The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘magnetic fluid’

I have just got back from The Big Smoke (or London to you and me). I am always in two minds about this place. Now that I am accustomed to the natural surroundings of my Cheshire home with its easy access to the countryside (I step out my front or back doors and it’s there) then I find it difficult to immerse myself in the manic frenzy that is London City. However, it is also exciting for a while, and London has all the virtues of being a cultural hotspot, so I always get to see an interesting  museum, gallery, exhibition or performance. On this occasion I was on the South Bank to see Roy Harper at the Royal Festival Hall, ten years after his last gig there. This time he is seventy. A post will be coming soon about this, but in this post I want to talk about an interesting encounter with some alien objects!

M and I took some hours off before the performance to visit the Natural History Museum. As a child I had been around this museum and was stunned and awed by the incredible exhibits – rack and rack f fossils, dinosaur skeletons, trays of rocks, all animal life stuffed and pinned in shelves and display cabinets in room after room until the eye couldn’t take any more. Now, as an adult, I wanted to go back to look at the collection of meteors that the museum held. I was interested to see how I would react now that I had developed my sensitivity to energy.

London's Natural History Museum

Most major London museums are now free, which is a saving grace. However, there have been some changes made to the museum since I was last there. It’s gone all “kiddy”. Gone are the long racks of beautifully laid out exhibits (boooooring!) and now we have “interactive” exhibits (exciiiiting). Far less of the “show” and much more of the “tell”. I hated it. I hated every second of it. I couldn’t wait to find a safe haven from all the knobs, dials and wheels, the illuminated plastic displays, the childish “learn by picture” storyboarding and the sanctimonious tone of the whole series of sordid scenes supplanting the serious collections. Oh yes, it seems to say, you WILL become an eco-friendly, planet-saving, animal-hugging, rainforest-conscious, water-wary citizen of the world. You WILL! You MUST! Or you are evil and you kill fluffy animals.

I ran for the Rocks and Minerals department. Surely they couldn’t have ruined the rocks? Luckily, they hadn’t. The rocks were still in glass display cases, lined up in rows as far as the eye could see. Wonderful! Museums ”old skool”. Not a flashing bulb or laser experience in sight. No questions to answer. No moral to absorb. Now to find the meteors that I had heard were here.

The Rocks and Gems Gallery of the Natural History Museum

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