Stave 2: The First of the Three Curators

When Frank awoke, it was so dark, he could barely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his bedroom. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of the Unreason town church, St. Acetone's, struck the four quarters. He listened for the hour bell.

To his great discombobulation the bell tolled twelve, and yet he had gone to bed after well after one. He scrambled out of bed and peered through the UV screen on his window. It was still very foggy and all seemed still, just like peak visiting time at the Museum of Unreason. Frank made his way back to bed, but he couldn't sleep, images of mummified cats floated in his mind. Then he remembered that Charley's Ghost had warned him to expect the first visit when the bell tolled one. He lay fearfully with his 'Transformers' duvet pulled high up under his chin and counted the minutes.

Frank lay in this state until the chimes broke upon his listening ear.

"Ding, dong!"

"A quarter past," said Frank, counting.

"Ding, dong!"

"Half past," said Frank.

"Ding, dong!"

"A quarter to it," said Frank.

"Ding, dong!"

"The hour," said Frank.

The hour bell sounded, light flashed up in the room and the curtains were drawn back by a hand. Frank found himself face to face with an unearthly visitor. It was a strange figure, it seemed almost human, yet not; it seemed almost like an old man, yet not. It's hair was white with age, it's garb was of the purest tweed and patched at the elbows. In the top pocket a row of three pens protruded, neatly arranged.

"Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me by the spirit of a rotting cat?" asked Frank.

"I am" The voice was soft and gentle and strangely distracted. The ghostly figure floated over to the ornaments on his bedroom dressing table. It carefully pulled a pair of white cotton gloves out of it's pocket, slipped them on almost absent-mindedly and took hold of the porcelain teacup in two hands and gently turned it over to look at the base. Its face turned first to disappointment when he read the words "Specially Made for Aldi", then disgust as the dregs of the night before's drink spilled onto his faded cord trousers.

"Who, and what are you?" Frank demanded.

"I am the Curator of Museums Past."

"Long past?" inquired Frank.

"No. Your past. Rise and walk with me"

As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood upon an open country road and began to walk into a town that seemed vaguely familiar to Frank.

"Good Heaven!" exclaimed Frank, as he looked around him. "I began my career in this place." The Curator gazed upon him mildly.

"You recollect the way to the museum?"

"Remember it!" cried Frank, "I could walk it blind drunk, and often did."

Upon reaching their destination jocund museum visitors were everywhere, assisted by many, many staff and volunteers helping them enjoy the museum's Christmas festivities. Frank knew and named every one of them.

The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self as he slowly got up and went into the reception area where there was an old gentleman in a wig laughing and chatting to visitors.

"Why it's old Fuzzywig! Bless him, he's alive again."

"Thank you, time to close up! Merry Christmas everybody and a safe journey home!" cried old Fuzzywig to the visitors. As the visitors slowly filed out, Fuzzywig turned to the staff and volunteers and said, "Let's quickly clear everything away and let our party begin."

There were dances, and more dances and there was cake and plenty of beer. When the clock struck eleven, the party began to break up. Mr. Fuzzywig stood by the door wishing all staff and volunteers a merry Christmas whilst gently mopping his brow with his wig. Last to leave were the two junior Manpower Services Commission apprentices the young Frank and Joan. The Spirit and Frank followed them as they weaved their way down the street into the crisp Christmas Eve night. Both were singing the praises of Fuzzywig.

The Spirit turned to Frank to ask why his younger self loved Fuzzywig so much.

"He had the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our museum work light or burdensome; a please or toil. I say that his power lies in words and looks. The happiness he gave was quite as great as if it cost a fortune."

Frank felt the Spirit's eyes on him.

"What's the matter?" asked the Ghost.

"Nothing", said Frank.

"Something I think", the Curator insisted.

"No," said Frank, "I would just like to say a word or two to my museum volunteer right now. That's all."

The Ghost and Frank now stood silently on the steps up to the front of the museum.

"My time grows short," observed the Curator. "Quick now."

Frank saw himself again, only older now; a man in the prime of his life. He was not alone, but by the side of a fair young museum education assistant, tears were in her eyes.

"You've changed." She said tearfully.

"You fear the public too much," she continued, "I have seen your nobler aspirations to preserve the material culture of human activity for the education and enjoyment of all, fall away."

