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beatlesstory.com\/visitor-information\/frequently-asked-questions.html\" target=\"_blank\">website<\/a> &#8220;Q: Where is Abbey Road? A: It&#8217;s in North London, not Liverpool&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=629795473\" target=\"_blank\">Mandy<\/a> &amp; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=100000149589000\" target=\"_blank\">Arnoud<\/a> posed, with more knowledge of _why_ they were posing&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"IMG_1578 by stephen_hanlon, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/stevehanlon\/5305598461\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5208\/5305598461_7bcc191534.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_1578\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>(although, frankly, the photographer could do with more skill &amp; less moving)<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and then suddenly things got more interesting. There was a pretend plane, from wihch The Beatles conquered the USA&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"IMG_1579 by stephen_hanlon, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/stevehanlon\/5305598791\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5249\/5305598791_9fcf4afa39_m.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_1579\" width=\"180\" height=\"240\" \/><\/a><a title=\"IMG_1581 by stephen_hanlon, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/stevehanlon\/5305599563\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5049\/5305599563_543dcf0d19_m.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_1581\" width=\"180\" height=\"240\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Things got psychedelic&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"IMG_1583 by stephen_hanlon, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/stevehanlon\/5305600269\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5286\/5305600269_bff7cee630.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_1583\" width=\"375\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And there was a section done out like the Yellow Submarine with a periscope and two very fierce looking goldfish who I managed to miss taking a photo of because Joel was too busy pulling levers and twisting knobs. At least, that&#8217;s my excuse and I&#8217;m sticking to it.<\/p>\n<p>Then there was The Discovery Zone in which we discovered a groovy stamp-on-the-instruments game and played a tea chest.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/stevehanlon\/5305600589\/\" title=\"IMG_1584 by stephen_hanlon, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5047\/5305600589_d6404469d3.jpg\" width=\"375\" height=\"500\" alt=\"IMG_1584\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We finished up with a light snack &amp; drink at the Costa handily situated by the exit, and then went for a walk around the dock. I didn&#8217;t take any photos because it was CHUFFING FREEZING. I&#8217;m note sure where the wind was coming from, but I do know where it was going to, and it was damn cold.<\/p>\n<p>The phrase of the day (from Lily) was &#8220;Is <b>this<\/b> the one who was shot?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Worth a visit, I&#8217;d say, although with me being a tightwad it seems a little steep&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s actually &#8220;The Beatles Story&#8221; (not endorsed in any way by any of the surviving Beatles, although they are aware of its presence)(and haven&#8217;t forced them to close down, thus implicitly endorsing them)(according to their website!) at The Albert Dock &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jude.hanlon.co.uk\/blog\/?p=903\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-holiday-pics","category-kids-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jude.hanlon.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jude.hanlon.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jude.hanlon.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jude.hanlon.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jude.hanlon.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=903"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.jude.hanlon.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":910,"href":"http:\/\/www.jude.hanlon.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903\/revisions\/910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jude.hanlon.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jude.hanlon.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jude.hanlon.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}