Rio2016 - Why is Team GB so successful?

I feel forced to abandon my summer break from blogging to reflect on the Olympics 2016.

In reality, I've just been turned down for a Heritage Lottery Fund grant for a new pop up museum. 'Pop up' museums are all the rage, although I can't think of anything worse than sitting in a bus station waving my weird objects at people waiting for the no. 9 bus to Old Sodbury.  It needed reinventing before we're all forced to do it.

My idea was 'The Summer of Fun Pop Up Chateau of Unreason Museum'. In return for a modest capital investment from the public purse to purchase a modest pile in Provence, I would pop up for two weeks to make our museum international and develop an entirely new audience. In order to build on this, I would return every year, to cement relations in the bars and restaurants of Arles and Avignon. Sadly, as usual, I am a man ahead of my time and others do not see the visionary potential of the idea.

So I find myself in this country watching the TV through the night. A habit that usually costs me a lot of money after ten minutes of free viewing. But entirely for free I have been watching the Olympics with increasing incredulity as 'Team GB' hoover up the medals in the sports that the U.S.A. think are a bit gay and so do not try too hard to win.

As an aside 'Team GB' is an appropriate name, rather than 'Team UK' (and the Isle of Man and other Crown Dependencies etc.). The most obvious exclusive nature of the 'GB' moniker is to ignore Northern Ireland. Mind you, the idea of a 'Force UK' team would give sponsors second thoughts about associating their brands with FUK (French Connection excepted). Those complainers about 'Team GB' have missed the point. The Northern Irish athletes under the Anglo-Irish Agreement can compete for the Irish Republic - which most choose to do. So a more obvious question to me, is to ask 'Team Ireland' why they are not 'Team Ireland and a bit of the UK' or Team I and NI (TINI) which incidentally matches their medal haul.

This is not to be boastful about GB's success, I am in fact rather depressed about it. I long for the days in my youth, when I had more thumbs than we had gold medals (Pub Quiz Question - who won the only GB Gold medal at Atlanta 1996?*) - it was proportional, it was more suited to our character, and most importantly it allowed the BBC to actually show some sport.

Having watched a lot of the Olympics now. I have seen a lot of GB athletes wandering around in track suits, rather than seeing sport. I've seen a lot of sweaty GB athletes being asked how they feel, rather than seeing sport. I've seen a lot of inspirational profiles of GB athletes, rather than seeing sport. I've seen a lot of interviews with families of GB athletes, rather than seeing sport. I've actually watched some sport where the commentators seem to have forgotten that there are other athletes on the track at the same time as the GB athlete. In case we missed it I then get a repeat where the camera just focusses on the GB athlete so that we can actually pretend there were no other athletes actually present. I have seen endless repeats of all of the above, and I have then seen the news and highlights that only involved GB medal events. Complete ignoring of women's 200m. in news and highlights was a bit of a low.

So lets get back to athletic incompetence and rediscover the Olympics as a celebration of great athletic performance rather than national triumphalism (leave that to the U.S.A. they do that so much better than us and is more in line with their character).

Simple minded analysts have put the success down to lottery funding. £350m. of investment over the last four years for 50 medals to date is obviously money well spent. Isn't it? Well in terms of success per capita it is not. We get a medal for every 1.2m people. Yet Grenada get a medal for every 100,000. Grenada has no lottery, or major public funding and no obesity in the young crisis. Although India has a medal for every 1.3bn. people. If it ever gets its act together, or if Kabaddi is allowed into the Olympics, even China would need to watch out. If we were as successful as Grenada we would have to actually add new games to Olympics to win enough medals. By the way why is golf in the Olympics and squash and kabaddi are not?

Incidentally Grenada is also the most successful country by GDP. GB languishes in 30th place. India is also bottom of this league table.

OK, having made the case that GB is wasting public money, destroying the spirit of the Olympics and underperforming - the question is why are we so successful?

Athletes are quick to thank support teams, nutritionists and coaches. They go into holding camps in Soviet style luxury gulags and boost national confidence and international profile - just like East Germany in the Cold War. Obviously Team GB doesn't use performance enhancing drugs (they just accidentally miss the drug tests), although they do have a secret drug weapon that is quintessentially British - see later.

I checked what Team GB have taken with them to Rio. Where some of that £350m. has been spent.
Naturally a mere 48,000 pieces of kit have been taken (have you noticed that each GB athlete has almost bespoke kit). However that is reasonable, although supplying your own kit would makes the prospect of someone lining up in the 100m. sprint final in a pair of flipflops rather enticing.

The kit does not include footwear and socks (11,000 pairs) or hats. Hats? We have taken 1,500. That seems a lot given that the total of competitors and staff is only 833. Is this wasteful? One hat per head seems reasonable, but one hat per 1.9 heads seems extravagant.

Again this figure does not include the ceremonial suits and the 2,800 luggage bags to carry all this.

Yet 22 shipping containers were needed. I have a lot of socks, but I only need one drawer. What else have they taken? In here lies the secret of GB success.

Team GB has taken 249 sofas and 350 cushions, 72 sets of outdoor garden furniture, 121 kettles and 5,500 tea bags.

There it is!

