Shelling Out

You'll find this in the foyer in the National Theatre Royal Festival Hall, and at first glance you'll probably think this to be a sculpture. You'd be wrong. It's a fossil, all of 18 million years old, the great grandfathers of the scallops we eat today. The plaque has the gem of information that scallop shells were worn by pilgrims in the middle ages to identify tehmselves as harmless travellers. And why here, as it was found in Provence? The Shell Centre is next door, they donated it.