Capt Mondo's Photo Blog

We headed out just after 8:30am in the van we had rented — along with Josef and Cassandra — to Monaco, primarily in order to visit the Aquarium there.

The drive was long, but Josef is a very capable driver at high speeds and we arrived in the coastal city state less than two hours later. One of the more interesting aspects of the drive was the repeated plunges into long tunnels — one that was 1.5 km long — cut into the heart of the mountains surrounding Monaco.

The place reminds me of pictures I have seen on Hong Kong: densely crowded with buildings queued up tightly against each other, seemingly lined up in a tight march into the Mediterranean Sea. A Hong Kong filled with Italianate-styled buildings. The harbour teemed with the spires of the innumerable boats, yachts and ships that filled the water almost as much as the buildings filled the land. Looming over the buildings were several construction cranes, and in the far distance, the mountain range enclosing Monaco, capped with clouds.

Our destination was the Oceanographic Institute, which houses the Aquarium. Josef found a spot in an underground parking garage relatively near by, and map in hand, we handed for the Institute. My map-reading was off, so we ended up being on the wrong side of a finger of land that jutted out into the harbour, though it was lucky from a picture-taking point of view, as the vantage point offered a grand glimpse of the harbour and hillside.

We found a sign pointing the way to the Institute, which also gave us a chance to look at the sea-side as we made our way. When we turned a corner past another parking garage, we came upon the sea-facing facade of the Institute building — an imposing late 19th century edifice founded by the nautical-minded Albert I of Monaco, which was built to impress, which it certainly did.

The Sea-Facing View of the Monaco Oceanographic Institute

We made our way to the front of the building where we got our tickets and made our way inside. We were not disappointed.

The Family Looking at the Top of the Coral Reef Display

The first thing that one sees is a panorama of fish living at the top of a coral reef. Clown fish danced in anemones, large and colourful jacks swam around, and a saucer-sized manta ray flapped back and forth, its fins occasionally cresting the surface as it paced back and forth.

A Ray Gliding by the Top of the Coral Reef Display

As we looked down we could see that the actual tank was huge – at least two stories high, and we were only seeing the top quarter or so. Below we could see cleaner wrasse picking off dead skin and surface parasites from larger fish below, and occasionally a shark would slide into and then out of view. A nearby sign explained the intent: the top part devoted to the showing off “a multitude of brightly coloured fishes and coral species and, on the other, the part of the reef exposed to the open sea with large pelagic fish and great predators.” The intent is to actually grow coral in the facility, and daylight is simulated in the tank by using 23 massive 1,000 and 2,000 watt lamps. Another plaque talked about its impressive statistics: the total volume was 400 cubic meters of water, the transparent “panel” (not glass apparently) was 35cm thick, and itself weighed 20 metric tons, which helped to keep in a weight of 600 metric tons of water, sand and sea life. Development on the tank continues, and the plaque noted that hundreds of invertebrate species, useful in maintaining the ecosystem were to be added in the following months. We walked down the stairs to see the larger fish lurking, or just plain resting, on the bottom.

Vanessa at the Bottom of the Coral Reef Display at the Monaco Aquarium

On the bottom floor were the rest of the aquarium displays, a very extensive collection of all sorts of fascinating fish and other underwater creatures.

Annie Beside the Aquarium Reserved for the Youngest Fishes

Stone Fish: Don’t Touch!

Lion Fish. Also Don’t Touch!

A very impressive display overall, one that definitely tops the previous extensive aquarium I have visited, the one in London.

Afterward we had taken a look at all of the exhibits, we took the elevator to the top floor, where there was a restaurant. I had my BlackBerry with me, and couldn’t resist sending a cheeky email to some of my friends and colleagues back home while I was there.

I wrote:

From: captmondo
To: “his friends and colleagues”
Sent: Wed Mar 15 08:24:47 2006
Subject: Greetings from Sunny Monaco!

Just had to say that! 😉

Am about to have lunch at the Oceanographic Institute.

