Shrunken Heads and Other Fun Things

When the British Empire spanned the globe, one thing they liked to do was to collect things from the outer reaches of the known world.   Lieutenant-General (pronounced "Left-tennant" here)  Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt Rivers  was particularly good at collecting things wherever he traveled.    His collection of, well, what his mother must have thought was complete junk, formed the basis of what became Oxford's Pitt River's (and natural history) museum.

While there are many many strange things in this museum, probably the most bizarre is the collection of shrunken heads or tsantas.     Here is one of the best looking of the collection   In case you can't read it, the sign behind it says "Scalp of an enemy painted red on the inside.  The holes round the edges indicate it has been stretched on a hoop --- N. American Indian"

They make these by removing the skin from the skull and then steaming the skin until it shrinks down to a tiny size.   Yuck.

Here is a photo of some more shrunken heads, this time with my hand in the photo so you get a size of how small they are.  The small guy on the bottom reminds me a bit of my brother when he is making his "vulture face".   It is hard to believe (and it is rather disgusting to think) that these were once people!





The museum is just filled with crazy stuff from all over the world.     If you've read the recent best-seller "Remarkable Creatures" by the author of "Girl with a Pearl Earring", you will be excited to know that many of the things collected by Mary Anning are in this museum as well. 

For those who have not read the book --- don't worry there is a movie being made.   If you can't wait for the movie,  Mary Anning was a fossil hunter in the 1800's who discovered some of the very first dinosaurs.  And although she was working class,  a spinster (a woman, for that matter), and not very well educated, she overturned the scientific establishment and became the world expert on fossils.  On the left are some of her smaller finds (The tag above says "Teeth of Large Marine Reptiles")

Among the other things they have in this museum is a huge collection of minerals.   I tried to get some good photos for my upcoming solid state physics book (very very close to done now!) but it turns out to be very hard to get nice photos of a rock.

The museum has a grand central hall filled with large dinosaur skeletons, large animal skeletons, stuffed animals, a stuffed (now extinct) dodo bird and countless other strange beasts.

On the particular day I visited the museum, two other animals were on display:

                                                                  


These are my parents.

Playing Tourist Part I

Last week my parents came to visit.  It was great to see them and it was really fun to do all the London and Oxford touristy things that one never does if one lives here.

For some of the visit my parents stayed in Oxford at my house (which, as mentioned here and here, I actually cleaned.)   For some of their visit, however, they stayed in London -- at a rather appropriate place  --- see the picture on the right --- I've always said that my family is a bit nutty!

One morning last week we went to the Imperial War Museum, which is a terrific collection of the history of  the UK during war.    They have a great (albeit depressing, as expected) exhibition on the holocaust.   They also have a terrific (and more upbeat) exhibition on MI5 and MI6 (James Bond stuff), and lots of interesting stories about soldiers.    Perhaps most interesting though is the huge collection of artifacts from the wars.


On the left here is a V2 rocket.  These things landed on London during WWII carrying thousands of pounds of explosives.   In some respects the Brits managed to outfox the Nazi's at every turn during the war -- but the V2 was one case where Hitler really had the upper hand --- there was just no defense against this thing.  It came in fast and silently and caused tons of damage.

 During the final years of the war, thousands of these things landed in England -- and thousands of people were killed by them.   Made by slave labor, interestingly enough, roughly one person was killed in the production of these devices for each person who was killed by them exploding on their targets.

Technologically, however, these things were a marvel.  Built by the young and brilliant Wernher von Braun, the V2 was the direct predecessor of almost every rocket ever built thereafter.  After the war, von Braun's Nazi history was secretly expunged and with false papers he was recruited to work for the US defense and space program.  His greatest achievement was the Saturn V rocket that put men on the moon.  He may be the only person who was both a hero to Nazi Germany and then many years later a hero to the US.

On the lighter side, here is a photo of a Sopwith Camel -- a combat airplane from the first world war.  Although I'm sure there were many bloody dogfights with this type of early aircraft, the Sopwith Camel is perhaps most famous now as being the airplane that Snoopy supposedly flew in combat against the Red Baron.



Here he is in action

Er... ok, maybe there is some similarity.... 

More on playing tourist later...