"What then?" Frank retorted. "Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I have not changed towards you."

"You have. Everything that you stood for and I loved you for has gone in your changed nature; in your reduced opening hours and in your higher admission prices."

Frank was about to speak; but with her head turned from him, the museum educator continued.

"You may have pain in this. In a very brief time, you will dismiss the recollection of it as an undersold Easter Egg Hunt in a National Trust property. May you be happy in the museum life you have chosen. Let me warn you though. Museums are cultural institutions that must not die; they must be museums of the people, by the people and for the people. Your way shall seem them perish from the earth. Goodbye Frank."

She left him, and they parted.

"Curator!" said Frank, "show me no more. Take me home. Why are you torturing me."

"Just one more then my work here is done."said the Curator.

They appeared in another museum, in a not very large, but comfortable staff room.

Frank saw the beautiful young educator by the coffee machine. Until he saw her now in middle age, come and stand beside the younger version. Was the young girl her daughter or are all young women who work in museums beautiful? They were chatting and laughing as the museum manager walked in, bearing tidings of extra Christmas leave, overtime bonuses and extra training allowances for all.

"Guess who I saw this afternoon?" said the manager eventually.

"How can I, I was up to my knees in Key Stage 1 'make and do' activities for Christmas." said the matronly educator.

"Frank Unrason!" laughed the manager. "I happened to be in Unreason to pick up a late Christmas gift for my aged aunt, when I walked past the museum. I saw Frank sat at the front desk alone. Quite alone in the world I do believe. He really must fake the visitor numbers for his Council funding."

"Curator, take me home!" pleaded Frank.

Suddenly the Curator began to glow until it engulfed him at which point he was overcome by an irresistible drowsiness and the faint whiff of acetone. It was his usual condition when visiting his museum stores, but he found himself in his own bedroom. He barely had time to assimilate all that had happened to him before he fell into a deep sleep."

Next: The Second of the Three Curators.










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Stave 1: A Ghostly Museum Tale

I have endeavoured with this Ghostly little story, to raise the Ghost of a Museum, which shall not put curators out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me.  May it haunt their museums pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it. 

Your faithful Friend and Servant,  F.R.  December, 2014.

Chapter 1 Charley’s Ghost

Charley was dead. At least to the small local museum in the quaint town of Unreason in middle England anyway.  There was no doubt about it. She hadn’t been seen for years, the registrar had de-accessioned her and Frank had reported to the Board of Trustees that she had been ethically disposed of during the last collections review. Charley was as dead as a curator’s sex life.

Mind you, I can’t say that I know, or have studied, the sex lives of museum professionals, or whether it is any deader than that of, say, estate agents. Quite clearly she was deader than the nocturnal activities of most politicians or rock stars (Cliff Richard excepted). What I am trying to say is that we lost Charley.

Frank knew she was lost, of course he did. He had acquired her for the museum many years ago, only he would look after her, he was her sole administrator, but he did not appear cut up by her loss. Staff worried that he would mourn, but Frank was a man of the world he had moved on.

Frank had never got rid of the, ‘Temporarily removed for conservation’ sign from Charley’s display case. It had been a popular display, she had single handedly quadrupled the school visits to the museum. Her fading label still reads, ‘mummified cat found at the tomb of Queen Hatshepsut in the Valley of the Pets in Egypt in 1903’.  Frank had brought it into the museum in a Tesco’s carrier bag in the spring of 1996 having muttered something about a long-term loan from the British Museum.

Then she was gone, Frank never talked about it. It was all the same to him, he was a hard man. Frank Rason was a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, clutching, covetous, old museum manager. The cold within him froze his old features and dripped from his veined nose, the temperature seemed to lower when he walked by and it didn’t thaw one degree at Christmas.

External cold had little influence on him. If anything he preferred it as it meant less visitors to the museum, not that there had been many in recent years. His staff and volunteers had slowly deserted him over the years. Now he was almost alone. The registrar had finally walked out in the October, leaving him with only a single volunteer. Nobody ever stopped by the museum to say, with gladsome looks, “My dear Frank, how are you?” Such was his countenance that not even Big Issue sellers approached him.

