Sogger’s Blog

My kids are learning English at school. Although they already speak perfect English, when they are in class they speak English (”Ingleesh”) with a French accent. The only explanation I have for this is that they don’t want to stand out.

One of the ways they learn English is through song. It’s usually of the type, “The wheels on the bus go round and round” or “Happy Birthday”, that sort of thing. However, this week, in the run-up to the summer holidays, they have been learning the aptly named, “School’s Out”. I guess this comes from High School Musical or some such sugary show, but I know that it’s origins are darker as I’m sure you can guess if you read the lyrics. In fact, it was first sung in the 70’s by Alice Cooper, the scary-looking bloke who adopted a girl’s name.

Few people know this, and of those who do, none believe me, but I met Alice Cooper in a video-shop in Manchester in 1989. I believe he was playing the Manchester Apollo at the time. I lived in Rusholme - the curry capital of the north-west. In the heart of Rusholme was a video shop and I went along one Saturday afternoon. While I was choosing, in walked a middle-aged Goth. Dressed in black, drainpipe trousers, wrinkled face, deep black eye-liner, it was obviously Alice Cooper. I was the only other customer in the shop and was completely gobsmacked.

Alice didn’t spend time browsing - he was obviously a man in a hurry. Instead, he walked straight to the counter, asking in his American accent, “Hey, you got any’a those Splatter Movies”. The answer was obviously yes, because the owner disappeared into the backroom, coming back with a small selection. I wondered why they weren’t on general display, but I guess it’s best not to ask. As Alice chose, I left, in such a state of disbelief that I didn’t even stop to ask him why he had a girl’s name. I hope he found something with enough splatter to fire him up for a top performance that night.

There is an art exhibition in Lyon at the moment. It shows graphic anatomical details of corpses, often depicted in everyday poses like riding a bicycle. If there is one thing you can say about it, it’s that opinion, like the corpses, is divided: everybody who has heard of it has something to say about its artistic and educational value. Personally, I will be soon be going to visit, possibly with the kids (whether to take children along is another of the raging debates).

When I do go, it won’t be the first time I have seen such an “exhibition”. In fact, a few years ago, I was treated to a private showing of a similar exhibition…In a previous professional incarnation, I did a PhD at Manchester University (where I met Kenny). My area of study was computer vision - “teaching” computers to make sense of objects in images, in this case, recognising cartilage in MRI images of people’s knees. To do this involved putting people in scanners to get the images. However, at one point, we decided it would be interesting to take some pictures of knees from immobile subjects: post mortem in fact. No need to dig up any fresh corpses in this case, as we were working in the Medical School: corpses were everywhere (and I’m not talking about the lecturers). In fact, corpses were not necessary; all that we needed were a few amputated knees. “Just go up to the 4th floor and ask for Doctor Moriarty. He’ll see you right”. Actually, thinking back, Moriarty may not have been his name.

So I took the lift up to the 4th floor, and arrived at the ominously-but-unofficially-named, “Anatomy Room”. I pushed at the door, expecting it to be locked (it was around lunchtime), but it swung back (sorry to say, without a creak or any background music in a minor chord) and I stepped in. The room was large, windowless and brightly lit with fluorescent lighting. It was also devoid of living creatures (the experimental rats were on the 5th floor). However, if there were no living bodies, their numbers were compensated for by the multitude of corpses, each of them naked, with an orange pallor, and laid out on flat metal tables. There were approximately 30 tables, each with a body, laid out in a regular grid. They were, for the most-part, old corpses, the males, in particular, overweight. I guess they must have “donated their bodies to medical science” in their wills.

Doctor Moriarty was there, but his office was at the back of the room, behind the sea of bodies and their shrivelled members. This meant of course that I had to pick my way between them to get there. What a sight - one that is undoubtedly banal for people confronted with death on a daily basis (librarians for example), but not for me! Each of them had undergone some kind of invasive examination. The most graphic was a fat man whose throat had been cut open, the skin peeled back and pinned to a plastic tray (not unlike a Tupperware chopping board) on each side of his neck. The throat, I now know, is an incredibly complex thing. The multitude of bits and pieces in full view was stunning, but my stomach didn’t allow me to tarry.

Doctor Moriarty was an extremely friendly person, and was happy to help. In fact, he had a ready supply of post-mortem knees to hand (sic.). “Step this way” (sic.) he said, leading me to a ceiling-to-floor cupboard. He swung back the large, metal double-doors (sadly, still with no ominous music) to reveal the contents. This time however, there was a horror-movie moment, as an amputated hand fell to the floor. He placed it back in the cupboard (with, I thought, a lack of respect for the dead), and reached for what I was looking for - a large plastic bag, full of knees. There must have been a dozen or so in there, and he was happy to sign them over to me. Thinking back, I could have done anything with the knees - no end of practical jokes of dubious taste.

However, the sad thing is that they were of no use whatsoever. It seems that you can only get any meaningful measurements from in-vivo subjects - once they are dead, the fluid drains and the fluid is what keeps the cartilage inflated with its shock-absorption qualities. I confirmed this later when, in probably the lowest moment in the 3-year study, I went to an abattoir in Oldham on a rainy day to collect a cow’s knee (that we amusingly named Daisy in the official records). I will leave the details of what I saw therein to another post, but I can tell you that the cow did not willingly “donate its body to medical science”.