Exhibition Road
Exhibition Road, where the Science and Natural History Museums are is now a shared space between all users.
It seems to work, although I suspect some will object. Here‘s the view of the Daily Mail.
Codebreaker At The Science Museum
This morning, I went to see the exhibition about Alan Turing called Codebreaker at the Science Museum.
Posters for Codebreaker
it is actually only a small exhibition, but with good quality and some unusual exhibits, including a differential analyser built out of Meccano.
There was also some exhibits and documents on Turing’s personal life, including the Coroner’s report on his suicide.
The exhibition says that his mother thought his death may not have been suicide and in his Wikipedia entry, this is said.
Turing’s mother argued strenuously that the ingestion was accidental, caused by her son’s careless storage of laboratory chemicals. Biographer Andrew Hodges suggests that Turing may have killed himself in an ambiguous way quite deliberately, to give his mother some plausible deniability. Hodges and David Leavitt have suggested that Turing was re-enacting a scene from the 1937 film Snow White, his favourite fairy tale, both noting that (in Leavitt’s words) he took “an especially keen pleasure in the scene where the Wicked Queen immerses her apple in the poisonous brew.”
If you look at others like Turing, such as Newton, you find characters very much on the edge. I used to work with a programmer, who always sang and made strange noises as he coded. He argued that programming was such a logical business, you had to do something mad to balance the mind. Turing wasn’t a programmer in the sense we think now, but he was someone steeped in logic and I suspect the same applied to him.
Sadly, in today’s world, Turing would probably be treasured in much the way Stephen Hawking is.
At least now, hopefully his sexuality would not have been the problem it was in the 1960s.
I Am A Man Who Is Approaching His Terminus
Not me, I hasten to add!
But the very brave Clive James has said this about himself, as he battles against cancer.
He is obviously determined to go with dignity and humour.
Is there any other way? Not in my book there isn’t!
Hit By a Strike
London’s buses are on strike today.
I can’t remember the last time, I was personally hit by a strike, but I suspect it was the odd Underground strike in the 1970s, when we lived in London.
It doesn’t really affect me much, as I can walk to the end of the road to get the Overground. But I know someone, who is having radiotherapy and the only way they can get to hospital is on a bus.
What annoys me about this strike, is that it appears to have been totally avoidable. Olympic bonuses should have been settled months ago, but I suspect UNITE were waiting to see if Ken got to be London Mayor. And where are Ed Milliband’s statements on this strike. Nowhere! But who funds the Labour Party? UNITE!
On fairness grounds, the bus staff should be getting something. But there is more to this row, than has appeared in the media.
The Anonymous Widower 