Month: February 2012

Order

The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has recently had a grand make-over, but as the exhibition (New galleries of Ancient Egypt and Nubia) has been open a while, that is since November, I had hoped that there would be fewer visitors today so that I could enjoy it in peace and quiet.
Nah.
It was crowded and there was  great deal to see and take in. We borrowed the hand-held sets for an auditory commentary which was a little unsatisfactory being incomplete – and with so many people around it was difficult to be in the right place at the right time! In addition two things I had been keen to see (the ultrasound scan of a mummy which has been taken to show the insides of a mummy which has never been unwrapped and a CT scans of a child mummy) were both out-of-order… so I shall have to go back. However the artist Angela Palmer has used these scans to make a wonderful piece of art which you can read about here.

I took a few pictures, but it is difficult to capture the exhibition. The order and exactitude required to be a museum curator is illustrated here

for the Photo Competition

Entente cordiale or wha’?

Politics is always good for a larf. The ink is hardly dry on France’s vituperative propaganda against the UK’s protection of its sovereignty and its ‘City’, when suddenly the excess of sweetness and light is enough to induce chronic nausea. Maybe Bismarck was right: politics really is only the art of the possible. But I wonder if it is also the art of selective amnesia.

A caption or two wouldn’t come amiss either.

The wages of sin?

Sorry to hog the page, but some things get my goat.

Does anybody here think we or anybody else knows what really happened when Meredith Kercher died? No. Nor me. So why on earth does any civilised judicial system allow Amanda Knox to make megabucks on a ‘very thoughtful, reflective and serious book’ deal with a respectable publisher?

Some things are worth raving about.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17069980

Delayed Gratification

Rod Liddle in The Spectator

The body of this post has been copied to a safe place pending a decision by Boadicea. It will be reinstated and re-opened for comments if, and when, she concludes that it is appropriate material for the Chariot.   Bearsy.

Having read the full text of this post, I have decided that it will not be published.

I find the article in The Spectator offensive. I fail to see how ‘Indigenous Australians’ behaved in the 1920s (long before most had contact with European habits) has any relevance to the lazy ‘Indigenous British’ who fail to toilet train their children, despite being exposed to the wonders of the ‘Water Closet’ for several generations.

My apologies for the chequered history of this post – but I am rather busy on other matters.

I have re-opened the post for comments.
Boadicea