Fish you were here.

—————————–
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

I’m such a bastard. But I had to do it. 😉

After we finished with lunch and had a look at the city from the rooftop of the building, we left the building and made our way to the castle, going alongside the Japanese Garden to the Monaco Cathedral, and then through old narrow streets filled with tourist shops to the royal palace, guarded by a single soldier in military dress garb wielding a very recent automatic rifle.

Monaco Cathedral

We made our way back down the causeway that the palace is perched upon and made our way back to the van. Then back to the Chateau.

Got a birthday card from my Aunt Jane today, just prior to my 40th birthday on the weekend. Paperclipped to the inside of the card was an obituary notice for Barbara McWatt, who was a bit like another Aunt to me when I was a child. So the experience was one of being cheered by the card, and then dismay upon reading the notice. Couldn’t help but think of it a sign of my times.

I am not entirely sure of the relationship: I think my Father knew her husband James/Jim McWatt through the Masons, though that is a guess. He was a portly, cheery man with a north-English accent. I remember her as a very nice lady who with her white hair always seemed “old” to me, who took the time to talk to me whenever our families got together, which tended to happen mainly around Xmastime I think.

Communication became less frequent as my parents moved north and out of the city, and even less as first Jim McWatt and then my Father died. But there were always Xmas-cards from Barbara to my Mother over the years, usually accompanied by a little note talking about what she was up to, which mainly seemed to be playing golf in Florida (which was something noted on her obituary notice).

Another figure from my childhood is gone. My sympathies to her family.

Saw an example of this traditional sign of spring while on my commute up to work this morning. Oddly enough I saw several of their “cousins” while in France, the cute, small and very un-thrush-like English Robin, who typically appeared first thing in the morning, perched on top of masonry prior to diving down and finding something interesting to eat in the undergrowth. So I have seen English and North American robins within the space of a week.

The Canadian Geese have also started their return up to the Markham area. Befouled sidewalks and encounters with overprotective parents loom in the near future.

I was also amazed to see not one but two deer grazing in the hydro corridor just south of where I work. That was a first.

On Saturday mornings there’s a farmers market on the public grounds in St. Tropez, so that’s where we headed after breakfast. We thought that what with this being the off-season that things wouldn’t be too crowded, but as Jennifer would remark, it seemed even busier than during the tourist season. Part of that impression may have been due to the roadwork that was occurring along one of the major streets leading into town, meaning few parking spaces than usual. In the end we waited and got a spot in the insanely clean (the floors are polished!) underground parking garage there.

We made our way through the stalls, and Erika ended up picking up a pair of nice sweaters, some cheap but nice-looking bras (“much less expensive than at home” apparently), and a fine blue Indian silk skirt. I gave Annie just enough Euros to buy a small, colourfully painted wooden that she was captivated by at a local stall. I didn’t find anything I particularly wanted or needed, and I couldn’t find any small jars of the lavender honey that usually go down well as gifts for people back home.

Annie and the Colourful Wooden Cats (I Love the Expression on the “Grandmother” Behind Her)

Around noontime everything started shutting down, and we made our way over to the small merry-go-round which has always been a favourite for the girls. Vanessa was with her Grandpa, so Annie got about 10 euro’s worth of rides, which latest the better part of an hour. She had a blast.

Annie on the Merry-Go-Round Horse at St. Tropez

When she had finished we made our way over to Le Café, which was as full as could be. The older men of the town were now playing games of bocce on the boulevard where all of the stalls had been less than an hour before, and the pigeons returned in strength. Since we couldn’t get into Le Café, we settled for Café des Arts, which was something of a relief since after several days straight of incredibly rich food, it was nice to have filling “peasant fare” instead. I had a dish comprised of several kinds of meat — lamb, sausage, and pork — on top of a bed of couscous, accompanied by a small jug of warm, lightly-spicy sauce that could be poured over it. Good hearty food, spoiled only by the French habit of smoking copiously indoors at the dinner table both during and after a meal.

