Fancy a game of marbles, anyone?

The magnificent Parthenon atop the acropolis

Subtitled: how one can change one's mind.

I recall a rather heated exchange with a good Greek friend of mine - and you'll see why his nationality is important in a moment - about repatriation of artefacts and the like that are in museums around the world - as opposed to being "at home".  It ended acrimoniously, sadly, and we both vowed never to raise it again.

When two positions are so far apart it would seem there can be no common ground - the fact that I'd never really researched some of the points I had entrenched views on, didn't seem to matter to me too much.

We were of course, if you haven't worked it out yet, arguing about what the British call the Elgin marbles and what the Greeks tend to call the Parthenon marbles.  I took the position (as perhaps a majority of Brits do) that what happened under the Empire and sense of entitlement is not really our guilt problem and if the "booty" is on view for all the world to see in London, then please feel free to come and visit - but don't expect us to return any of it.

I think for most of what's been "ex-patriated", if I can use that phrase, I would still maintain there is very little benefit to either the original "home" or the new one to move everything back to where it was pilfered from.  I see one of the great benefits of the momentous museums around the world is allowing thousands and thousand of people access to great pieces of history in a safe and protected environment - think British Musuem, Le Louvre, The Hermitage.  

So, as I was in Athens just last week for a birthday celebration over the sea in idyllic Mykonos, I naturally clambered up the acropolis and took an obligatory selfie just on the front door step, as it were, of the Parthenon itself.

Me and the Parthenon - best of friends.

I must confess (perhaps with all major monuments one sees on the telly and in books) the actual temple site was a incy-wincy bit disappointing in terms of its impressiveness.   That said, just look at these pics:

The columns of the Parthenon - and a 21st century crane.

Columns restored after many an incident rendered the whole temple area a bit of a "bomb-site".

After the site tour, we skipped down (at a rather more speedy pace, unsurprisingly, than how we'd gone up) towards the (relatively) newly-built Acropolis Museum.  I was a tad anxious; what would I see; how would it affect my opinions; what is all the fuss about?

Tickets procured, auto-barriers passed, we entered a huge lobby full of pottery artefacts, exhibits and statues; the museum is a glass and steel monument to all things Parthenon.  I hadn't realised, I suppose, that even up atop the acropolis, that all the original statues and friezes had been transported down the hill and replaced with very good replicas.  

Indeed the marvellous female statues here, are not the originals, but they are in the museum below - which didn't, sadly, allow any photos - so don't have any of what was inside.

The statues holding up the Erechtheion - which is a bit ironic - but named after a King and nothing untoward.

There were six of these originally and in the museum (pictured below) you see 5 statues in various states of wear and tear.  The sixth plinth is empty and a tag advises you the missing lady is sojourning in the British Museum.  This was not to be the case for other missing items. 

So as I ventured onto the 3rd floor and a life-size representation of the Parthenon "roof" if I may call it that, is quite different.  The frieze and metopes are there in full splendour.  I turned right out of the lobby area to find the first 1/8 of the frieze and about 90% of this was original marble - in situ and intact.  The remainder was of cast material with notes showing which institution had current ownership.  The British Museum being abbreviated to BM.

I'm there, thinking the Elgin marbles fuss over 10%, really?

I turn the corner to see the west (I think) projection and my jaw drops when I see not 90% marble in place, but 90% plaster and the next corner the same and the next and the next.  The amount of "missing" marble replaced with accurate casts of the same was astonishing.  This wasn't taking into account the great statues missing from the "gables" - huge representations hewn from marble of Greek gods and heroes - absent.

The new (rather amazing) Acropolis Museum - Athens

I realised I'd come to a very slow pace; I was almost wanting to sit down and gape - but the museum-Nazis made sure you didn't sit, slouch, lean or touch anything you weren't supposed to.

So I slowly but surely completed the circuit and headed downstairs for a sobering glass of Greek wine.

I think of myself as being quite resolute in most things - most opinions.  But I must admit, my mind has been changed at seeing just how much was confiscated from one of the most famous hills in the world.  Whether Lord Elgin had permission to take, contractually, whether he should have taken what he did or not, whether the marbles left on that hillside would have eroded or been lost to theft and destruction is perhaps not important now - although I do believe they have been preserved better in the "BM" than they might have been up there amidst a country's strife - and we know Greece has had its fair share of 20th century (and 21st for that matter) strife.

That said, I think the time is right to open the dialogue on "sharing" the treasure.  Should we rotate the treasures and exchange what the Greek museums can offer?  Absolutely.  Should we perhaps think about long term loan - as the Vatican has done?  Certainly.  Could we set a precedent for more open sharing amongst the great museums of the world and allow even more people access to the greatest remnants of history?  Definitely.

