Science Museum part deux. I definitely had to make time to finish things off today. Yes, before any shopping to be done. Priorities, I say.
Starting on the 5th floor with veterinary history, by that, it means of the equestrian variety. As I read through and examined the items, I couldn’t help but be put off. As a lover of animals, my heart broke as I moved from glass case to glass case with featured items including an electric cattle goad, a ‘humane cattle killer’ (which included a mallet), and a captive bolt pistol (an anchored bolt that gets projected into the brain by an explosion of a blank cartridge). Now I can understand the balling gun, embryotomy knife and double foal hook, as they help in administering medicine and assisting with stillborn births, but other things I did not need to have explained in such graphic detail with pictures.
A display detailing the cruel docking of the tail made me whinge. Docking involves parts such as tails or ears being removed or shortened for people’s fashionable reasons. This has thankfully been outlawed. Also up until the 19c, horses were bled regularly through the jugular, even when healthy, in the belief that their health would be preserved.
I kept thinking PETA was going to come with their pickets and sandwich boards, reading the riot act to the museum. I know this is to educate and it is or was a fact of life, but this is the very reason why I could never work with animals. As much as I would love to work or volunteer at the SPCA, I couldn’t do it. I can’t separate my feelings. I’d get too damn attached. And as for the animals that aren’t placed into adoptive homes, well, I’d seriously end up a crumpled mess on the floor.
The 4th floor for history of medicine was more bearable, featuring both miniature and room sized models, depicting doctor-patient care through the ages. Dioramas included 15C, the plague years and a WWI dressing station. On the same floor was the psychology section, exhibiting all the ‘mind games’ doctors used to diagnose personalities and deficiencies.
The third floor involved medical and surgical equipment, which I found interesting. I mean, how many of us actually get to see a real life iron lung? Or a perspex face mould, used for treating patients with head cancers; to hold still the head while a beam of radiation is emitted. One display that brought a small smile to my face were the Jedi helmets (named after the Star Wars movies, natch) which made MRI scans for children less scary. They are in a nutshell, radio receiver cells mounted on bicycle helmets.
Dreams of flight encompassed most of the second floor. It opened with Leonardo da Vinci’s Theories on Human Flight, as da Vinci had left over 500 sketches devoted to flying machines, birdflight and the nature of air. The exhibit was airport hangar huge and wired from the ceiling, airplanes throughout the ages: British fighter planes, a modern private jet, vintage Wright’s Brother-like type planes.
It was kinda scary and yet exhilarating to mentally picture yourself in the seats of these planes of bygone eras, with the wind blowing at your face at 10,000+ ft high, without oxygen masks. What a rush that would have been. I used to dream I would grow up to be an Amelia Earhart intrepid pilot-adventurer when I was a wee slip of a girl. I was definitely like a kid in a candy store for this one.
Lastly, I found the history of mathematics exhibit interesting. I have no head for formulas nor accounting, but the way this exhibit was set up intrigued me. As a visual person, with an eye for designs, lines and shapes, I was pleasantly surprised to see how much math, in particular formulas, can break down these designs we make. One equation of surfaces broke down the formula for figuring out the surface area of a bulls horns! There were glass case displays of polyhedras, differential equations, equation of curves, topography, scales and lines, sectors, callipers and endographs. Mathatletes will see numbers, I see designs, which is exactly why I enjoyed this exhibit.
School broke and just like when i was in high school, what does one do when the 3:00 bell rings? You hang out at the mall, or in my case, Oxford Circus and Bond Street. I’ve been so busy taking in the cultural attractions this entire trip, I neglected shopping for souvenirs.
After shops closed at 8pm, Chris and I met up at Angel station up in Islington. Islington is a funky little borough with cool pubs. We started drinks off at the King’s Head, not your typical English pub. The musical group played ska, sang Spanish up-tempo songs, and blues.
At the back of the pub was a theatre for burlesque or other live performances. English pubs here detract patrons from ordering drinks other than the requisite beer. I laughed at a sign posted that said, Pitcher of sangria £15. Yup, that’s $30 CDN for a pitcher of wine with fruit. “This is an English pub!”, I can imagine the bartender exclaiming.
The next pub we found ourselves was quintessentially English called The York. But what was amusing and a bit uncool was the “ugly lights” coming on before the ring of the bell, signalling last call. A dimly lit pub to enjoy our drinks and the ambience and then suddenly all that engulfed in bright lights at 1030pm. WTH? A little early to close a pub, innit?
So one more crawl to finish off the night at the proper time of 1130pm – decent enough to feel like hip adults staying out on a weeknight, but early enough that Chris can make it to work at 8 in the morning and me, being able to catch the last train before the stations close just after midnight. Funny how these are the conditions we have to adhere to for going out on a ‘school’ night.
View more pics of my trip on my Flickr album.
Hours:
Daily: 10am-6pm
Address:
Exhibition Road
Kensington, London SW7 2DD
GPS coordinates: 51.4978128, -0.1767122
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