Afterwards we made our way down to an ice cream store down by the harbour, where just about everybody came away with insanely rich and sugary ice cream. Yum!

The afternoon was spent wandering around the grounds of the chateau. This was an even greyer day than the one before, so the chances of good photography were even less than before, but I took what I could in the hopes that something would turn out okay despite the poor lighting.

A dull day weather-wise: flat grey skies, cooler than it had been for the past several days, a forecast of rain that never materialized. I knew the forecast since I’ve gotten into the habit of bringing a small radio along on these trips, though there’s now wireless access throughout much of the house, so next time I will bring my computer and just look it up online. In the past I have enjoyed listening to Riviera Radio, which is broadcast out of Monaco, aimed squarely at English-speaking tourists and hip expats with money. On previous visits they tended to play a late of 90s-era Britpop, featuring heavy doses of tunes by The Verve, Blur, Oasis and the like. They seem to have altered format, so now they have a sometime odd mix of music, ranging from 70s disco to low-grade American hip-hop, with heavy doses of M.O.R. Elton John, Queen, Rod Stewart etc. I began to understand why my sister-in-law was so down on this station — listening to this stuff during the last harvest would have driven me batty too.

Very much to its credit however, they still play BBC news at the top of the hour, where I heard more about the student protests happening in various French cities against a newly proposed labour law that would make it easier to fire those in their mid-20s and under. My own feeling is that this is a left-ist policy gone too far, and which the latest government, desperately trying to bring back a level of flexibility and productivity in the workforce, and is adamantly trying to change. I don’t doubt that the students realize that this can only be the thin edge of the wedge, and are digging their feet in. It doesn’t strike me as a situation that is likely to end anytime soon.

After breakfast I headed out with the intention of walking the perimeter of the “north” vineyard, which I have never fully explored. Vanessa joined me, and we had a very pleasant walk around the circumference of the property. I took pictures of anything that took my interest, such as the chateau, small signs at the end of a row of plants bearing the name of the type of grape and the row number, and of any interesting local plants that popped up. It being a grey day none of the pictures were spectacular, but it was a nice walk nonetheless.

Syrah sign

Dotted at odd intervals around the outside the grounds, and the small electric fence (designed to keep out the roving sanglier at night), were cork trees. Vanessa and I had a close look at them, and I explained how the tree bark was used in the production of cork stoppers for wine bottles. Even though I knew what it was, I was still surprised at how, upon taking off a piece of the bark, it was recognizably the same soft wooden material more commonly found at the top of wine bottles. On one of the trees I saw, the material was easily 6 or 7 inches thick, and came off easily from the relatively smooth and dark heartwood of the tree. The outside of the bark covering the tree is wonderfully wizened and gnarled. They have this ancient look about them, even if they aren’t actually as old as they might seem. Cork trees have the sort of texture that naturally lends itself to photography, even on leaden days like this.

The Thick Bark of Cork Tree on the Estate (The Darker Stuff is Heartwood, So You Can See How Thick the Actual Cork Bark Is)

By this point Vanessa had taken to collecting wild flowers in order to make a bunch when we got back to the house. Of course the very best wild flowers were on the other side of the electric fence. So every now and then I would lift her over it in order to grab some flowers of interest.

On the final leg of the trip back to the chateau we ran across a roadway which was obviously made from fill derived from a house that had been knocked down and “recycled”. Every now and then a piece of colourful tile would poke up from above the soil. In the end we had a hard look through some of it, and Vanessa was very happy to find a piece of nearly-intact earthen tile that still had the name of the manufacturer clearly stamped upon it. She very happily took that and her flowers back to the chateau, and I had a camera full of more shots that I needed to dump to my 1GB memory stick to look over later.

In the afternoon we took all of the kiddies for a “free-form” version of mini-golf, Cassandra in particular having a blast as she guided the colourful golf balls into their respective holes by any means possible. Annie came up with the “Annie Method”, which basically involved grabbing the golf ball and rolling it from a few inches away so that it almost always went in the whole. Vanessa just tore off and did all of the holes in the shortest available time.