I didn't think my mind would be changed before I went to Athens - but it was - and simply because of the scale of the "light-fingered-ness".

Book yourself a flight to Athens and challenge your own views...!

But perhaps the best thing about all this, is I can now revisit the taboo topic with my good friend and we will find that common ground that eluded us.

Az gaan bak yam

(This was written on the 22nd August and being posted now - since I had a backlog of blogs to post....but after the resounding acceptance on the Union - and all that it comes with - following the No vote on Scottish Independence - a wee post about the language of English, as opposed to the wonderfully peculiar peeps south of the border is perhaps rather fitting.)

What is English?  Does it matter to speak and write it properly?

I heard today on the radio – as one does in Kenya where the radio is very pervasive – and actually where it is in most places in the world – anyway, I heard that the 16-year-old-exam grades in England & Wales for English were down (incidentally while maths were up).

I was a member of Miss Fisher’s writing club (Netherhall, Maryport) while I was in secondary school and we mostly learning good writing practices, but I’m not sure I can actually recall anything useful except if you’re writing a business letter, never have the same letter starting and finishing it.

In other words, if one addresses the recipient as Sir, perhaps it would make sense to end “yours faithfully” and if one begins “Dear Darren”, then “yours sincerely” is quite permissible; a rule I’ve followed faithfully ever since.

But in reality, what do we retain from our English classes in middle age – or even earlier in life?

And perhaps, in today’s polarised debate, does it matter?

Dare I posit, that actually, it doesn’t matter how you say it but what you say?  I can feel the blogo-sphere already a quiver with indignation.  Does it really matter that when I tell my good London friend I advise her I’m visiting b@th as opposed to baath?!  We both should (eventually) realise I’m heading off to the city of Bath.

However, I read with despair a few years ago that New Zealand was to accept text-based spelling in written exams; even I, here, will draw the line. 

Or do I?  I remember a rather heated exchange with my linguistics tutor at Oxford on orthographical reform – or how we should spell things, to you and me.

But perhaps it doesn’t really matter if we write, type or text “c u ltr” as long as the interlocutors know implicitly that they will see each other anon.?!  And as language evolves and we allow it to evolve, I’m not sure we can really lament the so-called demise of a language that for centuries has been flexible, inclusive, innovative?!?  That’s the wonder of English.

Let’s leave it to the academics to know the etymology of a word and how “see” comes from German “sehen” and now has been reduced to “c”.

We won’t be able to stop it anyway.  That’s the beauty of language….!

And for those perplexed by the title of this post, it’s in my vernacular dialect (West Cumbrian); it means I’m going back home – which is what I was doing as I wrote this post. 

Learning a good common tongue and learning it well, doesn’t mean one can’t have a dialect or accent.  Do both…!

What a bored game!

A couple of nights ago, I jumped into my 4-wheel-drive and swerved in and out of Nairobi traffic to pick up my very good friend and head off to a fairly remote part of town for a dinner party with a difference.

No, before you get ahead of yourselves, it wasn’t one of those parties.  It was a games night – and I want to be clear here, a board games night.  [tsk tsk]

I hadn’t dusted off and set up my Lord of the Rings version of Risk for about 10 years, and a good familiarising of the rules was in order.  I slipped on my readers and ploughed through the 19 pages of instructions.  Thankfully, I had two co-players equally keen to learn the rules and they both ravaged the booklet after me.

Both of them boys – this will become important later.

We shuffled, split and dealt the cards; we took laborious turns in placing our battalions; we then decided where we might attack. 

[For those who are perhaps not all that familiar with Tolkien, and his elven-world of conflict, if life doesn’t hold a troll, orc or axe-wielding dwarf in it, it’s not really life.]

The Shire, Mirkwood, Rohan, Mordor – and every imaginable piece of Middle Earth in-between was prepared for bloody combat.  And it was at this point, that our four armies were bereft of the females in our group; the baby in the crib whimpered and they were gone.

We boys didn’t give it a second thought, the dice were thrown, the armies sacrificed, the heads rolled and the territories conquered.  But I can’t help feeling our women-folk were bored of our board-pursuits.  Perhaps less killing and more thinking will be the order of the day for our next clash..!  Something like Scrabble or Monopoly perhaps.

And the moral of the tale?

Actually, it’s far more relevant to the world landscape than we might want to admit – think Gaza. 

If there were more women deciding which games we play on the world stage, there might be far less bloodshed, far less conflict and a lot more peace – even if that is while we’re feeding our offspring.!