artefacts??

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Conversation I had with a englishman(18-26?) over the weekend who was waiting at a pedestrian crossing with his friends:

Englishman (in that classic tone of someone in primary school) : ching chong chungaaaa, chong ching chooooo, chee choo queeeee....

Me: I'm sorry, I don't speak Chinese. What are you trying to tell me?

(blank stare for 5 seconds before he regains his composure and decides to shout derogatory names in english at me as I jaywalk across the road and disappear down to the tube to escape. I'm a lover, not a fighter....)

Good afternoon all and sundry,

As you can see, I've been accepted by the locals as one of their own and they don't see me as any different at all. In all seriousness though, it hasn't really been an issue and I don't think it should be but we'll see how we go.

Thanks for all your replies guys, it's been great to hear from so many of you.

The last few days has involved a visit to the British Museum, as well as hopping into a rental car and conducting a whistlestop tour of northern england for the weekend. Suffice to say I feel like utter buggery today so don't be surprised if I haven't been entirely coherent or somewhat succinct with my emails.

The british museum is immense and has actually taken a couple of days to see (or at least walk through). When walking the museum you can't help but think of the amount of things the English have managed to pilfer during the expansion of their empire. Their collection of Egyptian artefacts is huge, not to mention their Assyrian and Greek exhibits. One of the more famous and impressive ones are the friezes that have been removed from the parthenon in Athens that are not being returned to the Greeks (the museum apparently has a 'no returns' policy).

I love the inscriptions that have been chiselled into stonewalls by the Assyrians. It basically reads like a comic book on the wall about how wonderful the king was and what a magnificent hunter he was by knocking off all these lions. I will be the first to admit that Lleyton Hewitt's ego pales in comparison to this guy, no matter how many fist pumps and c'mons he yells. Perhaps someone should suggest he have a stonemason chisel a comic book like inscription on his home that depicts his victory at Wimbledon and other tournaments with that classic 'talk to the hand' pose. Someone may dig it up a 1000 years later and think he was assyrian....or a complete tosser.

I also love the archaeological descriptions that are placed next to each artefact and exhibit, to help inform you of what they may have been doing 5000 years ago. I'd love to see the exhibit in a museum a 1000 years from now of the architecture that is in use now and what they thought it meant. The museum curator will lead school groups around the museum and they'll be describing the McDonald's exhibit:
'If you look over here we have excavated a perfect specimen of a McDonald's neon sign. From what we can tell McDonald's was in existence from the 1960s till the mid 2200s when the next ice age occurred. At it's theological height they were on every 2nd street corner in ancient London town where people came to worship daily. If you look at these perfectly preserved worshippers here, they were taking part in a ceremony that may have involved unwrapping ceremonial burger wraps and imbibing liquefied animal fats known at the time as thickshakes. The offerings they were eating had so many preservatives we have 2 perfect specimens here. We also found a statue of a red-haired deity in a yellow jumpsuit and big red shoes, and a cermonial prayer inscribed on a placard in one of the temples we have excavated: 'Two all beef patties, special sauce......'

Anyway I've had enough. I'll tell you more stuff later, I'm heading for some lunch, maybe some burger king....

Miss you guys,
Ben

PS: Go Liverpool in the Champions League Final against AC Milan in Istanbul. 'You'll never walk alone'

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