Is Sunak losing his marbles?

[dylanisabaddog 5,009]

18 minutes ago, canarydan23 said:

It's disappointing that the British Museum would trot out something like this. Undoubtedly some bits were retrieved damaged from debris, but the Italian artist who headed up the removal team, Lusieri, stated himself that "I have been obliged to be a little barbarous".

I read the article as suggesting that Elgin had effectively chopped most, if not all of it out of the walls. It beggars belief that any were left in the debris after 1,000 years. Although the British Museum clearly has a different view. I'm not inclined to listen to people who can't look after what they should have, let alone the things they clearly shouldn't have. 

I'm still of the view that after all this time we can't rely on anything but documentary evidence. Just loan them back permanently and as @Hermanhas said, try to get some good stuff on temporary loan in return. 

Edited November 30, 2023 by dylanisabaddog

[canarydan23 4,060]

1 hour ago, dylanisabaddog said:

I'm still of the view that after all this time we can't rely on anything but documentary evidence. Just loan them back permanently and as @Hermanhas said, try to get some good stuff on temporary loan in return. 

That's the obvious solution, and I hope the one Starmer has in mind when he said he was open to a "loan".

I still find it unbearably crass that we are so arrogant as to believe we can "loan" something that we have no right over, but I guess it's as close to a decision as we can expect Sir Keir to make.

[Barbe bleu 832]

4 hours ago, PurpleCanary said:

Unlike some more portable examples on this thread, the Marbles were part of the fabric of a building. 

The Marbles belong there (and yes, I know it might have to be in a museum nearby) 

PS. Cambridge?

That's an honest answer.  There are some treasures that would lose value when removed from context, that's true (in as much as an opinion can be true)  but the bit in brackets largely defeats the preceding sentence does it not ?

I had this discussion with a Greek friend from Athens.   She is very much of the 'give them back they are ours' persuasion but she did also accept that they are part of a larger world story and that sending them to Athens would only reduce the ability of the world to read this chapter. 

...She also admitted that they are probably only famous because they were moved to london and that while she has seen the marbles in London she had never seen the other half that are already in the museum in Athens...

In terms of 'Cambridge?' and phds it was just a little quip to point out that some on here (those that are not parodies) are more than happy to let the rest know just how clever they are.  You're not in that category.

[Barbe bleu 832]

1 hour ago, canarydan23 said:

That's the obvious solution, and I hope the one Starmer has in mind when he said he was open to a "loan".

I still find it unbearably crass that we are so arrogant as to believe we can "loan" something that we have no right over, but I guess it's as close to a decision as we can expect Sir Keir to make.

We could give them back to the state we procured them from I guess.   They would probably look pretty sweet in the Ankara museum of civilisation

[canarydan23 4,060]

3 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

We could give them back to the state we procured them from I guess.   They would probably look pretty sweet in the Ankara museum of civilisation

Interesting angle. So anything taken from France between 1939 and 1945 should go to Berlin?

And Ankara was never the capital of the Ottoman Empire, either.

Edited November 30, 2023 by canarydan23

[Daz Sparks 1,186]

6 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

It's bad enough you're all so uncompromising in your standpoints. The fact you're all so uncompromisingly and reliably against your own country is what irritates and makes your politics so unattractive.

I don't think party politics come into this much, if at all. Not scientific, but on canvassing a few colleagues, friends and family, everyone who knew what they were said give them back, everyone who didn't know what they were said they couldn't care less. Of the 6 or 7 I spoke with, 2 who said give them back were certainly not to the left, one is in fact a staunch Brexiteer, hang em all, make Braverman look commie type.

Edited November 30, 2023 by Daz Sparks

[ricardo 7,402]

Swap the marbles for Corfu. It was British until 1864.

 

Edited November 30, 2023 by ricardo

[Daz Sparks 1,186]

Just now, ricardo said:

Swap the marbles for Corfu.

 

Throw in Jaywick?

[Barbe bleu 832]

37 minutes ago, canarydan23 said:

Interesting angle. So anything taken from France between 1939 and 1945 should go to Berlin?

And Ankara was never the capital of the Ottoman Empire, either.

Imperialist pig.  If the Turkish people want the Turkish marbles in Ankara rather than Istanbul that is surely a matter for them and not you?

