Natural History

I cannot believe just how BIG the place is. You couldn't do it in a couple of hours like so many people say you could. We spent about six hours there in all, and still we didn't see all of it! My feet hurt, but I didn't notice until much later, because it was just so breathtaking, so much to take in, so much to consider and converse upon. His Lordship noticed some lovely roundels set into the walls through some of the halls, and thought the silvery cubes of natural pyrite were the best, "like transformers" in its angularity. To give you an idea of the size of this rather fabulous cluster, each of those cubes are roughly... I'd say about fist-sized. So yes, it was a big, big chunk of raw, unprocessed beauty. I love the way Nature manages to give it such perfect angles and sleek, shimmery sides!

His Lordship still has a wonder for the bigger reptiles, so we spent a while peering at the marvellous remains of the dinosaurs. I never realised just how huge, or how small, the variety in general. I mean, I liked dinosaurs when I was little, but WOW! The triceratops's horns are wider than my calf, and the beak of this prehistoric bird thing we saw was longer than His arm and a about the same again deep. He liked "all the skeletons they had there and stuff in the giant rahhh section, it was cool to see all the skeletamanons and the coolness and stuff. It was cool, just all the ewrrrrr and aaaaauuuuurrrr, you know." Complete with claw-hand gesture-suggestions.

The modern day reptiles collection was a little small, and the poor old beardie they had on display wasn't the finest of it's kind, but then I suppose that's understandable. I prefer mine alive and interactive really! Talking of lizards, Kyle didn't half sulk when we got home, she doesn't like it when we leave her for a few days, even when she has Hank for company. However, the shingle skink was a nice example, it's head and tail were the same size - to confuse predators. (Sadly the camera went flat, so here's a nice Mesolite crystalform for you. He says it's a very "cute" peice.) There were all kinds of animals, birds, crustaceans... He liked the Alaskan King Crab, I felt sorry for the Griffin Hawk and we both had a chuckle when He stood next to one bird and asked "So which one's the Dodo?"

We also spent some time having a good poke about in the sparklies section, for all of you know my love of true gems. My personal favourite is Hope; the cursed dark blue diamond, she brings fever, death and destruction. At 45.52 carats, she's said to be the biggest of her kind, however the curse isn't truly accepted. Said to be stolen from a great Hindi statue, but the other eye has never been found. Sadly, the photo didn't work out as it was such a dark blue, so here's an amazing HUGE opal boulder.

Talking of colours, I recently discovered they used more C4 explosives in the Dulux paint explosion advert than they did on that "Saving Private Ryan" film, which is quite impressive! "Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways." - Oscar Wilde. Here's a question for Mr Wilde, would the C4 spoil the colour, or doesn't that count? In the meantime, as we wait for time travel to be developed, here's a nice little shot of some unusual pink, white and black metamorphic granite... P.S, it's about six foot tall. That's some rock!

I also adored the Pain collection of Burmese sapphires and Pigeon rubies, as shown in all their funky brights in this clip.
"Abra-ca-duh!" Amy Wong as the Cute Fairy Of The North, Futurama.