Golden rain

Laburnum anagyroides

There used to be a row of these glorious trees next to my primary school, until the owner found out they were poisonous and had them all destroyed. Thus, I can't help feeling, rendering subsequent generations of children more susceptible to laburnum poisoning and not less because they are probably not able to recognise it and know it is poisonous.

This evening we went to Newcastle to the launch of the Bodyworlds exhibition at the Life centre. Body Worlds was controversial when it first started, due to the fact it uses real human bodies in life like poses. And also, quite probably, due to the fact that its creator Gunther von Hagens it a bit eccentric. I think it still is rather controversial but having seen the exhibition I thought it was amazing. I am not knocking the old body parts in jars but seeing everything in situ, all the nerves, blood vessels, muscles, bones, organs really made it easy to see how everything relates to each other.

The exhibition itself was beautifully lit and laid out, you could walk all the way round all the exhibits and the information boards laid out what you wanted to know without being too wordy.

There was a heavy emphasis on health and there were damaged organs on display from various diseases, some of which self-inflicted. There was also a display with photos of families from different countries along with a weeks worth of food. As you can imagine, the American diet looked by far the worst!

Very highly recommended.