Spirited Away

The Natural History Museum's tours of the Spirit Collection only run three times a day at this time of the year. Worse still they're limited to small groups, something like five or eight people per tour, which in a city   of eight million people + tourists means a lot of competition for a small number of spaces.

I really didn't want to miss this, so I arrived at the Museum just before the 10am opening time, and raced to the booking desk. Spots still available for the 10.30 tour!

I wandered around the arachnid and insect display for twenty minutes, then headed over to the Darwin Centre, to discover the tour consisted of a gross total of one visitor. Me.

Clearly I overestimate the level of scientific interest in the world. 

So there was my guide, Sarah the Zoologist, and me, touring the centre. On the plus side I could monopolise the questions.

The Darwin Centre is an adjunct to the Natural History Museum, was completed in 2009, and houses over twenty million specimens of plants and animals. The Spirit Collection is where they store specimens in alcohol (AKA spirits). Nothing to do with ghosts.

The first room we saw was the dermestarium, where they keep the Dermestes maculatus beetles. Very handy little critters if you want something that will strip the flesh from a skeleton without damaging the bones. You can watch them eating in real time at http://www.nhm.ac.uk/kids-only/naturecams/beetlecam/index.html. 

I expect their server to crash as soon as I post this.

We spent the most time in the room with the big specimens, including the 8.6 metre giant squid below: 

There was also a cabinet with a  number of Charles Darwin's specimens collected when he was on the Beagle. For someone with a love of science like me this was akin to giving a thirteen year old girl access to the diary of some kid from One Direction. 

Evolution by Natural Selection is one of the pivotal theories in the history of science, and some of the plants and animals Darwin observed while developing it were sitting just there in a cupboard. 

Wow. 

After the tour I did more browsing in the Museum, and then set off to join Emma and Simon at Selfridges. To someone with a love of shopping going to Selfridges is akin to showing a science geek Charles Darwin's specimens from the Beagle.

(Actually Emma was a bit underwhelmed by Selfridges. Glad she went, but not much of interest to her, less than we saw in Harrods.)

We grabbed lunch and tried to do a bit of banking to exchange a 500 Euro note for smaller denominations. Beyond difficult. You'd think we were trying to exchange Israeli Shekels into Mongolian tögrög. I don't think the idea that Europe is just across the Channel has made much of an impact on the Brits.

Killing time before dinner we walked along Regent Street, looking extremely British with NFL ON REGENT STREET banners the length of the street.

The NFL held a demo game last month between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Minnesota Vikings. I have no idea why the banners are still up weeks later. Maybe they didn't sell enough tickets to cover the clean-up costs.

Whatever.

Dinner was at a swish restaurant in the financial centre, near Liverpool Station, Sushi Samba. A perfect name for a place that's a fusion between Japanese, Brazilian and Peruvian food - not the most obvious fusion I'd think of, but it works. 

The food was outstanding, the staff were fantastic, and the views over the city brilliant. But the real highlight was watching Emma and Simon pressed against the inside wall of the glass lift, utterly terrified, as we rode up the 38 floors to the restaurant.

They were even more terrified riding it down in the darkness.

So ended our last night in London. Tomorrow, off to Croatia. Which will be a drama, given how Croatia Airlines has screwed us around.

Grrrr....