NEWS & BRIEFS

A new exhibit at London’s Imperial War Museum gives visitors the opportunity to experience what it must have been like to live in the city during World War II.

“The Blitz Experience” is a vivid display that provides a taste of London under German bombardment. Warplanes rumble overhead. Bombs whistle down and explode, shaking the floor. Thick smoke wafts over the wreckage and a woman’s screams mingle with the reassuring tones of a Cockney air-raid warden.

As those who lived through the 1940-42 bombing of London can attest, “The Blitz Experience” is unnerving. The smoke smells real, the ground really does shake and the sounds are authentic wartime recordings.

“It’s our job to make the terror, the horror and the sacrifice as real to people who, we hope, will never experience it as those who did,” said the museum’s director, Alan Borg.

“It wasn’t fun, and one of the aims of (the display) is to show that it must have been a terrifying thing to live through.”

The exhibit is the centerpiece of the museum’s $31-million redevelopment. Next year it plans to open “The Trench Experience,” which will expose visitors to the mud and smells of a World War I fighting front.

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“Backpacking: How to Take the Most Beautiful Walks in the World” is the title of a three-session UCLA Extension course to be presented by mountaineer/photographer Jeffrey Victoroff, a doctor in UCLA’s Department of Neurology.

The course, to be held on consecutive Wednesday evenings from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. starting Wednesday, will cover the skills needed to take backpacking trips overseas and will feature illustrated slide lectures on famous backpacking sites around the world.

Among the topics to be included are wilderness cooking, reading the weather, fitness training, how to use a map and compass and how to create alternate forms of shelter.

The class, which carries a $65 fee, will meet in Room 5200 of UCLA’s Math Sciences building. For more information, call UCLA Extension at (213) 825-7093.

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The Canadian Museum of Civilization, built at a cost of $214 million and covering 24 acres, has opened alongside the Ottawa River in the Canadian capital.

The new museum gives the city an impressive triangle of national landmarks. Parliament Hill is visible from the glassed-in Grand Hall of the museum. On the Ontario side of the river is the National Gallery of Art.

Among its many exhibits the museum houses a major collection of Pacific Coast Indian totem poles, native art and artifacts.

In the History Hall, visitors can pass through exhibits showing the settlement of Canada from whaling days in the 16th Century to mining in the West.

Costumed actors roam through various sections to help dramatize past and present ways of life.

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The Mexico West Travel Club passes along the warning that travelers to Mexico who intend to take a citizen’s band radio along on their trip should get it licensed before departure.

Mexican law requires that all CB radios be licensed. Those that are not are generally confiscated. The license costs less than $3 and can be obtained at the Mexican Consulate.