That dinosaur and me? We're simpatico.

Last Saturday I woke up early to take advantage of London's spring weather to take a stroll across town to go to a few museums in the South Kensington area. It was a leisurely three mile walk each way, which gave me ample chance to enjoy the views as I crossed London's famous Hyde Park. What exactly it is famous for today is a matter of some debate. While still very popular with people, some scoff at it as a place only used by Rollerblading Americans from the nearby embassy. And I hate to say this, but when they were giving out Embassies in London, America must have been out getting a Slushee and been last in line, because our's is rubbish. In most countries, Embassies are beautiful buildings used to project an image of power and taste. I've read a few stories in architectural publications about how new embassies are being built around the world as a form of international architectural one-upsmanship. But the Embassy for my home country, the land I love, is a huge, ugly office complex ringed with security fences, anti-car barricades, and cheap looking plywood booths for guards to stand in. Ugh.

Anyway, I first ended up at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where after six visits and more than twelve hours spent in the museum, I still hadn't seen everything I wanted. This place is vast, vast and sprawling, vast and sprawling and confusing. Most of the elevators don't go to all the levels, and entire wings are cut-off from the everything on the same floor. It really is sort of a maze to wend your way through and see everything. But the final section I had to see was the National Collection of Glass. It took me about two hours to go through the glass section, and I have to admit I loved every minute of it. Bizarre as it may seem to some, I'm something of glassworks nut, and have gotten to the point that I can spot works from a certain region, or even country, occasionally. They even had a few works I immediately recognized as being from my favorite Finnish design group, as well as some from one of my favorite Hungarian ceramics designers.

But the important part of this rambling story is that I eventually up going to the Natural History Museum, where they just opened a new dinosaur exhibit that contained a life size animatronic T-Rex. Hell yeah. And I have to admit, after waiting in life for twenty minutes to get to it, when you first walk around the back wall and see it standing there, moving about, it is actually sort of scary. I've always felt I couldn't imagine how terrifying it would be to see a full-size adult T-Rex staring down at you. And after being to this exhibit, guess what? I still can't.

The reason for this is that while walking around it, I noticed a sign that said the robotic Rex was only a juvenile, and was only about three-quarters grown, meaning it was about 25% shy of its largest point. What the bloody hell man? Who decides to go to the expense of making an animatronic T-Rex, but then only makes it 75% complete. I think those lazy tossers should take a little lesson in hard work from our friends at the Weetabix corporation.