You are maybe right that they shouldn't go to the colonising ottomans.   Luckily Athens was happily in the roman empire for most of its history and the marbles will easily fit on the pantheon in Rome.  Job done.

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

Imagine going into an Antique shop and buying a nice set of chairs and matching table. Then a hundred years later the descendants of the shop owner demands their return from your Grandkids.

[Barbe bleu 832]

3 minutes ago, Rock The Boat said:

Imagine going into an Antique shop and buying a nice set of chairs and matching table. Then a hundred years later the descendants of the shop owner demands their return from your Grandkids.

Imagine going into an antiques shop that is on fire and asking if you can save a nice set of chairs and a matching table that would otherwise have become burnt to Ash. Then two hundred years later some people from a country that didn't exist at the time and which you fought to create demands their return from your great, great grandkids.

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

33 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

Imperialist pig.  If the Turkish people want the Turkish marbles in Ankara rather than Istanbul that is surely a matter for them and not you?

You are maybe right that they shouldn't go to the colonising ottomans.   Luckily Athens was happily in the roman empire for most of its history and the marbles will easily fit on the pantheon in Rome.  Job done.

Mate, Colosseums been in Rome two thousand years and they haven't finished building it. What chance do you think they'll get round to the Pantheon? There's a good reason why we get our plumbing from the Poles and our ice cream from the pizza-munchers

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

2 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

Imagine going into an antiques shop that is on fire and asking if you can save a nice set of chairs and a matching table that would otherwise have become burnt to Ash. Then two hundred years later some people from a country that didn't exist at the time and which you fought to create demands their return from your great, great grandkids.

You'd tell them to fck off, wouldn't you?

[Herman 9,836]

Imagine being so right wing that you can't get past exceptionalism, flag shagging and jingoism to see the decent thing to do.

[Barbe bleu 832]

26 minutes ago, Herman said:

Imagine being so right wing that you can't get past exceptionalism, flag shagging and jingoism to see the decent thing to do.

There is a degree of nationalist jingoism in saying that because something came from a place those things must always be there and must belong only to those people isn't there?

Isn't it also a bit nationalistic to say that there is no such thing as a shared story of human development to which everyone should have access, only national stories that must remain the preserve of those that follow a particular flag?

 

Maybe the decent thing to do is for the Greek government to stop distracting the people of Greece with populist nationalistic nonsense; to thank elgin for saving important works; thank the British museum for celebrating ancient Athens; and to thank Britain for helping save greece from tyranny a couple of times by letting us keep a few bits of stone ?

Edited November 30, 2023 by Barbe bleu

[canarydan23 4,060]

1 hour ago, Barbe bleu said:

Imperialist pig.  If the Turkish people want the Turkish marbles in Ankara rather than Istanbul that is surely a matter for them and not you?

You are maybe right that they shouldn't go to the colonising ottomans.   Luckily Athens was happily in the roman empire for most of its history and the marbles will easily fit on the pantheon in Rome.  Job done.

Again, I'll reiterate, if this is genuinely the best you can come up with then the Parthenon Marbles really should be sent back to Greece.

[Barbe bleu 832]

40 minutes ago, Rock The Boat said:

You'd tell them to fck off, wouldn't you?

I'd probably just ignore them.   Mind you if we both wanted to distract people from things more important than stone I might engage in a bit of a manufactured row with them 

[Barbe bleu 832]

1 minute ago, canarydan23 said:

Again, I'll reiterate, if this is genuinely the best you can come up with then the Parthenon Marbles really should be sent back to Greece.

Imperialist pig!  How dare you pretend that you are so high and mighty that you can win arguments without actually putting an argument forward!

[Creative Midfielder 2,003]

39 minutes ago, Herman said:

Imagine being so right wing that you can't get past exceptionalism, flag shagging and jingoism to see the decent thing to do.

TBF, given what we hear from some of the posters on here it doesn't require much imagination.

And let's not forget that we have the practical experience of the worst series of governments that this country has ever experienced  and which in 13 horrible years have never knowingly done the right or decent thing to do.

 

[canarydan23 4,060]

15 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

Imperialist pig!  How dare you pretend that you are so high and mighty that you can win arguments without actually putting an argument forward!

Scroll up.

[Barbe bleu 832]

7 minutes ago, canarydan23 said:

Scroll up.