Later we went to a local mini-mart where I picked up a “native” rechargeable battery outlet for the AA batteries my camera requires. The one I had brought with me, along with Erika’s hairdryer, seems to have died a horrible electric death. It’s not enough to have an adapter, but having the proper transformer also seems to be key. We also picked up ice cream for the kids, which went down very, very well of course.

The afternoon was pleasant and sunny. Bright and warmish in the direct sun, but cool almost to the point of chilly in the shade.

After yet another marvelous, very rich lunch, we decided to head down to the Mediterranean at the bottom of the estate. This is actually not something undertaken lightly, as the route is a highly circuitous path that winds its way down to the water, via an old, crumbling boat house. The girls love it because there are always shells to collect, and Erika likes it for the substantial exercise it provides when coming back up. I like the photo opportunities it usually provides, so we all went together. Little Cassandra also joined us, and though she was not as fast as the main party, doggedly walked all the way down and a good chunk of the way back as well. The two big Dobermans also accompanied us, despite the fact that both had been mauled and were still recovering from one of the nastier local sanglier that seems to have it in for the dogs on the estate.

The walk down was pleasant, and I took a number of pictures of some of the just-flowering plants, the chateau and the family as the opportunities arose.

The Chateau as Seen from the Terraced Garden

Trees Blooming Alongside the Path

One of the bet things about being here in the south of France this time of year is the fact that it is not too hot, (which would make the eventual trip back up the hillside easier), and that many of the plants and trees were just coming into their own.

We passed a couple of other people trekking in the area, who were looking into the undergrowth for fresh wild asparagus. We stopped briefly to see exactly what they were picking and where they were picking it from, giving us a better sense as to what to look for on the way back.

We eventually made it to the old boathouse, its concrete launch slowly being crumbled away by time and tide, in the water could be seen bits of old railing and the occasional large piece of gearing or other metal, now rusted and covered in algae, resting in the water.

Rusted Boat Launching Machinery by the Seaside

All of the girls settled in to collecting seashells and beach glass. Erika took off her top and caught some sun while the dogs stood watch. I took my camera and took photos, hoping to spot interesting marine life in the tide pools, but in the end not coming up with much.

“Things” in the Tidepool

I did find a shattered – and somehow still living – piece of a sea urchin which had evidently been largely munched by something much bigger and not intimidated by its spikes, of which there were only small nubs left between the still-wriggling small feet. It was tossed back in the water, in the likely vain hope that it might regenerate.

On the way back up we started looking for wild asparagus. Erika and Vanessa ventured into the sometimes spiky undergrowth and came back with several handfuls of the stuff. I went ahead and continued to push Annie, who was in a stroller, and little Cassandra marched on up beside us.

Vanessa Proudly Showing Off the Wild Asparagus She’s Collected

We met Josef on a scooter when we were in easy striking distance of the Chateau. He first gave Cassandra a ride back, and then in turn a thrilled Annie and then Vanessa.

We arrived at Frankfurt without incident, and after discovering that the gate for our flight to Nice had yet to be posted, we all found a convenient waiting area (gate A26) that was little used and basically camped out there for the several hours we had to wait between flights. The dogs were walked, the girls played with their toys, we all got to stretch our legs, and I picked up instant energy by buying a package of Toblerone chocolates from the nearest duty free shop to us. When pedestrian traffic was light I played with the girls on the “people movers” as well as on some nearby escalators. Everybody (save me) managed to get a nap in as well.

About an hour before our flight was to leave our flight to Nice was finally posted, so Jennifer and I roused everyone else up so that we could make our way to the correct gate for our flight.

The second flight of our trip was on a smaller, more comfortable plane that provided significantly more leg-room for the likes of me.