But what did Frank care? It was the very thing he liked. So it was on a cold Christmas Eve, old Frank sat busy in the museum’s back office. It was cold, bleak, biting weather; he could hear the people in the street outside scoffing at the £25 Museum of Unreason Xmas Special entry charge. It was three thirty, but it was dark already. The fog had come down and was so dense that the Tesco Extra over the road was a mere phantom building.

Frank’s back office door was open so that he might keep an eye on his last remaining volunteer who sat cheerfully in his elf hat behind the reception desk.

“ A merry Christmas Uncle Frank” cried a cheerful voice, startling both Frank and the volunteer out of their reveries. It was Frank’s nephew, he burst through the museum's front door full of life with sparkling eyes and an irritating youthfulness.

“Bah!” said Frank, “Litterbug!”

“Christmas litter uncle!” said Frank’s nephew as he picked up the candied ginger cubes he had dropped in his excitement.

“What reasons have you to be merry? You’re poor and you work in a museum” said Frank

“What reasons have you to be morose? You’re unfeasibly rich enough even though you work in a museum” said the nephew.

“What else can I be” returned his uncle, “when I work in a profession of such fools. What’s Christmas time but putting tinsel on the display cabinets and charging an extra £5 for entry? I’m older and a wiser. Museum Christmases are for fools. The next person who wishes me a merry Christmas will be put in the reception area pillory and pelted with turkey giblets.”

“You are wrong uncle, Christmas is a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable time: the only time of year when people think of each other and when museum shops actually turn a profit. And therefore, uncle, though I am an overqualified cultural professional working for minimum wage I believe that Christmas can do museums good, have done museums good and will continue to do museums good, and I say God bless museums.”

The volunteer in the elf hat, burst into spontaneous applause; immediately regretted it and went back to sticking glitter onto the museum’s collection of cat o’ nine tails for the annual Unreason Sado-Masochists Christmas AGM on boxing day.

“Don’t be angry uncle, come and have Christmas at our museum”

“No! and a good afternoon to you,” said Frank.

The nephew left without an angry word shouting over his shoulder,  “Merry Christmas uncle…and a Happy New Year!”

As the nephew left, he let two women of a certain age into the museum. One was dressed as a Christmas Fairy and another as a Christmas tree. They bowed and began a slightly slurred version of ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman’. Frank put his head in his hands and wondered where the key to the pillory was.

After a wait that seemed interminable, the singing stopped and the fairy stepped forward.

“At this festive season, it is desirable that we think of the poor and destitute museums and their volunteers, who suffer greatly at this present time.”

“Are there no prisons?” asked Frank.

“There are many prison museums; what shall I put you down for?”

“Nothing!” Frank cried. “Leave me alone, we are not merry in this museum and I can’t be responsible for making museum volunteers happy. Please leave.”

Seeing Frank eye up the pillory in the corner of reception, the ladies withdrew.

As the fog outside grew thicker, the time came to close the museum.  Frank opened the door, and grudgingly let the volunteer out.

“I suppose you are not coming in tomorrow.” growled Frank

“If that’s OK?” the volunteer smiled faintly as he took off his elf hat.

“It is not convenient and it’s not fair, if I was paying you wages, I would dock you a day’s pay. See you on Boxing Day.”

The volunteer scuttled out the door, Frank locked up and trudged out into the foggy Unreason evening.

He lived in his long deceased mother’s flat above the chip shop on the High Street. After popping in for an unwrapped cone of chips for his tea, Frank shuffled down the side alley towards the gate that lead to his front door. The back yard was so dark that Frank actually had to grope his way down the passage. The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the flat, that it seemed as if the weather sat in mournful meditation on the future of the heritage sector in the UK.

Now, it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular about the flat’s doorknob except that it was very large. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Frank having put his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knob, not a knob, but Charley’s face.

Charley’s face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the rest of the yard, but had a dismal light about it, like a rotting lobster in a museum store. Frank stared again at the knob and it was simply a knob again.

Frank quickly put the key in the door, turned the knob and marched resolutely into the flat and closed the door with a bang. The sound resounded through the flat like an enormous fart. Quite satisfied he double-locked himself in, which was not his custom.  Thus secure against unwanted visitors, he took off his cravat; put on his pyjamas, dressing gown, slippers, and a nightcap he’d found lying around in the museum costume store in a box labeled ‘do not open under any circumstances’.

