Forgive Her Her Trespasses

At the Science Centre, downstairs at the Museum (they call it the Sciencenter, clever, hey) there's a new exhibition which we spent a little while glancing through the other day.

Nicole's verdict was that it was a bit 1980's and I could see her point; it was all right but a little lacking in ambition. The highlight was the Sperm Race game which we played, hammering away at buttons to make the little spermatozoa's tails wiggle and get them through the cervix ahead of the competition. No details on how the sperm managed to get to the point where competitive swimming became important, but that didn't stop a gaggle of boys gathering around and tittering to each other, betraying their reverse-baseball-cap cool for what it was.

In the other half of the Science Centre was the same old stuff, entertaining enough and rearranged a little.

Lyra made herself busy by being where she wasn't supposed to be when she wasn't supposed to be there. She placed herself underneath the pulley chair as a lady winched herself up. She tried to get in next to the super-revolving chair while someone was trying to stretch their legs using only centripetal acceleration. She messed around with the pieces in someones three-dimensional Connect-4 game.

Her best effort was on the manly-throw-speedometer machine, a net-enclosed shooting gallery where the cool kids throw balls as fast as they can at a target and the machine measures the speed of the ball as it travels from one end to the other. Lyra pulled over a seat, climbed up and ran down to the target where she spread her arms in self-adulation, and grinned broadly as the public laughed and her family distanced themselves rapidly.

The strategy for retrieving her was simple. I said to the two boys whose tossing action she had interrupted that they should simply turn around and face the other way. They asked me why; I gave them a knowing yet condescending look, said 'Trust me, my Mum's a doctor' and before long Lyra had returned.

We went and saw a little show that they do in a little room: this one was to do with sound. Eloise got picked as a volunteer to "help out" with some demonstration that the bloke was doing with film canisters and some explosive compound or other. Lyra and Nicole were at the back; Lyra was seriously flagging by this point. Nevertheless she found the energy to run down to the front just at the moment of maximum danger, requiring emergency retrieval to protect her from the little pops the film canisters made as their tops pinged off.