Erika and the girls napped for much of the flight, while I got to see the tops of the snow-covered alps far below. I noticed that further south we went, the less-snowy the countryside, until it was only to be seen on the tops of the higher mountains. The trip to Nice airport was just about an hour long, so it was a short, pleasant flight.

Despite the palm trees that could be seen dotted around the perimeter of Nice airport when we landed, the temperature was not much warmer than what we had left at home: about 13C.

We retrieved our bags, and then had to wait in line for ages for the rental car that had been pre-arranged for at the Hertz counter. For the record I made note of the other car rental services available at Nice airport, and they are: Sixit, ADA, Thrifty, Budget, Europcar and Avis. Avoid Hertz, and aim for one of these other agencies instead, who could apparently deal with their customers in a *much* more efficient manner than the single attendant at the Hertz desk. Good case in point: she called twice to ensure that the child seat that we had ordered was in fact there, and then, when we got there, Erika had to ask for it again and then I had to install it. Ugh — never again. And this was on top of at least one other call regarding the vehicle itself (which, for the record, was a roomy Peugeot mini-van). This also meant another ride, this time to the other terminal by bus, so there was another round of unloading and loading our baggage again. After having waited the better part of an hour waiting and then dealing with the Hertz representative, we finally got everybody, the luggage and the dogs piled into the rental mini-van, and headed off for the last leg of the trip to the estate near Ramatuelle.

Both girls slept again, which meant that for the first time, neither of them had been sick for any part of the long journey.

When we arrived we were greeted warmly by our hosts, and then we lugged ourselves and our baggage upstairs. We were shown rooms in the west wing, with individual rooms for Vanessa and Annie, as well as one for Erika and myself, so we essentially had an entire wing of the building to ourselves.

Since I was the only one of the group who hadn’t had any sleep over the course of the trip, after helping to sort things out I gratefully hit the hay and conked out for the night.

Erika took her mother and Vanessa for some Boxing Week clothes shopping, so I decided to take Annie along to the ROM to see the newly opened galleries there.

We got their early enough to beat the initial crowds, and Annie happily settled in to the kids activities on the second floor. Once she was happy having drawn several pictures, worn some kid-sized armour and gone into the Bat Cave a few times, I managed to persuade her to satisfy her Dad’s curiosity and explore the new galleries on the floor prior to heading out for lunch.

Seeing the light emerge through the stained-glass windows above the old east-facing entrance was impressive, and the replica old oaken doors are more in keeping than the misguidedly too-modern glass doors that formerly graced that entrance.

Could see that the Weston Hall adjacent to the coat check room was still being worked on, but the fact that there was natural light streaming in from previously covered-up windows was already a good sign for future development.

The equivalent space to the north, where the gift shops and the Druxy’s diner used to be is now devoted as a gallery space for the First Peoples. Didn’t get to see much as Annie’s patience was already being stretched, but noted that very few of the displays had anything by way of signage, and also saw a few empty display cases. Clearly things were not completely ready for the re-opening, and that there was still much work to be done.

We then headed over to the Samuel Hall/Currelly Gallery space, which basically sports many, many comfy seats. I realize that the general age of the museum’s patrons is getting older, but I can’t help but wonder how long it will take for somebody to re-convert this space to something more functional than for just sitting around and taking a much-needed pause between exhibits. Annie had fun playing with one of two large touch-screen displays detailing the history of the ROM, and I noted the two newly mounted dino skeletons on the south wall, surely a stop-gap measure for those disappointed at the continued absence of a dinosaur gallery, which is slated to re-open when the Michael Lee-Chin crystal structure is slated to open late next year. It was also nice to see the two murals dating to the mid-1940s on the east walls flanking the entrance arch had been uncovered. They match those that had been uncovered for the past several years on the west side, these newly uncovered ones depicting crusaders on horseback facing an opposing Saracen cavalry.