Frank sat alone with his usual late night tipple, a half of Theakston’s Old Peculier with a Ryvita Crispbread for dipping. As he sat in front of the single bar electric fire, the memory of Charley came flooding back and the night he took her from the display case and met a Russian of uncertain morality in the Leicester Forest East Services and swapped her for a paper bag full of unmarked Euros. Did he regret his actions? He just shrugged his shoulders.

“Bah! Unplug!” said Frank as he turned off the electric fire. He made his way out of the room and into the bathroom.

The front door flew open with the unmistakable sound of plywood banging on chipboard. Then he heard a shuffling noise, it was getting louder and coming towards the bathroom door. Cockroaches?

“Bah! Must debug!” said Frank.

His colour changed though, when, without a pause, it came on through the bathroom door and passed into the bathroom. Frank remained seated on the toilet and contemplated pulling his pyjama bottoms up.

“Charley’s ghost!”

The same bandages, the same whiskers, the same foul smell without doubt it was Charley.

“What do you want with me?”

“Much” the mummified cat purred back. “Ask me what I was.”

Frank asked the question while the ghost perched herself in cardboard box at the side of the bath.

“I was your premier object in the museum, I filled your museum with life, and the day you got rid of me you murdered your ethics and your museum.” sighed Charley

Frank sensed something malevolent, but Charley remained motionless.

“Mercy, dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?” whimpered Frank.

“Hear me!” Charley suddenly cried. “You will be haunted by three curators. Without their visits,” said the ghost,  “you cannot hope to continue to preserve the material culture of this fair land. Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls one.”

When it said these words the spectre wrapped its loose bandages back around its body and walked backward and with every inch the bathroom door began to swing open and suddenly she was gone.

Frank closed the door and reached for the toilet roll, after a brief hiatus he went down stairs to see that the front door was still double locked. He stumbled to his bed feeling uncomfortable, as if there was something there in the bed with him.

“Bah! Bedbug!” yawned Frank and fell asleep in an instant.

Next: the first of the museum professionals visit Frank

Keep it 100

This is my 100th blog post and I have been wondering ever since my 99th posting how to mark it. Should it be a blog history retrospective? Should it be 100 lines long, or just 100 characters? Inspiration eluded me all week until I stumbled across a 'young person' phrase - keep it 100. On the face of it, this seems yet another piece of youthful exuberance that defies obvious translation. Clearly this will mean that within a couple of generations the English language will be as opaque as Chaucer's English is to us today. As the great man said himself in the Wife of Bath's Prologue,

"I hold a mouses wit not worth a leke,

That hath but on hole for to sterten to"

Wise words indeed. The couplet roughly translates as  - a  mouse that only has one hole cannot have a soul. Good rodent that I am I have always tried to follow it as a credo to live my life by, although that mainly manifests itself through the excessive consumption of cheese.

Anyway, back to the original point of this blog, to 'keep it 100' is described by the online urban dictionary as, 'to keep yourself real and true, to be honest and stick to the way you are, no matter what any one else thinks.'

Well if there was ever a phrase that defined what this blog has tried to do then keep it 100 is it. Hard though it may be to imagine not everyone agrees with me and my philosophy on life, museums and everything. But I am content in the knowledge that I keep it 100! My opinions are my own, they will continue to remain my own, not try to court popularity (at least that's how I justify my dismally small blog readership) or try to find easy solutions to the complexities of modern museum work. So I go on undaunted, undiminished and unread.

Therefore may I wish you all keep it 100 in 2015.

 Myself - I intend to keep it 200 - unless that has another meaning, in which case I'd better look it up before I commit myself to a year of unspeakable young person activity.

Seasons Greetings

Museum Audience Segmentation

In the museum world we are actively encouraged to get to know our audiences better and help them enjoy 'participatory activities'. We want them to engage with us, our collections, our volunteers, our shop and our Lidl bought 'homemade' cake - and then come back and do it again. We too often fall into the 'been there done that' category of cultural activity. But the great secret of a successful museum is turning visitors into participants. In other words we need to change the traditional forms of museum visiting. The clever museum will tailor their visitor experience against carefully researched audience segmentation. Helpfully, a few years ago Arts Council England produced, 'Arts Audiences: insight' an in-depth market segmentation in terms of visitor motivation and their engagement with the arts. Ignoring the fundamental question of how you actually identify these people and then contact them it is a useful way of segmenting visitor motivation. Although museums are part of the cultural offer of any locality, I like to believe museum visitors are a special breed. So I have used the Arts Council segmentation to create a museum specific alternative segmentation to create unique participatory experiences for each.