Help! I’m being assimilated:

I was on the airplane from London to Munich (and on to Dresden) and the stewardess came around taking drink orders. The two Brits sitting next to me both ordered tomato juice, and it sounded good to me, so I ordered one too. But when I ordered it, I had a moment of panic. I ordered “tomAHto juice” not “tomAYto juice”. The first chink in the armor has appeared. Next thing you know, I’ll be eating clotted cream and liking it.

Midvale School for the Gifted.

On of the funniest cartoons ever made is a Far-Side cartoon by Gary Larson where the sign outside the building says “Midvale school for the gifted” and the sign on the door says pull, but the kid in the cartoon is pushing on the door. (You can see the cartoon here at this time, but I’m pretty sure this picture won’t stay up long. Larson has been pretty strict about going around the web and making sure that his cartoons are not illegally posted like this one).

In the United States, in any public building, the doors open outwards. I think this is a law – the idea being that in the case of an emergency where everyone runs for the door at the same time, the first person won’t get smashed into the door and be unable to open an inwards-opening door. Without even realizing it though, one gets very used to pushing on doors when you are leaving a building and pulling on doors when you are going into buildings.

In the UK, there is no such law dictating which way doors should open. (Why?, I don't know, it seems like it would be a good idea). Doors open in or out seemingly randomly. I find myself constantly pushing on pull doors and pulling on push doors. It is so strongly ingrained that you should pull on a door going into a building, that I will still sit there yanking and yanking on the door when it obviously is not going to budge in that direction. Last week I even buzzed the receptionist in one building and she yelled back “PUSH”. Oops. Every time this happens I think “Midvale School for the Gifted”.

A similar gut reaction is which way to look when crossing a street. Fortunately, I don't have to cross many streets on my way to work.

Garbage / Bed

Today is VG day: Victory over garbage. Since moving in, I’ve had this problem that every time I leave trash outside for the trash collectors, they somehow ignore it. I asked around and people told me that I have to be careful what kind of trash I leave out on what days. Recycling is big here, so there is the blue bin, the green bin, the big green bin, and the large dark green trash can. “So how do I know which day to leave which trash?” The response was “oh, just google it”. Well, this is not as easy as it sounds. It took me several days to figure out that I had to google “Waste” not “Trash” or “Garbage”. Finally, I got the list of what goes in which bin, and which days they collect which type of “waste”. Unfortunately, the schedule I looked at was apparently outdated, so my attempts to get rid of my waste continued to fail. Finally, I just started peeking in my neighbor’s trash – and today, with great fanfare and angels blowing trumpets, they took some of it away. So I think I now know the scheme. About time – it was really starting to pile up in here.

The Bed: One of the first things I did when moving to the UK was to go and buy a decent bed. Even though I had scarlet fever at the time, the first weekend I was here, I still schlepped out to a local bed store (called “Dreams”) and bought one. Much to my dismay, it took three weeks to have the thing delivered. In the meantime I’ve been sleeping on little more than an army cot. Finally today the bed was delivered – in a bunch of pieces. I admit that I was a bit out of it when I bought the thing (my excuse also for buying a truly ugly bed) but I’m pretty sure no one ever told me that it was an assemble yourself kind of thing. Nonetheless, I’m usually pretty brave with this self-assembly stuff, so I started putting it together. After about three hours, I finally called their customer service line and yelled at them. They concluded that this particular bed is defective (there is no slot B to screw into tab A) and they will have to replace it. I’ll keep you updated. Fortunately, the mattress appears to work. I’ll report back after sleeping on it for a night – I can’t imagine it will be worse than the army cot.

Added: After one night sleep on the mattress, I'm debating whether it is too soft. (Although I actually tried to buy the firmest mattress available).

Snow

Today it snowed a bit. And everyone had a complete nervous breakdown. I guess they don't get a whole lot of snow that sticks around here. It was huge news in London where they basically shut down the city. But to be fair to the Brits, this was apparently the heaviest snow in 18 years. In Oxford the snow was somewhat lighter -- but enough to be pretty. You can see Somerville College in the snow here. Later in the day, there were snowball fights and snowmen. Am I an old curmudgeon for not participating in the snowball fights?

Update: Two days later we actually had about four inches -- and the city came to a halt. People recalled back to "that great snow of 1947" and "that time it snowed a foot in 1962". I guess it really is pretty rare around here.