My Sunday Afternoon

Last Sunday afternoon, I had plans to meet my friend D. We were supposed to go and see the Diaghilev show at the V&A - it was the last day - but, being the last day, it was completely sold out. So we went to the Natural History Museum instead.

Neither of us had been since childhood, and I was super duper excited. Like an overactive eight year old, I dragged D towards 'the Vault'. To get there we had to go through the 'Minerals' room - I spent the first few minutes in there tugging on D's sleeve whinging 'I'm bored' before discovering a 'learn for yourself' board, which told me that amber is less dense than water, the names of several seaside pebbles and many other such fascinating facts. When we finally entered 'the Vault' at the back of the room my heart stopped: there, glittering on every wall, were diamonds, emeralds, rubies, gold and saphires. Particularly spectacular was the Devonshire Emerald - a rock of Scott Fitzgerald-ian proportions and luminous, glowing green.

By this point, D was becoming a bit jewelled-out, so we went to look at the trunk of the giant sequoia tree, which really was huge. The tree was nearly 1,500 years old when it was felled (Kodak moment comment from a little boy standing next to me: 'is that even older than granny?'). But even better, you get to go right up close to the ceiling of the museum's enormous entrance hall and look at the beautiful hand-painted and richly gilded panels, each showing a different exotic plant with its Latin name.

Next, I wanted to look at the water invertebrates. On the way to the room (yes, there really is a room called 'water invertebrates') we passed the life-size model of the blue whale. I felt just as thrilled and awe-struck as I did when I first saw it, aged five. Nature rocks. Anyway, I have always had a morbid fascination with lamprey and hagfish. The lamprey's mouth (see picture) looks like Freud's worst nightmare of a vagina dentata. They are horrid little buggers who latch those grisly teeth onto other fish. Hagfish are equally ew-inducing: they can transform one third of their body weight into slime, so if they are caught they can just slither away while simultaneously blocking the gills of their attacker with musucs. Yuck. I also love those weird fish that live so deep in the sea that they are almost completely white and have more hidden gadgets than 007's cars. D showed me some pretty species of star-fish and we both got calamari-cravings looking at the Vampire Squid. And then it was time to go home.

So, the moral of the story is this: if you want to entertain a young child, or an easily amused 22 year old, look no further than the Natural History Museum. It's pretty darn cool.