Taking a look inside

Bodyworlds is something I've been meaning to see for a while, but missed its earlier tours. So when hawkida suggested a trip, I decided it was definitely time to go. Especially as I live only one stop away from the O2 on the tube, so even extreme laziness wasn't cutting it as an excuse.

Although I knew what the exhibition consisted of I wasn't sure how it would be presented. Very impressively indeed, it turned out. We spent about two hours going round, and could easily have spent longer. I had thought it would be a good idea to be taken round by someone familiar with anatomy and pathology, but if you did that I think you'd literally be there all day.

The most striking aspect of Bodyworlds is that it is in no way morbid, distasteful or disturbing. The almost theatrical posing of dissected bodies would, one might expect, trivialise them. Instead, to me it brought to the forefront their astonishing complexity and detail. From what I could see of a very busy exhibition, pretty much all my fellow visitors seemed to feel the same way; many seemed to appreciate the chance to actual see how parts of the body were put together, especially those parts that give us problems. It's all very good being told that you've torn your cruciate ligament, but seeing a dismantled knee joint makes it much clearer what this entails.

As well as the plastinated bodies there were many more traditional preparations, such as casts made by filling the blood vessels and dissolving the surrounding tissue. Even these though were done to an astonishing level of detail; you read about the capillary mesh, but it isn't until you see how fine it is that you appreciate that our arteries and veins are just the first and last steps of getting blood where it's needed. There were also plenty of examples of what our lifestyle can do to our bodies: fatty livers, smoke-blackened lungs and, most strikingly, a thin front-to-back vertical slice through a morbidly obese adult. I'd heard the saying that inside every fat man there's a thin man trying to get out, but until I saw this island of bone and viscera swimming within a vast envelope of adipose tissue I hadn't realised quite how literally true it was. Other than that, the only exhibit that made me wince was an anatomical preparation of an Inguinal hernia - not a problem I've had, but an all-too common condition. I was also struck by the way in many of the male bodies that, without a containing scrotum, the dangly bits were so, well, dangly. As I commented to hawkida, the positioning of our testicles is a good argument against intelligent design, or at least by design by anyone who had been kicked in the nuts. She commented, fairly enough, that similar issues could be raised with anyone claiming to have designed the corresponding female bits.

On the way out I picked up the exhibition catalogue, which is being discounted to £10 and which proved to have a lot more detail and commentary than I'd expected, including several essays on the moral and philosophical aspects of such an exhibition. But by the time I read it, it was preaching to the converted. If you're at all interested in what's inside you, Bodyworlds is well worth a visit. Even if you fear you might find the subject a bit disturbing, I think you may be pleasantly surprised.

At the very least you'll come away knowing where your cruciate ligament is, which will save time at the doctor's when you tear it.

Commissioned Artwork: who gets the copyright, and what can they do with it?

In the course of researching a legal point I came across the 2003 case of Griggs Group v Evans, alias the Case of the Doc Martens Logo.

The judge hearing the case, Peter Prescott QC, opened by explaining the central issue:

A client goes to an advertising agency and pays them to design a new logo. The agency employs a free-lance designer to produce the design. Nothing is said about copyright. Who gets the copyright in the logo? That is what this case is about.

He went on to introduce the parties - fairly normal, albeit with a touch of Michael Caine.

Everybody has heard of Dr Martens, also known as "Doc Martens", "Docs", or "DMs". As the Oxford English Dictionary explains, it is "A proprietary name for a type of heavy laced walking boot or shoe with a cushioned sole". The sole is, in fact, air-cushioned. The sole was originally developed by two German doctors, Dr Maertens and Dr Funck. They made "Dr Maertens" shoes for sale to elderly German women with foot trouble. (Not many people know that.)

After explaining how Northamptonshire firm Griggs bought rights to make them, he further described their popularity.

At first they were worn by postmen, builders, factory workers and so forth. They became standard issue police boots. Police officers are called out to deal with accidents and it is an advantage of a Dr Martens boot that the sole is resistant to petrol and other chemicals. Further, and according to the 2001 edition of Superbrands (a publication about 100 of Britain's strongest brands), policemen reckoned that the soft sole proved invaluable for sneaking up on criminals. The boots were also standard uniform for skinheads and football hooligans, and were taken up by the Rt Hon Tony Benn, PC, MP

I am not quite sure if the judge was seeking to imply ejusdem generis to create some line of association in that last sentence - perhaps he was thinking of Dennis Skinner. Anyway, he goes on to give a very clear and readable explanation of what happens to copyright when A commissions B to create artwork for A's use.

I also found several legal articles on this case. Almost without exception they relied on a punning title along the lines of 'Judge Puts the Boot In'. I recently went to a seminar on writing about IP cases and one of the bits of sage advice was not to rely on forced humour in titles. Because the chances are your wit will be exactly as limited as everyone else writing on the same case...