The passage of time at the British Museum

I went to the British Museum. I only seem to go there when people who aren't from London visit and want to go there. I last went over 3 years ago when the same thing applied. I don't mind museums in general but I don't enjoy the British Museum. 95% of the stuff in there isn't British for a start. I'm not going all Daily Mail about this. There's certain exhibits which I believe should be returned to where we took them from in colonial times. The arguments for keeping the Elgin marbles from the Parthenon are nonsensical and outdated. I've been to Athens and seen the bits there and I've seen the bits in London and they'd make a whole lot more sense if they were in one place. I get that it isn't the best idea to put them back on the Parthenon but the Greeks have their 40% of it in a museum so they should take our 60% back.

It seems an anachronistic collection of things displaying our past domination of many other countries. I think it should at least be renamed to reflect its exhibits being from the rest of the world and not Britain. The collection should be rationalised because while it is educational for people to see exhibits on the history of countries they may well never visit, some items should be returned to the countries they came from. The morbid fascination people have with dead bodies is odd too. The galleries with mummies and other such preserved bodies in were packed.

Anyway, I remembered finding the section on clocks interesting last time, so we went there to get away from the worst of the crowds. This clock is amazing. It dates from around 1585 and it was used to announce banquets at court. It moved along the dinner table and the drummers drummed and a miniature organ inside played a tune. Then all the cannons fired. Sadly it apparently no longer works but it still looks impressive.

I shall now avoid the British Museum until the next time somebody really wants to go and I feel compelled to step inside.