Arts Council Segment
THE URBAN ARTS ECLECTIC  - Highly qualified, affluent, and in the early stages of their career, urban arts eclectic are dynamic, and believe in seizing life’s opportunities.

Museum equivalent
URBANE FART DEFECTIVE  - Highly disqualified, effluent and in the early stages of dementia, urbane fart defectives are anaemic and seize up in the face of life's opportunities

Participatory activity - TAKING IT EASY AT THE MUSEUM - simply provide a comfy seat, mug of Horlicks and the Times crossword


Arts Council Segment
TRADITIONAL CULTURE VULTURES - At a later stage in life and having attained a high standard of living, Traditional culture vultures have time to devote to their many leisure interests. Art and culture takes up the majority of their time, alongside travelling and spending time with family.

Museum equivalent
IRRITATING MARROW SPARROWS - At a later stage of multiple cat ownership having attained a high standard of whingeing they have plenty of time to annoy museum staff, which takes up the majority of their day, alongside dribbling and spending time wondering why their family avoid them.

Participatory activity - HAVING YOUR SAY - give them the complaints book to fill out detailing all the shortcomings of the museum, the staff and the volunteers (which you can use later for 'management' purposes)


Art Council Segment

FUN FASHION AND FRIENDS - Fun, fashion and friends are developing their careers or just starting families. In their leisure time, they like to indulge in their interests of fashion and food. They are ambitious, optimistic and relish seeking out new experiences with friends and family.

Museum equivalent

FUZZ DEPRESSION AND OVERSPENDS - Fun fashion and friends and a burgeoning career ended when they started their family. They have no leisure time as their interests extend to changing nappies and sleeping at work. They have forgotten they were ambitious and optimistic but now relish going to museums for the peace and quiet.

Participatory activity - HOME FROM HOME  - provide a mop and bucket and get mums cleaning their baby's vomit from the sculpture gallery floor


Arts Council Segment
MATURE EXPLORERS - Balanced and practical, mature explorers keep up to date with current affairs and the news and seek to develop informed opinions, displaying their ethical concerns through their lifestyle choices. Neither faddish nor brand or image conscious, they are more practical in their spending habits and tend to opt for the ‘tried and tested’ approach. They use art as a way to bring a new perspective to their lives.

Museum equivalent
MATURE CHEDDAR EXPORTERS - Yellowing slightly, creamy and tasty, mature cheddar exporters keep up to date with all the informed opinion and ethical issues of dairy production. They are abhor the modern trend towards sticking peppers in everything. They use museums as a place to eat their sandwiches.

Participatory activity - BUFFET BONANZA! - consists of putting small squares of cheese on a stick with a silver skin onion


Arts Council Segment
DINNER AND A SHOW - Dinner and show are a mainstream group consisting of a significant
proportion of young and middle-aged people. With two-thirds employed and a third comfortably off, this group has disposable income to spend on leisure activities. Young or young at heart they enjoy life – eating well, socialising and going on outings related to music.

Museum equivalent

PINT AND A KEBAB - They are a mainstream group consisting of a significant proportion of drunks. With two thirds possessing a criminal record this group spends its disposable income on gambling. Young at heart but old in liver they go into museums to use the toilet facilities. 

Participatory activity - SUPER LOO SWEEP  - use the mop and bucket again and this time run a book on who can swab the lavatory floor quickest without spilling their pint.

Arts Council Segment

FAMILY AND COMMUNITY FOCUSED - Typically in their 30s and 40s, Family

and community focused have built a comfortable nest with their moderate financial means, and their priorities lie with their children, connecting with the local community and holding on to their cultural roots. Their interests lie squarely with their immediate surroundings and understanding people like themselves. 

Museum equivalent
FIRMLY OPPORTUNITY CONCUSSED - Typically in their 30s and 40s, having been made redundant several times their priorities now lie in spending their child benefit and scavenging from their local community. Their interests lie squarely with their immediate surroundings and go into museums for the warmth and the fact that most don't charge to let them in.

