If you are yet to encounter it, then the tale of the Manchester Museum Egyptian statue which spins by itself is a great yarn. My friend sent me a link to the Huffington post and thus my amusement began.

In short, the 10 inch high statue keeps turning and facing the back of it's cabinet, to the confusion of the one person who held the one key to open the cabinet. A time lapse camera was set up and has shown the figure gradually rotating 180 degrees to the left. The main suggestion is that the vibrations of visitor's walking by, combined with a difference in the glass and stone surfaces, cause the effect. Or, Neb-Senu's ghost is bored and trying some gentle breakdancing. Watch the video, it's ace! 

The best part about this story is the reporting.... oh the fun!
"Don't go running to mummy just yet" 
har har, a nice Scooby Doo level pun from Huffington Post

“Curse of the spinning statue!” 
I think I've seen that B-Movie, thanks to DNTV

“The turn of the mummy: God of death statue starts SPINNING on its own in Manchester museum... but is this a sign that there really is a curse of the Pharaohs?”
The Daily Mail’s opted for less punnage, and only moderate fear.

“I sphinx I saw it moving. 
Ancient god's relic starts to walk like an Egyptian”
“…an offering to the Egyptian God Osiris — regarded as the God of the DEAD.”
"Nile be back ... relic starts to move"
Gods bless The Sun, a pun, a pop culture reference and a nice bit of capitalised scaremongering, then more puns.

As the rear of the statue holds a hieroglyphic prayer asking for ‘‘bread, beer and beef’’, and I’m in Manchester this weekend on a Hen Do, I wonder if I can pop in with a can of beer and a MacDonald’s for it?

Cuts not as bad as feared, but "local government is low down the food chain and we know that local government museums or independent museums supported by them are way down the local government food chain." so the outlook is gloomy. See the details and more opinions here.

Perhaps it may ruffle some feathers, but it needs to be said. Now is the time to think like a business, and rather than close, cut and crumple inwards, use this as an impetus to try the new, the unusual, the dangerous. Get together all those ideas that you've never broached because they're possibly upsetting to the 'Friends of the Museum', because the education officer hates working evenings (get someone else to run it) because you weren't sure that the effort would guarantee enough return. 

Use the desperation to spur creativity, and channel worries and panic of those around you into proving that it's worth taking a gamble on the odd ideas. Push and push to try every avenue, because on a Blue Peter budget, with less staff and less expertise, you will find gems which could increase revenue and visitors which you would never otherwise discover.

I don't know the exact painting the very slim foreign art students were studying, but apparently the lady who stopped to make this comment to the room attendant was amused at the difference between them, and the one time idealised image of womanhood in the painting. "She joked that she likes her shape, but wonders if she was born in the wrong period of history, and could have been a muse a few hundred years ago" 

So the interesting folks over at Culture Themes suggested a Museums Cake Day,  for museums and galleries to explore and share all things cake related should they be recipes, images, or actual cake. This lead to a great spread of recipes, finds from archives, baking related objects and imagery, much of which can be found by searching for #muscake

https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/muscake
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23muscake

Now my favourite part was looking for pictures of museum inspired cakes, (nomnomnom) with Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery running a contest that even made it into the news! So here are a few I found online, and was rather amused or impressed by. Go hunt out more yourself and be surprised!

If you are likely to be anywhere near Manchester between June 22 Jun 2013 and 3 Nov 2013, then the Museum of Science and Industry's Creating the Illusion: Animation in the North West looks well worth popping into, and it's free!

Described as a small exhibition, it will delve the depths of the surprisingly eclectic MOSI archives (full sized statue of Count Duckula’s butler Igor) and private collections to look at Cosgrove Hall Films - those wonderful folks responsible for many memorable shows from Danger Mouse to The BFG, and Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music through to my own fondly remembered Cockleshell Bay.

With rather old school but awesome magic lantern, through to making your own moving images, it should be a good one for the nostalgic adults and hands on kids.

Staff member "I think he's got a sort of Japanese sword with him?! What should I do?" 
Security "Approach him, ask politely what it is, and explain that we'll need to store it securely while he looks around."

After the gentleman removed his very ornately handled umbrella from it's very posh waterproof carrying case, and opened it to demonstrate it was not a sword, the staff member apologised and retreated in embarrassment. 

We didn't think to check if it was a sword cane, or he was a a Russian with a grudge and a small poison pellet.

With the noise being made about how one of MOSI in Manchester, the National Railway Museum in York or the Media Museum in Bradford would "almost certainly" be shut should the cuts continue; now is the time to visit, spend, donate, petition and see how you can help keep museums open.
If you are unaware of the situation, it boils down to increasing cuts which the Science Museum Group have been meeting. Having done all they feel possible thus far with regards to cutting staff etc, SMG director Ian Blatchford said: “We are investigating a range of options but if an additional 10% cut is made when the spending review is announced at the end of this month, there would be little choice other than to close one of our museums, since our structural (year on year) deficit would rise from £2m to £6m.” This closure would come alongside further cuts to the London based museum.
Find out more: BBC News and the interview with Ian Blatchford on Radio 4's The World at One: 

I sometimes hate the whole North/South debate, but the conclusion that it's best to shut a northern museum, rather than one in an area already well covered for museums and tourist venues, feels a bit off. Not to mention MOSI's unique value as a heritage site in it's own right, being much more of a genuine industrial hub than South Kensington, York's unique status as the first national museum outside of London, and the immense cultural and tourism benefits for Bradford being UNESCO's City of Film and hosting the National Media Museum. The benefits these three sites bring their communities and across a much broader area, I feel, outweigh the value of a site in London. No offense to London, the Science Museum there is sterling, but the entire loss of one of the northern museums would have far greater impact than say, downsizing London and spreading some of the collection out.

There are three petitions for the three venues/against the proposal overall:
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/petition-save-museum-science-industry-4050167
http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/indepth/savethenrm/petition/
http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-the-national-media-museum-bradford

As well as signing online though, Go And Visit. Currently all free to enter due to their national museum status, it's a great free day out for all the family, or without the family as then you can have fun without the kids around. Visitor numbers and secondary spending are key, so visit, get a cup of tea, and try to help keep these venues open.

My friend asked if she could clean the Giraffe at Wollaton Hall, as everything else was spotless, she had training on the conservation hoover, and had the conservation hoover. The response was a lengthy one about how delicate the taxidermy was, the level of training needed, the scaffolding, the expert equipment. As the giraffe isn't behind any glass, and is only on a small raised plinth, the day to day level of non expert contact he comes under puts him in dire need of even the smallest expert help!

t's been a while, but here's more NEW and EXCITING! tales of badly applied SCIENCE in the MUSEUMS of the FUTURE! This is instead of a comic, as I've been to busy to draw recently :(


Issue #1 here.
Issue #2 here.
Issue #3 here.

"It can guard artworks, provide directions to the toilets, hand out leaflets and vaporize cameras!"
"What about that 11% part?..."
"Did we mention they don't sleep and don't take holidays, compassionate leave or sick days?"
"We'll have 6."
 
Go and have a go at making your own pulp tales covers,  as it's very easy to edit once you prod it a bit, and has great potential for entertaining things to stick on the staff notice board.