Interesting exhibits; Habitat; neighbours

New academic year started by this notice, among other things, on the OU's Noticeboard. Not entirely sure what God's doing in my life, but no doubt he's having a good rootle.

Went up to London on Saturday to see the free 'Superhuman' exhibition at the Wellcome Collection. Lots of interesting stuff around human enhancement through the years. The funniest things on display were a couple of sex aids, one of which, according to the artwork it featured in, was supposed to be used hung from a tree. The other had a bicycle pump affair attached to the end in order to simulate something it would seem entirely unnecessary to simulate.

Who knew drug use in sport was such an issue in the early years of the 20th century? The exhibition contained fascinating stuff about several sportsmen (none of whom I’d heard of, though that doesn’t mean much), including Tom Hicks, the 1904 Olympic marathon winner who managed to win by either swigging or injecting (unsure which) strychnine in brandy during the race (apparently not against the rules at the time) and the cyclist Tom Simpson, who died during the 1967 Tour de France having taken alcohol and amphetamines before slogging up a mountain in the blazing heat. Hmmm. Also, get the Whizzinator. Other stuff included a section on the thalidomide tragedy and the various cumbersome-looking early enhancements that were produced for the affected children, though apparently many of them found them more trouble than they were worth to use. Also an interesting piece of performance art by the Guatemalan artist Regina José Galindo.

After 'Superhuman' we went upstairs and looked round the permanent ‘Medicine Man’ exhibition. Can’t say I know much (in fact anything) about Henry Wellcome, but he certainly amassed a collection of fascinating stuff. It includes a collection of paintings which included the horrible picture of a tooth drawer hiding the tooth key from a female patient that we saw at the Royal Berks Medical Museum a few years ago, and a particularly ludicrous painting of weird gnome-like humans giving birth to large eggs, with, completely inexplicably, a woman in the background boiling a donkey in a cauldron. Sadly the guides to the paintings were display copies only so I can’t remember the name of the picture.

Also: there seems to have been a big market in trinkets with erotic scenes secretly contained within, including this fruit. Not sure how these were used: did people pretend they were eating an apple and secretly pop the apple open and have a quick gander at the copulating couple inside?

Never been inside the Wellcome Collection’s building on Euston Road before but very impressed; lovely light airy space with everything beautifully laid out. The ground floor entrance area includes a nice cafe where we had lunch (and I had cake), a bookshop and a sculpture of a man hanging upside down from the ceiling which looked to us like a Gormley, but didn’t appear to be labelled.

After leaving the WC we wandered down Tottenham Court Road and around Habitat and Heal’s – I had thought Habitat had gone into administration but the Tottenham Court Road store is still there - reading this it looks like a deal was struck for three central London stores, including the branches on TCR and King’s Road, to be retained. Mum tells me the Cardiff branch has gone though. A bit sad.

Not doing badly with my thrice-weekly or so early morning bike rides, though we'll see if it continues now we're into autumn. On my way back into the estate this morning, passed Rottweiler Man (one of the many disreputable-looking residents; probably not his real name) who, as he often is, was sans rottweiler but holding an empty leash and shouting ineffectually for his dog. A tad concerning.