Natural History, Footy and TV

My weekend plans were a little shaken up, partly because of the dang Underground being worked on. Everyone in my part of London had to take the bus, which delayed things quite a bit. I only made it to the Natural History Museum on Saturday, and unfortunately didn't make it all the way through. The nice thing though is that it's free, so I can pop in anytime I want. It sort of redeemed my museum experience considering the let-down of the Science Museum I experienced the weekend before. Not to say the Science Museum was bad, but it wasn't anything I hadn't seen at the Science Museum of Minnesota or the Smithsonian museums.
But I found the Natural History Museum (while huge) to be much better organized at leading people through the exhibits. A giant squid (possibly the largest ever caught) was placed in the museum recently, but the tours to see it were booked all the way to the end of April.

I broke my usual weekend sightseeing routine on Sunday when I played football with a few of my coworkers and their friends (I've been told by my host father that I can't say "coworkers" because it sounds too Dickens-ish. Instead I'm supposed to say "mates from work.). Anyhoo, it was pretty fun, although it took me awhile to get back into the groove of things. I think everyone including me had some sort of soreness or injury afterwards. We probably played about two and a half hours non-stop, though I did get to play goalie for a little while.

I almost forgot to say, I went to church for the first time since I've been in London. I went to an Anglican church from which the Episcopalian Church in America derived. There was a lot of the same liturgy even with the Lutheran Church, but it was a little odd hearing things like "Ull-mighty Goh-d." I was even surprised to find that they had a contemporary band for some of the songs, and the hymnals had a mix of contemporary and traditional songs (but without any notes). I did a little snooping around in the book, and some of the traditional songs' lyrics had been reworked about 10 years ago to better fit the philosophy and theology of the modern church. So "Onward Christian Soldiers" is now "Onward Christian Pilgrims." Communion was by intinction (dipping), but each person had a pastor lay their hand on their shoulder to receive a blessing, which I thought was quite nice. You can also come at the first Sunday of the month to pray individually with the pastors after the service and be anointed with oil.

The BBC on Sunday night had a stunning nature program called Planet Earth that used high powered aerial cameras that could zoom in on an animal from more than a kilometre away.

One of the things that struck me while watching it was a short piece on birds of paradise in the tropics. Because food in the jungle is so abundant, the male birds spend their time cleaning their dens to attract females. When they do attract one, they have an elaborate system of showing off to win the chance to mate. For these birds, the natural selection process isn't necessarily about the survival of the fittest but the survival of the flashiest.

I found that similar to humans in advanced societies: because we don't spend much effort looking for food, we spend our time buying flashy cars and fancy clothes and we doll ourselves up to attract our mates. I guess it's not necessarily a bad thing because we're lucky enough to have that opportunity, but it can also place too much emphasis on material things that only build up our vanity. Maybe I'm sounding too much like the guy who wrote Ecclesiastes, I don't know (look it up, people).

Another great program on TV last night was Facing the Truth, which brings victims and perpretrators of terrorism in Northern Ireland face-to-face. Archbishop Desmond Tutu is the moderator, and it can get really heavy at times, but it's the only program I can think of that tries to heal old wounds and bring a sort of redemption to everyday people. I'm oversimplifying the situation, but in America they'd probably put these people on Jerry Springer and let them go at each others' throats for 'entertainment.'