And it's certainly busy, so much so that they don't take walk-ups at the front any more, that's prebooked free ticketholders only. I joined the slalom round the back instead and waited 15 minutes before being waved past because I didn't have a bag. It is a proper treasure trove inside though, with urns and coins and gilt scabbards and mummies and hulking great chunks of temples and masks and manuscripts and clocks and busts and tapestries and carved wooden gods and jewellery and where exactly was Levant anyway and more urns and helmets and inscriptions and the remains of civilisations we're still bombing and chess pieces and jade and torcs and stone panels and marbles and Marbles and screenprints and sculptures with tusks and ceramics and friezes and the real Rosetta Stone and a fake Rosetta Stone to draw the crowds away and mosaics and vases and cups and more urns, not all of which were looted from their place of origin. Also a cloakroom, pizzeria, £6 cakes and £3 cans of Coke because once people have waited that long to get in they're not going anywhere else. Always a joy.
That's the NHM in South Kensington, not the Tring outpost because that only had 151,000 visitors last year. Again it took me 15 minutes to get in, which wasn't great but could have been worse. It's a proper maze this place, especially once you step away from the central hall with the blue whale skeleton, and I don't know why people pay £2 for a map because it's always disorienting whatever. I did a circuit round the dinosaurs before it got too busy, including the skippable T-rex. I walked to the back of the minerals to see the gemstones and meteorites in the Vault. I noted that the escalator into the heart of the Earth's core is working again. I found an empty exhibition you had to pay to get into at the end of a silent corridor. I passed the stuffed zebras I remember as a child, also several shops and cafes I don't. I appreciated the Fixing Our Broken Planet gallery where ways of avoiding extinction are explored. I wandered out into the new back garden with its pond full of toads, and noted that if you ever want to jump the queues just enter the building this way through the tumbleweed West Entrance. But mostly I mused that the finest display of animal behaviour onsite was the visitors themselves, from the throng of global tourists to the swarm of excitable schoolchildren, because Natural History is all around us and we are a key part.
A huge hall that's empty most of the year. Four thematic collections that don't refresh as often as they could. Odd stuff, obtuse stuff, overwrought stuff. Two exhibitions it would cost £40 to see both of. Echoing tanks with not much in. Ridiculous descriptions of thematic nonsense. Escalators that take you past where you want to be. A top floor terrace they've had to retreat from. But also Dali's lobster, Duchamp's urinal, Matisse's snail, Warhol's diptych, Rothko's maroon, inspiration, expertise, goosebumps and lots to make you think, which is why we all keep coming back.
