Bodies: The ExhibitionIt's a bank holiday today and my last day of holiday before starting my new job - yes I am now officially employed! I went to see
Bodies: The Exhibition, which some of you may have heard of along the way (I remember watching a documentary on Carte Blanche last year). It is an abolutely fascinating though very controversial exhibition of preserved human bodies, showing almost every feature of male and female anatomy in varying detail, including foetuses who have died in utero. It is really incredible how they have managed to preserve and separate pieces of the anatomy, including the veins, blood system and central nervous system which have been preserved separately from the rest of the body.
A human specimen is first preserved according to standard mortuary science. The specimen is then dissected to show whatever it is that someone wants to display. Once dissected, the specimen is immersed in acetone, which eliminates all body water. The specimen is then placed in a large bath of silicone, or polymer, and sealed in a vacuum chamber. Under vacuum, acetone leaves the body in the form of gas and the polymer replaces it, entering each cell and body tissue. A catalyst is then applied to the specimen, hardening it and completing the process. This method of preservation creates a specimen that will not decay. This offers thousands of unique teaching possibilities for educators at all levels, including medical professionals, archeologists and other scientists.
Check out the website
here to find out more information about how it is done, and watch some videos
here and
here.
I really recommend it to anyone who is in London and can see it, it will change the way you view and appreciate your body completely.
Someone help me please...I came across something interesting while browsing around on the
Adobe/Macromedia showcase section on their website. The site is the
online portfolio of Dario Piana, renowned advertising director, though I don't think the site itself is particularly spectacular.
I got to having a look at some of his stuff, and there are one or two quite funny adverts in there. The most intriguing video though, was one I found shot in South Africa. You will find it under the flashing red link on the bottom right of the opening page, under the "shorts" section, it is the first video with the pic of the car.
You have to stick through it for the punchline - it involves a man speeding on a lonely Karoo road caught by a traffic cop. BUT... now tell me what you think about this: everyone has a South African accent, and the landscape is very definitely African, and the speedsters car has an (old) CA registration plate. The cop, however, is driving around in a clearly American or maybe European black and white cop car, complete with foreign registration plates and is dressed in an American-style cop uniform from the movies. I was completely confused as to what kind of audience this was meant for, and why on earth the American cop car with a South African driver pulling over a Cape Town car? Can anyone help out please? And keep your eyes on the background at the end!
There is something that has really been perplexing me. It's not really life altering, but it has kept my mind occupied a bit since being in London. I have spent a fair amount of time bouncing around London staying with different people and also looking at flats to rent for myself and I have noticed that a large number of flats house all the appliances inside built-in cupboards, so that they are invisible to the eye when walking into the room - I'm talking fridges, washing machines, dryers, dishwashers etc
I arrived at the place where I am staying presently with all three regular flatmates away, and so was left to find my own way around. It took me about half an hour to find the fridge and the washing machine. Both were neatly tucked away inside regular looking cupboards, one in the kitchen and the other in the bathroom.
What is going on here? Why hide the fridge? Is this normal for England? Someone please help me it's really bothering me.
And to add to that:
There are loads of places with no tumble dryers, this is in a country where it is cold, dark and rainy for most of the year and you don't have a sunny garden to hang your washing in. So... undies draped all over the radiators all over the house, damp for 3 days. Lovely.
London UpdateI haven't blogged much in the last few weeks, mostly because my life has been very boring. But I warned you lot it would be sporadic! The job and house hunt has been hell over here. It has taken me a little while to get into the swing of things here, and settle down into the London life. I still feel quite disconnected from everything around me, which I suppose will only be remedied with work when I have some kind of structure to my day.
In the mean time the hunt continues and the cash is depleting fast! Maybe if things get really tough I should start a blog on the day to day life of a homeless woman in Hyde Park (thanks Di!), get advertising for the site and make millions. On second thoughts maybe not..
Well done boet!My older brother, along with his cycling partner and good friend Matt, has just successfully completed the
Cape Epic, a really long, grueling off-road mountain bike race between Knysna and the Spier Wine Estate outside Cape Town. The race kicked off on 22 April and ran for 8 days, through the beautiful Western Cape countryside covering more than 900 kilometres and climbing more than 16000 vertical metres. You can see some of his photos
here.
Well done BY, I am so proud of you and wish I could have been there to cheer you over the finish line:-)
Lace and raceI had an interesting experience on Oxford Street this weekend. I decided to make the long, ridiculously expensive trek into the centre of London to have a look around and locate some shops likely to cheer me up with a good dose of retail therapy (mostly looking and not much purchasing, mind you). I wandered into a clothing store which was quite large, although they had managed to squeeze a fairly generous number of clothing racks in filled with the promise of summer which has yet to be found in the grey English skies.
I was making my way towards the back end of the shop, not really taking notice of the other shoppers around me. I was aware of someone standing to my right, looking through the rack of clothes and was about to walk past her, when she hissed, "Don't you touch me!!"
I turned to look at her with a look of complete surprise. I was still a good half metre away from her, and certainly hadn't touched her at all. I apologised and said as much to her. She spat her reply, "Just fuck off, yeah?!" and turned back to the rack of clothes.
At this point the look of surprise had changed into a mixture of complete astonishment, offense and amusement. What I found more disturbing than anything else was the look of pure contempt she gave me, a complete stranger browsing among lacy summer tops.
I few choice replies to her rudeness ran through my head, but in the end I turned away and laughed the incident off. I was only afterwards that I really thought about it and wondered what that woman had been through that made her so vicious towards someone she has never met. Then I surprised myself even more because the first option that popped into my head was race. The woman was black, and was dressed in a traditional head scarf and long sleeves and skirt.
Have I been so conditioned as a South African to see colour difference before anything else, even though I hate that I do it and try not to in every instance? Maybe she was just a b*tch and had a bad day... I felt really bad about it.