Condescending westerner thinking they are better than us just because they have a fancy history degree.  One day you will regret your interference 

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

41 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

TBF, given what we hear from some of the posters on here it doesn't require much imagination.

And let's not forget that we have the practical experience of the worst series of governments that this country has ever experienced  and which in 13 horrible years have never knowingly done the right or decent thing to do.

 

A poster told me last week that nothing on Earth is owned by anyone, not even a pebble. I guess marbles come under the same category.

[Yellow Fever 3,839]

Seems like even George Osborne thinks Sunak has lost his marbles.

It appears to be a catching disease too watching the comments on here.

Osborne's own pet theory appears to be petulance at the Greek PM having met Starmer the day before. As he says you can feel the governents authority draining away.....

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/nov/30/british-museum-will-continue-parthenon-marbles-talks-despite-fallout

  

 

[canarydan23 4,060]

37 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

Condescending westerner thinking they are better than us just because they have a fancy history degree.  One day you will regret your interference 

One day you might be able to condescend someone. 

You're quite a way off at the moment though.

[Creative Midfielder 2,003]

9 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

It's bad enough you're all so uncompromising in your standpoints. The fact you're all so uncompromisingly and reliably against your own country is what irritates and makes your politics so unattractive.

Now I really have heard it all - LYB complaining about other people being uncompromising 😂😂

If we hadn't established quite a while ago that you have a sense of humour bypass then it might have been an attempt at irony but apparently it was a serious comment. 😂😂

And here's a serious comment for you - when you accuse people of being reliably and uncompromisingly against our own country you are as usual completely wrong.

We may be reliably against our country's government but that is a completely different thing to being against our country, especially at a time when we've had 13 years of corrupt and incompetent Tory government reliably inflicting damage on our country.

What I'd like to know is what drives you & BB to so reliably, and rather desperately, defend them?

[TheGunnShow 6,019]

There really was never any evidence that the Marbles were actually bought, was there?

[Barbe bleu 832]

Just now, TheGunnShow said:

There really was never any evidence that the Marbles were actually bought, was there?

The history is on Wikipedia. That's probably a much better place to consult if you are genuinely interested and have an open mind than here.

Purchased? Maybe not but there is good evidence that the ottomans were happy for him to remove them. The bigger question is probably whether or not the ottomans should have had a say

[Barbe bleu 832]

23 minutes ago, canarydan23 said:

One day you might be able to condescend someone. 

You're quite a way off at the moment though.

Like all condescending imperialists this specimen cannot stand not having the last say

[TheGunnShow 6,019]

20 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

The history is on Wikipedia. That's probably a much better place to consult if you are genuinely interested and have an open mind than here.

Purchased? Maybe not but there is good evidence that the ottomans were happy for him to remove them. The bigger question is probably whether or not the ottomans should have had a say

It was reading the Wiki article that made me note how unclear the situation really was and especially when doing what folk should do with Wiki pieces, namely going through the reference links. it's a bit inconclusive to put it mildly when going through the sources noted as references. The article does state that a parliamentary inquiry from 1816 cleared him of anything untoward, but there's also no evidence in Ottoman libraries showing the permission being granted despite a great deal of documentation around that period of time.

Then you had the likes of Goethe in agreement with Elgin, and Lord Byron against!

Edited November 30, 2023 by TheGunnShow
Word order needed changing - was ambiguous as hell otherwise!

[Barbe bleu 832]

32 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

It was reading the Wiki article that made me note how unclear the situation really was and especially when doing what folk should do with Wiki pieces, namely going through the reference links. it's a bit inconclusive to put it mildly when going through the sources noted as references. The article does state that a parliamentary inquiry from 1816 cleared him of anything untoward, but there's also no evidence in Ottoman libraries showing the permission being granted despite a great deal of documentation around that period of time.

Then you had the likes of Goethe in agreement with Elgin, and Lord Byron against!

It's always going to be hard to litigate something 200 years after the event.

If this sort of thing happened now the aggrieved party would have 6 years to bring a claim in the UK and if they don't do that they have no option really but to grin and bear it. I'm not sure about the Greek system but it's probably quite similar.

Herman probably had it correct when he said what this all boils down to is doing what is 'right'.  Problem with that analysis though is that there is no instruction manual for humanity that tells us who's 'right' is the most right.