London November 4, 2011

Yesterday at London’s Natural History Museum we met the brightest human being I have ever encountered. We were enjoying a guided tour in the basement of the Darwin Centre, which stores the world’s largest collection of animal specimens. Many of these were collected during Darwin’s voyage aboard The Beagle in the 1830’s.

This bright fellow introduced himself as Cameron Alrich. He provided information on each specimen; its common and scientific name, genus, mating habits, etc., etc. But Cameron wasn’t our guide. He was a guest like us. He constantly corrected the guide’s latin. But no one seemed irritated.

After all, Cameron is only eight years old.

You must be at least eight to get into the specimen lab. Cameron had been awaiting this moment for three years; He had begged his mother for three years to let him see “Archie” the giant squid in the Darwin exhibition.

This kid is the spitting image of McCauley Culkin: blond hair, long face, chronic sniffles, red-rimmed eyes and the uncanny ability to outwit his elders. He’ll probably win a Nobel Science Prize in a couple of decades. Remember the name.

No one speaks English in London. On every street corner, in every pub, in the underground and on the double deckers all we heard was Russian, German, French, Spanish and a multitude of other indiscernible accents; but not the Queen’s English.

We did a day trip to the English countryside, first visiting Liz’s digs at Windsor castle, then Stonehenge and finally the ancient Roman City of Bath where the Occupy Bath movement was being forceably removed by armoured British troops.

Some resisted. These people are in a lot of hot water.

I saw Lon Chaney walking with the Queen… speaking Portuguese. Ahh-oooo… Foreigners of London.

Gerry