Sunday 25 January 2009

The Wellcome

A rainswept Euston Road is not the most alluring of sites but I braved it nevertheless to go and visit the Wellcome Foundation. It has loads of scientific stuff which isn't normally my kind of thing. But having left Paris at the crack of dawn and arriving a bit later in London, I thought I ought to do something with my mind before work.

The exhibition War and Medicine showed us that while we now have increasingly sophisticated weapons which can maim and kill, there are now increasingly sophisticated methods of repairing the human body.

It was a bit too gory for me. But one thing I did like was the interactive human body where you could press a switch and bits like the large intestine or appendix would light up.

Never had one of those at school.

After my trip on Friday round the Jeu de Paume to see the Robert Frank snapshot of pictures, I'm feeling suitably nourished intellectually.

Thanks to the same wonders of technology that can rip human flesh from its bone in the blood spattering of an eye, I am at my desk at the Guardian waiting for the day at work to begin and watching the Novak Djokovic Marcos Baghdatis fourth round match at the Australian Open.

I arrived to find that Roger Federer had to come from two sets down to beat Tomas Berdych. Not the cruise to grand slam glory that fans like me would want.

But methinks his days of conveyor belt victories are well behind him and he'll do extremely well to equal Pete Sampras's haul of 14 slams.

But I should concern myself with actually having a backhand. That would be a welcome addition to the repertoire.