Participatory activity - FUN WITH OBJECTS - get them accessioning the collections backlog.


Arts Council Segment
BEDROOM DJs - In their late teens or 20s, still living with their parents or having just flown
the nest, Bedroom DJs are starting out in life. They are motivated and aspire to do well in their careers.

Museum equivalent

BEDROOM PJs - Although it is late in the afternoon they are still in their nightwear and just starting out from their bedroom. They are not motivated to get dressed, wash or experience sunlight. Will visit museums digitally via the internet accidentally when putting 'muse' into the Google search engine.

Participatory activity - DIGITAL DILEMMAS - challenge them to create a computer script that will divert all search engine traffic that uses the word 'sex' to your museum website.

Arts Council Segment

MID-LIFE HOBBYISTS - In their 30s, 40s and 50s, Mid-life hobbyists are family-focused and
spend most of their leisure time at home. They do not currently attend any arts events, mostly citing cost and lack of time as the main reasons.

Museum equivalent

MIDWIFE LOBBYISTS - In their 30s, 40s and 50s these politically engaged NHS employees spend most of their leisure time up to their elbows in placenta. Hideously underpaid and overworked the closest they get to a museum piece is an aged mother* overdosing on IVF treatment, donor eggs and sperm purchased on the internet. 

Participatory activity - BABY MAKING WORKSHOP - Use the tropical fish tank as a birthing pool for a new educational activity - fun for all the family and just think of the publicity.

Arts Council Segment
RETIRED ARTS AND CRAFTS - Home-loving and down to earth, retired arts and crafts favour a regular routine and a slower pace of life. This group have a passion for nature and are keen gardeners.

Museum equivalent
REQUIRED DARTS AND DRAUGHTS - Pub loving and salt of the earth, they favour games around the clock and a have a checkered past. They visit social history museums as part of the 'What pubs used to be like' living history group

Participatory activity - PUB GAME EXTRAVAGANZA - pick any one from  a range of bar billiards, shove ha'penny, old English skittles, daddlums, nine mens' morris, crib and dominoes


Arts Council Segment
TIME POOR DREAMERS - Early or mid-career, often juggling work and family commitments,
Time-poor dreamers are busy, and short-term orientated, living in the moment. They engage with popular culture and the arts are not a priority for them.

Museum equivalent
PRIME SNORE SCREAMERS - Early or mid evening sleepers, usually with flubbering lips and billowing bedroom curtains. They inevitably live alone and only engage with museums in their dreams.

Participatory activity - 'SLEEP LEARNING EXPERIMENT DAY' will be a new way of promoting your curator's interminably boring treatise on the larder beetle infestation of the costume collection


Arts Council Segment
A QUIET PINT WITH THE MATCH - A quiet pint with the match are content with life and are not seeking change. They spend much of their leisure time at home, or you might find them having a drink with friends at the local pub.

Museum equivalent
A CANKER RASH WITH A SCRATCH - A canker rash with a scratch  are not content with life and are seeking liniment. They spend much of their leisure time in the bath or you might find them rubbing alcohol on their body in the pub. They go to medical museums for solace and understanding.

Participatory activity - 'OLDE TIME MEDICINE WEEK', make sure you give visitors a slug or whisky and something to bite on before instructing them in the art of live medieval hemorrhoid treatments


Arts Council Segment
OLDER AND HOME BOUND - In their senior years, the older and home-bound group are generally content and have a practical outlook on life. They enjoy a slower pace of life and like spending a lot of their free time at home. Some of them report poor levels of health, which restricts their activities in general.

Museum equivalent
MOULDY AND TOMB BOUND - In their senior years, they spend all their time at home and haven't answered the door for  years. The electricity was cut off 6 months ago and the mail is piled up to window level behind the door. This is the prime museum volunteer demographic.

Participatory activity - 'PRO ACTIVE FUNDRAISING' - encourage volunteers to break into their houses to forge their signatures leaving all their worldly goods to the museum.


Arts Council Segment
LIMITED MEANS NOTHING FANCY - Limited means, nothing fancy are information seekers who tend to spend their disposable income cautiously. Non-judgemental and dutiful, they value family and friendships – for them leisure time is all about having a break and chilling out, within their limited means.

