Like many others I’ve got a little one on mid-term at the moment (to be fair he’s 7 and far more proficient at many things than I am; bowling and football statistics included) and he (and my 2 year old) have been insisting that the Natural History Museum has to be on the itinerary for this week.

I’ve been there dozens of times since I was a kid and a fair few times as an adult by myself (mostly in student days when the free admission was always a draw!) There’s something so horrific yet fascinating about rooms of stuffed trophies from a colonial era, some with their stuffed cubs, some mounted in displays that look like they haven’t been opened in decades and my kids agree with me.

I’ve always thought walking around that it says as much about the people who started and continued this enterprise a century and a half ago as it does anything about the animal kingdom.
The polar bear has always fascinated me – there’s a clear bullet hole through one side of the head and out the other that illustrates so vividly how he came to his end and that to today’s viewer is so intensely horrific that makes it all such compelling viewing.

It probably says a huge amount about me that my favourite corner as a child was the cross section of the human brain…

It still gives me the cold creeps even as an adult…

Can’t recommend it enough for you and your kids…

R