Race for the finish line

I’ve been told to stop doing such detailed and well researched work! Well, maybe not quite as harshly as that. Ailsa wants the oil paintings finished by the beginning of March so I’m having to update the merest of bits of the records. Like, the artist, the measurements and the date. Instead of spending up to an hour on a record, I am now getting them completed in about five minutes! Nick assures me I can come back and finish them properly when I’ve completed the list. I hope so! I miss the research.

I emailed Mirinda early in the day to find out whether we’d be travelling home together. She had a meeting but said she’d like to. This meant I had some time to kill so I decided to have a wander around the museum.

Apart from the odd ten minute forays after lunch, I’ve not really had a good look around apart from the day I went up for the special initiation into the ways of the SciMu Volunteer. So, I decided to start on level 5 and work my way down. (5 is the top.)

I particularly liked level 5. it was the history of medicine, using lots of pieces from the Wellcome Collection. The history of the Wellcome Collection and the Science Museum is here. However, if you’d like to read about the actual Wellcome Museum at Euston, that is here. I might go there next Wednesday.

In a continuation of the medical theme (after Wednesday’s anatomy lesson with Dr Hunter) it seemed ideal. I wandered around the display cases, amazed at some of the incredible stuff. It starts with the Egyptians and even has an unwrapped mummified head! Here it is:

An unwrapped mummified head - wicked!

A little further around, passing the Greeks and the Romans and their nasty little implements of medical duress, I found a St Sebastian! Unbelievable. It was in a section concerning the mediaeval belief in saintly intervention. Lots of examples of saints, including my very own St Sebastian. He didn’t look too well, I have to say but he was there, willing to cure anyone with plague who happened along. The only way I could get a photo was from above, so the angle is a bit weird but I think it brings out the colour in his cheeks more.

A very unexpected St Sebastian

You’ll have to ignore the reflections as he’s (obviously) in a case and the light bounces all over the place and I refuse to use a flash in museums, particularly with organic subjects. Anyway, it’s clear enough to see the arrows and his splendidly wavy hair. Gotta love him.

Of course there was lots of great quackery as well. The whole phrenology thing which took a very tight grip on Victorian England and beyond was well represented with, what was described as , ‘a box of phrenology heads’. I don’t know but that struck me as kind of funny. It was impossible to get the entire box in – it was very big with a LOT of little heads in it – but this shot may give you an idea.

Part of a box of phrenology heads

Actually, now I’m looking closely at it, I wish I’d blipped this shot today. I didn’t mind the one I did send (using my phone from work) but this one would have been much more bizarre. I might do it again and then blip it. Keep it to yourself. I don’t want Dawn to know that I’ve pre-scouted a blip.

Well, after a quick shot of a poster about gout showing a vile little creature, all claws and fangs, getting stuck into someone’s foot which I took with my phone and sent off to Nicktor, I left for my rendezvous amid the extreme sport called ‘train catching on a Friday night at Waterloo’.