Museum equivalent
LIMITED MEANS NOTHING FANCY - As above, this is our prime museum demographic, regularly seen with Tupperware and a flask enjoying the cheap intellectual serenity of the museum environment.

Participatory Activity - MUSEUM - put lots of objects in glass cases with descriptive labels for them to look at.


So from this weekend (and every day thereafter), we've pulled out all the stops and there will be a full on immersive experience for the LIMITED MEANS NOTHING FANCY demographic. If you're in this demographic come along and join the fun - everyone else stay away.

* The oldest verified mother to date is Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara; she was aged 66 years 358 days when she gave birth to twins

'Museum, in thy thoughts be all my visits remembered'

Recently unearthed in the Museum of Unreason archive is this original letter of reflection on museum visiting from a young Billy Shakespeare dated 1588.  It is believed he changed it and used it again for one of his minor plays, I forget which.

To visit, or not to visit--that is the question:

Whether your wallet can suffer 

The entrance fee of outrageous fortune 

Or qualify for a bewildering sea of discounts 

And by choosing enter. To visit, to sleep-- 

No more--and by a sleep to say we're bored 

The headache, and the thousand interpretation panels 

That eyes are witness to. 'Tis then a cup of tea 

Devoutly to be wished. But to visit, not to sleep-- 

To wake--perchance to enjoy: ay, there's the rub, 

For in that interactivity what fun may come 

When we have shuffled off our duffle coats, 

Must give us pause. There's that desire 

That makes bearable so long a visit. 

For who would bear the whips and scorns of museum visits, 

Th' receptionist's wrong, the room steward's contumely 

The pangs of despised stairs, the lift's delay, 

The insolence of staff, and the spurns 

That patient merit of th' visitor takes, 

When he himself might his quietus make 

With a guide book? Who would rubbish buy, 

To grunt and sweat under a weary audio, 

But that the dread of something in the shop, 

The undiscovered marmalade, from whose taste 

No traveller recovers from, puzzles the will, 

And makes us rather bear Tesco's own brand 

Than fly to jam that we know not of? 

Thus a museum does make cowards of us all, 

And thus the prospect of repeat visiting 

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, 

About scones of great depth and hardness 

With this regard their currants turn awry 

And lose the name of edible. -- Soft you now, 

Fair cream tea! -- Museum, in thy thoughts 

Be all my visits remembered.

Mixer Taps: the end of the world as we know it?

Having to call in the plumber to fix a leaking tap in the Museum of Unreason staff toilet resulted in a swarthy ruffian presenting himself at the museum door yesterday. As expected he originated from somewhere east of Essex. Although my Polish isn't very strong (I'm reasonably fluent with "Nie rozumiem"*, and "ile?!?"** ), his English was far better. However his constant references to 'force it' had me worried until he then referred to the toilet as the restroom the penny/cent/grosz• (delete as applicable) dropped. It was obvious the Queen had not taught him his English or English sanitary ware culture.  He was a Yankee Poledle Dandy. It was then that the knotty problem of mixer taps reared it's ugly head. He had the temerity to suggest a single mixer tap (mikser cran) would be a positive change for the museum. When I suggested that a mixer tap would be the opposite of positive, he looked confused, so I sat him down and explained the error of his ways.

Now, I am a great admirer of both the USA (cowboy hats and musical theatre) as well as Polish plumbers (prompt and cheap). BUT North American society took a fatally wrong turn in 1880 when a certain Thomas Campbell thought it would be a good idea to invent the mixer tap. Now I realise Campbell was a Canadian so the USA is not entirely to blame, but in the same way that the Scots did not invent the bagpipes*** (bagpipes: the ultimate warning of what may happen when you have too many sheep and a lot of time on your hands) they impose them upon delicate eardrums at every conceivable opportunity; the USA is similarly guilty of the callous mixing of the world's tap water.

The separation of hot and cold water is as essential to a coherent thriving society as it is to separate church and state for good governance. I realise that the Queen of England is the head of the Anglican Church but comfortingly neither represent any significant influence in British political or spiritual affairs as the last census confirmed that we are now a Jedi worshiping country under Stephen Fry.

