Animal, vegetable or mineral?

British blippers of a certain age will remember Animal, Vegetable or Mineral? as a popular BBC television panel game in which archaeologists, art historians and natural history experts were asked to identify interesting objects from museums and university collections. The programme ran from 1952 to 1959 under the chairmanship of Glyn Daniel or John Betjeman while regular panelists included Sir Mortimer Wheeler and Dr. Julian Huxley. In the early series, the man responsible for selecting the items to be shown to the panel was none other than the young David Attenborough, who also acted as camera director on the show!

Today's blip includes all three elements, vegetable, animal and mineral. Sitting on a bed of Rice Crispies there is a lump of red lava from Iceland and part of the skull of a vole excavated from a Neolithic burial on Rousay, Orkney Islands in around 1930. All best appreciated under the looking glass.