We then made our way into the first of the Asian galleries. Again, it is obvious that things were a little bit rushed prior to opening, as there were next to no explanatory text accompanying the objects on display, save for the large signs containing the gallery names that thank the people/firms that made the galleries possible in the first place. The new Chinese architecture gallery was impressive, with scatterings of architectural elements, a facsimile of a royal façade, and a tomb flanked by stone camels. The absence of any contextual signs lends itself to free-association as to why particular artifacts are displayed together. A situation not likely to last long, I am sure, so I took a few pics of some of the architectural elements in one of the display cabinets.

Annie’s patience was being sorely tested by this point, but I managed to dash through some of the other Asian galleries quickly, enough to get a sense as to where things are and where to head next visit.

It was a dull, grey day when we got back outside, but I managed to take a couple more shots, once of the old planetarium building, which I posted to the McLaughlin Planetarium page on Wikipedia, and one of the newly uncovered façade for the east entrance, which I also posted to Wikipedia under the page for the ROM under a section detailing its construction.

I had an unexpected kid-free day today, so I took the chance to return to the Science Centre for the second day in a row to see the Body Worlds 2 special exhibit.

I set out early in order to try and beat the crowds, but need not have bothered, since by the number of cars parked in the parking lot that there were clearly more people than usual already at the OSC.

I didn’t want to bring the girls along, as I figured that they would be freaked out by all the bones, body parts and whole body plastinates. In the end I was a bit freaked out by it all, though largely in a good way. Despite my reticence at bringing my kids, the same thoughts didn’t seem to stop other parents.

As a member I got a discount to the exhibition, so I only had to pay about $14 or so to get in. I got my timed ticket for the 11:30 entrance, picked up an audio tour stick, and made my way into the exhibit hall.

The show begins the moment you step into what is normally the long upper entrance tunnel to the OSC. I noted with some amusement the black drapery hung over the sides, presumably so that people on the lower section cannot possibly see what’s on display upstairs, and to prevent anybody from dropping something like a ticket to someone waiting below. No cameras allowed.

The initial exhibits are bones: arms, legs and spine. The first hint of something out of the ordinary was the plastinated knee joint, displaying tendons and the patella clearly. Not just a bunch of dry bones. Then the first full-body plastinate, basically a skeleton arranged to look as if he was about to shake your hand. I noted how on the stand von Hagens had left his signature, affixing his stamp (of creation? artwork? authenticity?) on the display. This was the first of the unsettling elements for me about the show.

Near the end of the hallway were other more obvious plastinates of internal organs, starting with the brain. What struck me was how small it is, and couldn’t help but think that some shrinkage was involved, until I saw the example still situated within the skull. There were slices of brain depicting the swirls of white matter structure, and the unfortunate brains that had been afflicted with forms of cancer, the black melanoma lesions particularly striking in one example, the large black blobs obviously not supposed to be where they were.

The process through the hallway was slow, the number of people easily that of other popular exhibitions I’ve been to, like the start of the Feathered Dinosaurs exhibition at the ROM, or even the Tutankhamen exhibit from many years ago. I found the audio tour disappointing, mainly because I was hoping for more information on the nature of the plastinates than on just the anatomy, of which I remembered more than I thought. Given the waits between seeing individual exhibits due to crowds, I could often key in the number for an exhibit well before reaching. (Minor quibble — for that reason it would have been a better idea if the presenter had placed the audio tour number at the top of an exhibit instead of at it base.

At the end of the entrance hall are the first truly impressive posed full-body plastinates. The first shows the nervous system set against skeletal structures. Then there’s the iconic “Thinker” whose most interesting aspect are all of the exposed nerves running down his back. In between the two were more display cases containing internal organs. Most memorable were those of a normal pink lung set against the darkly stained lung of a smoker, set against the entirely black and shriveled lungs of a coal miner, looking solid from coal dust. I’ve never been a smoker but if I was seeing these would give me pause if I were. This of course, is the intention, but the direct comparison along a continuum was new to me. Other smoker’s lungs would be highlighted wherever they appeared throughout the exhibit.