As a product of the English public school system I am no stranger to sting of cold water on the face at 5am in the morning followed by the cold sting of the birch on the behind. As a result I am the sort of well balanced individual that makes Britain 22nd out of 24 wealthier nations for literacy and numeracy according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Where would we be if I turned the tap on and with a quick flick of the wrist warm water came out!?! 122nd probably.

As you grow up how do you find out who you are? You experiment, you make mistakes, you get burned. If you survive, you find balance. The twin-tapped bathroom sink is the moist expression of personal growth and development. The increasing infantilism of society can be traced from the late nineteenth century - I would go further and say it can be precisely traced from 1880 (viz. Mr. Chapman). However that is not the main reason for separate taps.

The Eastern philosophical symbol of balance is the Yin and Yang. It tells us that opposites are complimentary. It is how the world is meant to be. We are either male or female with all the fun and misunderstandings that entails. Dark and light are separate for a reason. Would we really want to live in a hermaphroditic world of twilight? Some might - but they would also probably appreciate mixer taps as well. 

So here is the point of both the Yin and Yang and separate hot and cold water taps; one opposite can transform into another, but it is not a random event, it happens only when the time is right. A sex change operation is not a random event, but an event when the individual finds out who they really are. Does anyone choose to be a hermaphrodite? Night doesn't happen randomly, it happens only when the time is right. Cold water and hot water should only transform when the time is right. Human internal peace and existential satisfaction can only be achieved when you get the transformation right. Warm water in the sink without the effort is destroying the ongoing growth and development of the human race, unbalancing the earth. Darwin's theory of continual evolution is in jeopardy. Many of the measures of human improvement are declining in the Western world; literacy and numeracy rates are down, life expectancy is, at best, on a plateau, poverty rates are increasing as are TV reality shows. Let's face it we have begun the long march back towards homo erectus. The Gaia hypothesis of the earth as a self regulating system is undermined by mixer taps, by the concept they embody of humanity artificially removing opposites and messing with nature's delicate timing of transformation. Think about a world without summer or winter but with some sort of 'sunter' or 'wimmer'. Night and day transformed into 'dight' or 'nay'. Men and women transformed into Graham Norton. 

So learn to relish opposites and appreciate that balanced transformation is a right to be earned, explore the varying methods of transformation that your twin-tapped sink offers you (I prefer the short cold burst followed by a long hot one) and know that in the process you are helping to save the world and humanity's place within it.

The one down side is I now need to find a new plumber.

Notes

* I don't understand

** How much?!?

*** probably the Hittites in 1000BC

What You Need Is: Another museum music playlist

Yet more museum music for your delectation, delight and delirium with an eclectic mix of the obvious (Night at the Museum soundtrack), show tunes (Barnum), Dr. Who and Pokemon music (Murray Gold and Tristan Perez) as well as hipster grooves (Muse, Paul Weller) for all your artifactual aural requirements. Some great ideas here for museums (Broken Hearts and Relationships) and a brilliant definition of a museum (Cathedral Amongst Hovels).

Search and enjoy, hear and deploy, share and annoy.

Matthew Ryan – Your Museum
Daniel Johnston – Museum of Love
Muse – Muscle Museum
Alan Parker – Science Museum
Emmy The Great – On The Museum Island
Murray Gold – Into The Museum
Cate le Bon – Mug Museum
Paul Weller – The Strange Museum
Combination Head – The Curator
Damien Jurado – Museum of Flight
Michael Crawford/The Original London Cast Of 'Barnum' – Museum Song
Tiny Ruins – Me At The Museum, You In The Wintergardens
Alan Silvestri – Night At The Museum
Idiot Pilot – Red Museum
Tristan D. Perez – Oceanic Museum
Liquid Mind – Thought Museum
Tortoise – Glass Museum
Perfume – Mirai No Museum
A Static Lullaby – Life in a Museum
Veruca Salt – The Museum of Broken Relationships
Ken Nordine – The Sound Museum
Chuck Prophet – Museum Of Broken Hearts
Museum of Bellas Artes – Cathedral Amongst Hovels



Let me know your favourites and I will do a museum top 10 Spotify playlist, but if anyone has any good suggestions they would be more than welcome to add it to the canon of museoaudiofricative.


spoti.fi/1xin6mv