Leeds City Museum

I have to admit that having been away from Leeds for a year has made me appreciate the city a lot more. I feel that I have become a lot more involved within university, as well as taking advantage of some of the local sites around the city. That's why during a visit into town this weekend I chose to stop by the Leeds City Museum. I particularly likes the Leeds Story gallery as I rarely think of Leeds having much history aside from being an industrial city.

The museum in Millennium Square, originally opened in 1819, but re-opened in 2008 and used to be the Mechanic's Institute. Millenium Square has recently been renovated and contains many modern bars and restaurants, so I really like the contrast between the old and new buildings within the square. When researching into it I came across a story concerning the 'Leeds Tiger', a stuffed animal within the museum. It was so loved by the locals that when the museum planned to remove it the Yorkshire Post newspaper held a campaign to keep it. What I found to be quite interesting was that it originally came to the museum as a tiger skin rug which was then combined with a number of other tiger skins to create the overall tiger effect. The museum had wanted to get rid of it as it had been stuffed with straw and had for over a century had a permanent sagginess to it, as well as the possibility of it being dangerous due to the Victorians who may have preserved it with arsenic soap.

What the Flock?

I'm quite interested to see what this campaign is about.

Walking through Hyde Park into university the other day I was greeted by a large number of black sheep stuck into the grass, along with the words 'what the flock?' painted on the ground. Although I thought it was a bit weird, it's definitely not the weirdest thing I've seen in Hyde Park before so I didn't think much of it until I saw a friend had been tagged in 'What the Flocks?' album on Facebook.

So what the flock is with all the sheep in Leeds? No idea. The website www.whattheflock.org.uk says all will be revealed on 10/10/10, but all we have no aside from the large amount of fake wooly creatures around the town is a short video with a lot of students looking shocked and saying '17?'.

The suspense around this campaign is enthralling, it makes me want to check back and see what it's actually about. Maybe a not so good comparison was when Pantene Pro V shampoo did a campaign where they sent out non branded sachets of shampoo of their product and didn't tell any of the receivers what the product was. By doing this they had confidence that the effects of their product would outweigh the brand name.

I'm looking forward to seeing what this is all about on 10/10/10.

I wouldn't be a Leeds Uni student...

...if I didn't show the Parkinson Building to any 'lucky' person who chooses to visit me for the weekend. It's a standard phrase for most Leeds students to say 'meet outside the Parky steps', usually meaning at peak hours it incredibly hard to single out your friend who you've arranged to meet.

However, whenever I've been away from Leeds for a while it's always a reassuring feeling when the clock tower comes into view. Right beside what could be considered as the main entrance to the university it's the main thing I remember about my first trip to Leeds. Those steps. I passed them about 5 times whilst lost on the ring road.

The Parkinson Building was named after Frank Parkinson, a Yorkshire electrical engineer and millionaire, who helped to partly fund the building, and opened in November 1951. It hold the Brotherton Library...something similar to that of Harry Potter's Hogwarts library.

A Leeds landmark, through and through.