England Plus Paris: Part 11

I'd shortened my planned Cambridge stay. I was running low on things to do in London. So I called up the airline and moved up my departure date. See, England? When you let your accomodations fill up, the tourists give up on you. Do you see the consequences, England? You and your "big matches".

A Day of Rest

I did laundry. I finished reading Lonesome Dove. After reading about so many people dying out on the prairie, my tourist woes seemed pretty petty.

I walked through Portobello Market, and found out that Cafe Grove was closed for remodeling. When I looked at my guidebook more carefully, I saw that it recommended Cafe Grove because you could sit out on the balcony and watch market activity below. But it was raining, so I wasn't missing out on much.

I lunched at Otto E Mezzo, which had the kind of Italian food which made me think that having a room with a kitchen was a nice thing.

I went to see the movie "Bend It Like Beckham", a feel-good soccer comedy. (This was the second feel-good soccer comedy I'd seen in a year's time, after "Shaolin Soccer". I didn't even like soccer.) The premise of Bend it Like Beckham was that an amateur London soccer player wanted to make it to the big time, wanted a soccer school scholarship. Out of all the soccer-mad countries in the world, the great hope: Santa Clara university. Santa Clara? Yes, well, the movie's protagonist was a lady, and the USA is a world leader in women's soccer. Maybe California uber alles after all.

Among the Proto-Geeks

This clock mechanism survived from an earlier College building. The mechanical engineering geeks turned it into a showpiece. To do this, they had to tweak a couple of things. Because they wanted the mechanism at eye level, they had to use a compound pendulum (or cut a hole in the floor, but they didn't do that). Also, the original clock hands were too big, so they had to use shorter ones.

I snuck into the Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine, but I needn't have bothered because they weren't trying to keep people out. I didn't see much. Actually, you can see into some of the labs from windows on Exhibition Road. I think I saw more cool stuff through those windows than I did by wandering the halls.

There was an analog of MIT's infinite corridor, but this corridor was mostly up on the second floor.

At one point, I asked a security guard if there was a map for visiting tourists. He said that they didn't have much for tourists. And as near as I can tell, he was right. Still it was fun to wander around for a while in a place full of lots of young people wearing thick spectacles.

Entering the Natural History Museum

I entered the Natural History Museum at the Earth Galleries. There were some statues there, including a statue of Medusa. I didn't look at it, but did read some of the interpretive text. It said that the Greeks believed that there was a petrifying force, that this was responsible for the fossils that they found, that the Medusa had marshalled this force.

There was also a Cyclops statue and an elephant-ancestor skull. This skull had a big hole for the critter's trunk. If you didn't have the rest of the skeleton to look at, the skull suggested a one-eyed monster with big tusks. Maybe, they suggest, that's where the Cyclops legend came from.

Earth Galleries

Pretty rocks and stuff.

This is Trafalgar Square. Or, rather, its a display showing the stone used to build Trafalgar Square. Take careful notes, and you can make your own!

There was a map of the world on the wall, with little lights upon it. Each light represented an earthquake fault or volcano. Some schoolkids were there, and they couldn't find England on the map. Maybe ignorance of geography isn't a solely American trait. When they finally found England, they noticed the lack of lights. "We don't have any!" I said, "Yeah, England's looking pretty safe," while looking at the little lights clumped along the coast I called home.

The largest flint hand-axe found in Europe is about the size of my open hand. Metatorbernite was pretty and green. The prettiest crystals there came from the Southwest USA.

The British Geological Survey had a bookstore in the museum. It was full of books about the mineral resources of Devon and rock formations in Cornwall and old mines and weird maps. It was a good place.

Life Galleries

[Photo: cutaway view of a dog, illustrating skeletal structure]

I overheard two schoolgirls talking by this exhibit:
"Look at the doggie. The doggie is sweet."
"That doggie is not sweet."
"But it could be."

The Life Galleries were mostly full of dead critters. There were dead birds, dead reptiles, dead mammals, and dead zigzag nerites. I noticed that the stuffed giraffe was not threadbare around the legs. Perhaps that's because it was behind a barricade which discouraged people from rubbing those legs.

I went upstairs to discover that the botany section was closed. However, I was able to see the humongous showpiece that they had to grab your attention as you came to the top of the grand staircase. What exotic plant display did they have, you ask? Well, it was the cross-section of a giant sequoia all the way from the exotic Sierra Nevada mountains.

Other people hiked up the stairs to get to the closed botany section. I might have been the only one who laughed at the sequoia, though.

Life Galleries, Earth Galleries, What's the Difference?

Ferrimolybdite! From England!

Pyromorphites! From England!

Cassiterite! From England!

[Photo: malachite and azureite from bridgwater, somerset]

Malachite on azurite! From England!

The Life Galleries had a big room full of minerals. It seemed strange that these were not in the Earth Galleries. I guess that some hoity-toity designers had poo-poo'd the idea of a big room full of lots of pretty rocks that weren't grouped by theme and didn't have interpretive text, but were just there for people who wanted to look at the pretty rocks and maybe find out what corbomite looked like.

There were some rocks which had been collected by Scott's disastrous Antarctic expedition.

Most of the prettiest minerals on display were from the Southwestern USA. There was a section of British minerals, and this made it easier to hunt down the best of Britain.

Still, I emerged with a newfound respect for the rocks of the Soutwestern USA. I'd enjoyed the time I'd spent in the mineral museum of the University of Socorro. Now I realized that that visit had been some of the best-spent time of my life.

Take Me To The River

Internal dialog
"Dude, check it out: a Victorian pumping station that hasn't become a Museum of Technology."
"Omigawd! Dude, quick, get a photo."

I headed South, towards the Thames. I went past a kitschy building honoring Bibendum. I went past a barracks in whose yard soldiers trained in their green fatigues and bearskin hats. (No doubt this uniform allows them to camoflague themselves as bears peeking out of bushes.)

Putting the "all right" in "industRiAL bLIGHT"

I stitched together these panoramas of the Battersea Power Station area.

There were some interesting things to see. I took some photographs. Yes, I acted like a tourist.

This stuff might be part of the Western Riverside Waste Authority. It certainly has some fun conveyor belts.

I have no idea what this other building was. It had a conveyor belt, but I never got a close look.

Florence

These kitschy figurines were creepy, but not as creepy as the artifacts made from Ms Nightingale's hair.

I did not learn much at the Florence Nightingale museum. It's a good museum, but there wasn't much information there that I couldn't get from books and the web. Perhaps if I'd been a big-time Florence Nightingale fan, I would have enjoyed it more.

I was glad to have gone to the museum. I'd used Florence Nightingale in many games of Botticelli, and I owed her a visit.

Squashtastic

By the end of the day, I was dragging my feet, so I went to Mamal, a restaurant even closer to my room than Westbourne Grove was. There was a good kadu (pumpkin) masala, but the other stuff wasn't very interesting.

Departures: England Plus Paris: Part 11

He Who Is Tiring Of London