Iffy

If you can keep your collections when museums around you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on budget cuts,
If you can trust your staff when the board doubts you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can accession and not be tired by the backlog,
Or being loaned an item, don't deal in valuations,
Or being dated, don't give way to dating,
And yet don't display too well, nor label too wise:

If you can budget - and not make grants your master,
If you can drink - and not make alcoholism your aim;
If you can display a Triumph and Bentley
And treat those two cars just the same;
If you can bear to re-read the panel you've written
Criticised by the public who are a rod for your back,
Or watch exhibits you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make a major bid for your museum
And risk it all on one turn of HLF funding,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about it to your boss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your public long after closing time,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Go home!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your sanity,
Or walk with councillors - nor lose the common touch,
If neither board nor friends groups can hurt you,
If all men work with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Museum and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Curator, my son!

Rudyard Unreason (1865-?)

Great British Programme Museums

The British Government has decided to gamble the nation's future tourist income on promoting museums based on popular TV programmes that have gone down well abroad (well America at least). Less wealthy tourists have no place liking British popular culture and therefore are ignored. But are the museums any good? The Museum of Unreason casts a critical eye over them.

1. Top Gear Museum - popular everywhere except France (something in itself worthy of celebration)

The museum was built 10 years ago, even so it has seen very little change and the displays themselves remain minimal. It is open regularly with events liberally spaced throughout the year, but what do you actually get? Patrons are faced with prospect of standing around in an empty warehouse being abused by some badly dressed costumed interpreters. You have to question their volunteer recruitment policy as the museum seems to be exclusively populated by xenophobic middle aged men. Of the few cars on show visitors are only allowed to touch the reasonably priced one. The do it yourself car making events are original and inventive but lack the important ingredient of audience participation.

In the end it is a museum that manages to proclaim British ingenuity and superiority whilst demonstrating the exact opposite and in the process offending everyone. A difficult achievement that we can all learn from.

I leave the final words to Jeremy Clarkson himself, "It was rubbish when it was new, it was built by idiots, and it's rubbish now...you avoid it like you would avoid unprotected sex with an Ethiopian transvestite." 

 1 star

2. Dr. Who Museum - the longest running (i.e. interminable) science fiction show in the Universe

This museum has been going for 50 years, although it is often forgotten that it actually closed down for over 10 years before a HLF grant greatly improved the graphics and displays to bring it back to life. As a result it is now and more popular than ever, but what is the visitor experience like? Well, inside it is much larger than you would expect. In fact, according to the other-worldly manager of the museum, "It's vast complicated and ridiculous." That is no exaggeration; there is so much to see, but the major drawback is that there is no logic to the visitor route - the chronology is all over the place. And what is it with the museum guides? They have a disconcerting tendency to change (sometimes in mid sentence) into completely different characters - confusing.

If you are intent on visiting, what is the best advice? "Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead. Don't turn your back. Don't look away. And don't blink.” Not recommended for narcoleptics.

3 stars

3. Downton Abbey Museum - more tea vicar?

A recent museum, it just seems like its been around for a hundred years. Following the National Trust country house heritage template (5 million members can't be wrong - well they can but that is a matter for another blog) with an interpretive strategy of '..the clock stopped'. Cynics suggest that they have just forgotten that clocks need winding up occasionally. 

Visitors get the traditional room settings and a complete set of servants quarters (National Trust take note). The downside is that the servants quarters are actually fake and 60 miles away in London. I therefore recommend you buy the 1 day pass.

Simon Schama described the museum as 'cultural necrophilia' - wrong! I can recommend many other museums (try Guanajuato's El Museo De Las Momias for example) offering better examples of that for dear Simon. It is not cultural necrophilia as it is something very much alive, breathing quietly in a corner and offering restraint, dignity and manners. This museum offers a comfortable certainty (allowing for the odd liner sinking and World War) in a world of uncomfortable uncertainty. Is it cultural? It is certainly cultured; perhaps it's culturally uncultured culture; and therein lies its appeal - a pretty pretentious soap opera augmented by the auratic gaze of nostalgic traditionalism. Perfect.

This museum is unsinkable - so what is its future? The noble Lord Grantham himself said, "..every ship is unsinkable until it sinks."

5 stars

4. Sherlock Museum - the footprints of a gigantic ....museum?

A modern redevelopment of an old museum set at the same location in West London. The downside is that it is only open for 3 days a year for an hour and a half. This means, inevitably, that you have to queue. It uses the traditional room setting in the Downton Abbey manner but much much smaller and only comfortable for a handful of people at a time. The real problem is the simplistic interpretation which just leaves clues forcing the visitor to try and work it out themselves - baffling. At least Sudoku fans should enjoy it. The occasional violin music give me a headache fortunately the museum cafe sells opium laced cream teas to ease the pain.

