Those times when you feel like suggesting that the tourists go and take the costumed guided tour and banquet, rather than visiting the historical venue and ignoring the staff there.
 When I visit museums and galleries I'm often stirred to record snapshot moments of what's said and done by the visitors, or to pick out the odd labels and weird artifacts - if museums inspire you to write though, there's a competition waiting with your name on it.
‘Inspired By My Museum’ is open to anyone over 16, for writers to record their feelings and experiences of museums in the form of poems, short stories or reportage. You can be inspired by anything, the museum space, architecture, design, a specific object or objects within the museum, or even the museum/exhibition curator. The winning entries will be published in a special commemorative book next year. It's a great opportunity and interesting task for budding writers, a challenge for those working in museums to perhaps look anew at their surroundings, and a very unique way to highlight your favorite museum, object or exhibition. The last date for entries to Inspired By My Museum is Monday 10 February 2014, and you can find more details and submit your entry here: http://www.sampad.org.uk/learning/opportunities/competitions/ A group of blokes are looking around, and joshing each other in a good natured way, until one snaps a little bit:
"Will you stop telling me to not be facetious?! Don't accuse me of being a word you can't spell." "I can spell it. I just don't want to." Sounds like my kind of logic there. 
Yes, Nottingham is famed for Robin Hood, yes working here one has to get used to frequent questions and some difficult conversations, but the real gemstones are those people who care for NOTHING else. 100's of caves - Did the merry men use them? Isabella and Mortimer - Did Robin Hood sneak into the castle through Mortimer's hole as well? Start of the English Civil War - Yeah! fighting against the ruling classes like Robin Hood did!
Can get a bit grating when trying to run a guided tour for a wider group, and a section tries to steer it continually towards A FICTIONAL OCCURRENCE with NO bearing on the events, location, persons or time-frame. However, the scope to wind the more strident folks up is immeasurable. "Yup, some people say this was a wine cellar, but really Little John lived here while pretending to work for the castle. Want me to take your picture in here?" 
These mistranslated signs often do the rounds, but being sent this I felt rather compelled to share. Beyond the usual rude, violence inducing or plain bewildering, this Zoo is apparently a pinnacle of "we'll translate the signs because we have to, not because we really want to". I'm very glad we stick to English in our venue, which may seem elitist, but seems to work well for both sides of the equation.
Looking for something to liven up fine art? Find yourself thinking inappropriate thoughts and giggling when in art galleries? Perhaps you or someone you know take art a bit too seriously and needs lightening up? Then you really need to watch this great set of animations showing what The Elegant Gentleman's guide to Knife Fighting (an aussie TV show) think about when they see fine art. Henceforth I will be applying raspberry noises to a great many paintings. If I manage to lay my hands on the little dears who keep writing YOLO! and SWAG across multiple pages of the visitor books, i will sit them down to write out "You only live once" and "To walk with an air of overbearing self-confidence" over and over, neatly on the lines, until they fill the equivalent amount of paper to that which they keep wasting.
At least when people draw rude pubic pictures I get to mentally rate their artistic merit, and it sometimes shows that a lot of care is taken in creating the image. Heck, four letter swear words at least indicate the mood or feelings of the writer towards the exhibitions. Writing SWAG!!!1!! (the 1 in there is not a typo, it's verbatim) seems rather pointless. Unless they are really indicating an overwhelmed appreciation of our impressive style and panache? |
Webcomic and occasional blog about the heritage sector.
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December 2020
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