One of the many famous utterances of Homer Simpson, is that “it’s funny ’cause it’s true”. The same could be said of this spoof article – aside from the idea of sending modern day looters there, which hasn’t been suggested yet by the government, but it doesn’t take too much stretching of the imagination to imagine it happening.

Afterall, how could any modern day obstreperous larrikin hoping to save a couple of hundred pounds on a TV hope to compete with some of the great British looters of old, who are now revered as great adventurers, discoverers and protectors of world history.

The only thing that wouldn’t occur if it happened is people in the government managing to see the irony in the plan.

From:
Daily Squib

Looters of Summer 2011 Rehabilitated With Visits to British Museum
By Sir Neil Sloane 4 hours 50 minutes ago

LONDON – England – The Summer of 2011 was notable for the riots across Britain, and the chaos that ensued such riotous looting behaviour. There is some positive news about the people involved in the rioting, as government agencies have rehabilitated over 95% of the looters, sources claim.

“The looters of 2011 are all rehabilitated and cured. It was actually quite a simple operation to cure the majority of the looters and vandals who perpetrated such heinous bouts of rioting during the late Summer 2011. We simply took them on weekly excursions to the British Museum in London to show them that looting is a terrible crime and must be stopped at all costs,” Angela Brinkinstowe, a health worker at the government’s Loot Less Initiative told the Daily Mail.
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Following Andrew Marr’s interview with James Cuno earlier this week, Dr Kwame Opoku recently alerted me to an amusing satire of the Universal Museum concept, posted on the Artnose website. Cuno has been making his own efforts to re-brand the maligned Universal Museum concept as the Encyclopaedic Museum. Despite the humour of this article though, it does highlight important points – not least that the creation of a Universal Museum is impossible without colossal amounts of funding – a way of keeping it out of reach of all but the wealthiest western nations.

From:
Kwame Opoku (by email)

A Satirical Approach to the “Universal Museum”.
18th June 2008

There has been a lot of publicity these last days for James Cuno’s book, Who owns Antiquity? including several radio discussions on the British radio station, BBC where the author presented his views and was questioned by expert participants. Cuno repeated his well-known views about antiquities belonging to all and his criticism of those he calls “nationalist retentionists”. The tone of the discussions was very polite but it was also clear that most of those who spoke were not fully convinced by the arguments in his book. Some referred very briefly to the demands for the return of the cultural objects taken during the imperial days – Elgin/Parthenon Marbles, Benin Bronzes and the Rosetta Stone. Indeed, a former museum director expressed the view that it was time to return some of these objects. He also remarked about the fact that some museums bought objects without asking too many questions about their provenance. Despite Cuno’s insistence that the speaker mentions specific institutions known for such a practice, the participant remained unspecific. But it was clear to all that the prestigious museums involved in deals with looters are too well-known and did not need to be mentioned in the small circle of discussants.
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