Given that the museum states ,"True deduction can only be obtained through a certain amount of self annihilation" I came away suitably diminished, certain in the knowledge that if I opened my mouth I would, "lower the IQ of the whole street". Entertaining? Yes. Confusing? Possibly. Interpretive style? Elementary.

3 stars

5. The Office Museum - the second best museum in Slough 

A slice of industrial heritage, celebrating the great British paper industry. Sadly it hasn't been updated in over 10 years. However, the museum itself successfully explores the 'back office' function through its social and professional relationships. Less glamorous than our country house heritage but nonetheless just as important. It gives an excellent insight into the collapse of British manufacturing base through egoistic incompetence (n.b. all politicians should visit). As Gareth points out;

"I did learn a lot from David. I learnt from his mistakes. We're very different people; he used humour where I use discipline. And I learnt that nobody respects him. And in a war situation, if you want your platoon to go over the top with you to certain death, it's no good saying to them "Please come with me lads, I'll tell you a joke." It's a direct order "Come with me." And they'll go "Yes, he's got good leadership skills, let's all go with him to our certain death". 

Wise words we can all benefit from.

If a museum's strength is that it enables us to learn from the past, in the hope that we can apply the lessons to the future, then The Office Museum is ideal learning material because it didn't last long before closing down, transferring to America to gain long-running success.

For the British economic delusion in a nutshell I leave the last words to David Brent, " I'm sure Texas couldn't run and manage a successful paper merchants." 

4 stars

An Impassioned Plea

Some of you may be aware that the Museums Association have put a call out for papers for their annual conference. I've offered myself again this year to be a keynote speaker to give an impassioned plea on behalf of our museums. I intend to outline a convincing argument for museum managers justifying their existence when faced with budget cuts, an uncaring public and years of mocking from school friends who have proper careers.

Given that the MA seemed to have mislaid my conference suggestions for the past 5 years running I thought I would share my first draft with you all anyway.

"Dear colleagues, friends and admirers I am here to tell you that we can't let museums die!
We support a great heritage and we can't let it die just because nobody cares.

What we must remember is that our people don't go to museums; BUT they feel better, happier and more comforted knowing that we are here. Museums exist so that we can make the general public feel part of a civilised nation. Museums are symbols of who and what we are. The authorities don't really fund them to engage communities, provide education or outreach. They are funded to show the rest of the world that we have a history worth preserving; a history worth telling in paragraphs of 50 words or fewer on interpretation boards; a history worth hiding within a broken interactive that the Heritage Lottery Fund paid a fortune for. That is what makes us great.

A nation to compare us with, and I'm picking a country at random, is France. They have recently abandoned their 'Museum of France' (no sniggering at the back) as it would be too divisive. Too divisive! That shows they have no real understanding of national heritage. Why do you think the 'British Museum' is full of other people's stuff. We don't have problems, other nations have problems, and it is important for us to showcase that. The logical conclusion to draw is that other nations are too ridden with conflict and far too unappreciative of the game of cricket to deserve their own past. And a people without a national museum are nobody, were nobody, will be nobody. So the French don't get it. They should create the 'Museum of everywhere but France' and tourists will flock to it and thus it becomes one of the greatest museums in the world. That is why 75% of the visitors to the British Museum are tourists. They have come to see their history, not ours, but importantly it's their history in our museum therefore we are the great nation. To give back the Elgin Marbles to Greece would confer respect for a country that only gave the world democracy, theatre and the foundations of modern philosophy. How can that compare to binge drinking, fish and chips and Eastenders?

That is why Museums must remain free to tourists. If the financial situation becomes unsustainable then we must only excessively charge domestic visitors. Why? What about those visitors you may ask? What about them I say. They are expensive and dangerous. Emptiness does not equal pointlessness, it equals greatness. If the Queen came round for tea every week, would we still hold her in awe as she dunked her hobnobs and slurped out of her saucer? I think not. We respect her because we do not know her.

To conclude. Remain aloof, remain disengaged and therefore remain relevant to the nation as an idea of ourselves. We cannot be, and should not be purveyors of the truth (leave that to the academics in our Universities and be thankful that nobody ever reads their work). Engage and die! Fellow museum managers, we must not let the future condemn us for our errors. Preserve the past by ignoring the present and therefore secure the future.

Go back to your museums and prepare for the future by doing nothing!"

Cue a standing ovation.