The other full body plastinates at this point featured a skeleton walking just behind all of his musculature, one pace in front of him. Then the upside-down pole-vaulter whose viscera is displayed in a similar upside-down position, offering a novel view of the stomach and intestines. Then there’s the skier in the middle of a jump, cut down the middle to display his innards, followed by the iconic skateboarder as seen on subway posters I’ve seen who is depicted in the middle of a flip, held off only by his hand. By this point I was beginning to be interested in how these plastinates were mounted, and was impressed by what I could only assume to be metal rods running through the skateboarder’s hands that prevented from tumbling off the podium to the floor below. Again, this is not the sort of information that is readily supplied at any point — nothing on the mechanics of it all.

At this point I descended down the staircase into the atrium, where the crowd could at least spread around a little bit, and I felt less like cattle being herded about. The most striking thing from a distance is the adult camel, whose neck has been bisected into three parts. One looks like its feeding on the group, the second is in the middle, the third is looking forward. It’s no wonder why some people think initially it is three camels instead of one.

At the base of the stairs are some other animals (deer and gorilla) as examples of comparative anatomy. There are also some striking examples of only the circulatory system for a duck, rabbit and a human head, all suspended in a cube containing some clear liquid. All fascinating, but sans captions, which was frustrating. They were just there, floating in their cubes without context.

There are other posed plastinates, in largely athletic poses, such as the one of the man about to throw a javelin, or the male/female pair of ice skaters. There’s not a small dose of macabre humour thrown in, such as with the “drawer man”, who is opened up like a set of drawers, his left hand opening his chest wall to show you his heart.

There are a total of three female plastinates in the exhibit. There was one that haunted me: an obviously young woman who had been several months pregnant. The baby was exposed in the womb, and through a mirror you could see a darkened smoker’s lung exposed. An obvious tragedy for some family, stripped of identity and context. I guess for me what was missing from this exhibit in particular was identity – I realize that these were people, and am curious as to how they got to be here. In short, what happened? I realize that this is all done supposedly in the name of science, but the lack of context (both specific and the personal), the signatures which come across as hubris, and the sometime sacrifice of science to spectacle.

On my way out I bought a copy of the catalogue. The other thing I found disturbing was how much of a money-maker this seems to be: my usual OSC discount didn’t apply to any of the items on sale in support of the exhibition. Again, I can understand the reasoning for it -– it must help to pay for transportation costs, the not inconsiderable expense of making the plastinates -– but I would have preferred that von Hagens had been up front about it.

An unforgettable exhibit. I think once was enough though.

I picked up this book from the local Book City bookstore the other weekend, looking for a cheap historical read. When I saw this book in the store I knew I had to get it – I had seriously considered buying it when it originally came out new a couple of years or so ago. Fascinating story as told by a writer for The Economist of the famous late 18th century chess-playing automaton.

I am pretty sure I had originally read about the automaton when I was a kid and originally getting into playing chess, and marveled at the possibility of a chess playing machine. This was back in the 1970s of course, well before the days of the personal computer and real computer chess games, when the idea seemed fantastic and perhaps just plausible.

The story of the turk as told by author Tom Standage is comprehensive, and despite its interesting (and sometimes mythical) history, the book was drier than I expected. Its inventor created it basically as a party trick for the Austrian royal court, and over the years it played the likes of Napolean and Benjamin Franklin, and directly influenced such people as the grand-father of computing Charles Babbage, and writer Edgar Allan Poe. It is well written and well presented — the obvious question as to how it actually worked is wisely left until near the end, and then went into an interesting look at the famous Deep Blue matches against Kasparov

After finishing off the book and picking up Vanessa from Art Garage, we ducked into the local toy shop, and I picked up an Excalibur chess game for myself, which despite my interest in the game over the years, I’ve never actually had a dedicated chess computer (as opposed to a chess game on a computer). It does have a teach mode, so I could also use it to show the game to the girls as well – yeah, that’s it. ;-).

As for the results when we got it home, let’s just say that I’m no Kasparov… 😉