Further more...

I bought the Times this weekend because I (rightly) assumed that it might have a good obituary for Jan Morris. The Obitury did note that although Morris was not born in Wales, she became welsh and was fluent in Welsh. I read her book called A Machynlleth Triad: The Triad; Y Triawd, written in English and Welsh. It is a rather sweet nationlist manifesto. If only the world could turn out as we dream it to be. Reading the paper I was of course interested in Richard Morison's review of Dan Hick's book called 'The Brutish Museum'. This article also registered like me that the shrunken heads were gone from the Pitt Rivers Museum. I felt that we might have shared this childish disapointment, (and as Morrison says) what else is there it see? I also recalled the powerfully convisnsing book 'Riding the Black Coakatoo' by John Danalis. Danalis grew up in Australia where his father had an ancient aborigone skull on the mantlepiece. Danalis, as an adult, realised how offensive this columsy disreguard for other people's feeling was. Having a skull from a graveyard means different things to different people, but it is well known that for aborigonal people this aberation remains significant. Danalis was able to help his parents understand this and he supported its return to a suitable gravesite. Morrison takes a dim view of the prospect of 10's of 1000s of stollen artifacts being returned to foreign museums. I wonder where he stands on the return of Nazi art treasures? He scoffs at the idea of money being put into examining the providence of British collections. I return to my point that the Bristish do not know what it is like to have our cultural icons taken and displayed in other countries. The closest we get to that is when art works are bought by private investors, and then never seen again. Items that might stir us would be 'the magna carta'. What about if Tower Bridge (not London Bridge) had gone to Arizona? Nelson's Column - not a thing of beauty, but it is used as the point to measure distance to London from around the country.