Sat on the sofa with a cup of tea...and when it isn't raining sitting on the patio..with another cup of tea. The quintessentially British training regime and drug of choice. A government endorsed mass doping system (which other countries have been banned for) underpinned by professional sitting. Which sports are we good at? Rowing, sailing, cycling and horse riding - sitting sports.

So there you have it. GB has discovered sports that match the British lifestyle, so that we are all in training whether we like it or not, and fuelled it with a drug that is not yet on the Olympic banned list (Linford Christie's ginseng tea excepted - had he opted for PG Tips none of that unpleasantness would have occurred).

So is £350m. well spent? Brits spend £6.3bn. on hot drinks (although I admit some of that involves unnecessarily radical coffee drinking) then yes it is.

Spread the word, the most important measure of success for 'Team GB' is the most important statistic of the Olympics.

1 medal for every 100 cups of tea

This could be the secret of india's rise up the medal table when they realise this.

My rigorous viewing so far has raised my tea drinking to almost Olympic standard - I believe I am already there on my sofa training so I might still dream of going to Tokyo in 2020.


RIO 2016 A NEW WORLD


*clue - it involved a couple of blokes (who incidentally I once saw in a McDonalds) sitting down and going backwards faster than anyone else.

EU Referendum Update July 2016

The dust has settled on the EU referendum and the events can be summarised quite easily.

Overall the UK voted to leave, although distinct areas and countries voted to remain.

This caused some political upheaval, which has now become clearer

UKIP - the main leaver left.

Meanwhile in the Conservatives the main remainers left along with all the leavers. That left the remaining remainer insisting that leaving means leaving. She then got the leavers back in to help us leave. Whilst doing this she talked to Scotland who wanted to remain, to persuade them to remain whilst joining in leaving.

In the Labour Party the remainer remains despite efforts to get him to leave by other remainers.

For the Lib Dems the remainers insist leaving means remaining, although nobody is listening to them.

In the country some leavers now want to remain, and many remainers now want to leave the country.

In Europe they want us to remain but insist we should leave as soon as possible.




So where does that leave museums? They want to remain, but will be forced to leave, whilst hoping that the contacts remain, even though the European funding will leave.


Chief BBC political analyst Laura Kuenssberg assessment of the situation is as follows

You put your left arm in

your right arm out 

In, out, in, out, 

You shake it all about.  

You do the Hokey Cokey and you turn around

That's what it's all about...

Woah, the hokey cokey,

Woah, the hokey cokey,...

Something for an English Summer?

The Meteorological Office has confirmed that this has been the wettest June on record (records actually began in 1910 - but I suspect we'd been having bad weather well before then). But this was not confined to June. We've had the wettest April-June ever. The total amount of rain in June was 145.3mm (getting on for 6 inches in old money).  With the unsettled weather due to continue due to something to do with the Jet Stream, what should museums do? Normally its time to invest in outdoor event and activities. 

Or should we take our direction from 'Ark Encounter' (https://arkencounter.com/) in Kentucky and build something with a eye to the future (or past?). Does your museum have a spare $100m, then this could be your way forward. A 510 feet long (300 cubits) ark.  It is handy that the Bible, as well as offering an accurate history of civilisation, is also an early IKEA instruction booklet to build your own, species survival craft. 

“And this is how you shall make it: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits.” (Genesis 6:15)

Credit: AP*

There's no need to rush, at the current rate of rain it will take 58,000 months to cover Mount Everest in water. Although I suspect humanity will be in trouble long before them. But I think museums would need the time to get to grips with their disposal policies, so that there will be enough room in the ark to house their collections.

Am I being pessimistic? You just need to ask yourself when did you last see a rainbow?

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” (Genesis 9:12)

Next time it rains and a rainbow fails to appear, get on the first flight to Kentucky with your favourite object. Or get those strange bits of wood in your museum store that you never knew what they were for, but could never bring yourself to throw out, and start building. It is your duty as a curator to preserve your collection, people may think you are mad, but future generations will thanks you.






http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/07/noahs-ark-replica-unveiled-in-kentucky-amid-anger-at-scientifica/

Can I Touch this?

 Do want more millennials in your fusty old halls? Have you thought about playing music in your museum exhibitions?

Museums used to be follow the Bruce Springsteen theory of display outlined in his early manifesto, 'The River' Track 9 - You Can Look (But You'd Better Not Touch)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbd5IexmTX4

Be sure to blast this out to protect your new open storage decorative art loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum.

More generally, MC Hammer's U Can't Touch This, can be sampled through touch pads if visitors get close to your objects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otCpCn0l4Wo

But museums have moved towards a more inclusive and, dare I say it, touching approach. What would be appropriate?

Open the doors to Diana Ross' Touch Me In The Morning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxZRdxrP0Vo

If your museum have sleepovers, how about

Kathy Dennis Touch Me (All Night Long)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rPSQweDPmI

I think a more strident approach encouraging visitors to handle objects is needed in the early stages and many modern beat combos can instruct us to 'Touch'. Here is a small sample

The Supremes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXLUND2kCPA

Natasha Bedingfield

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOa4axPVHEc

Daft Punk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljQdZEMs31g

Shift K3Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KtYYHKEGDc

That should cover a range of tastes.

For the braver museum, how about asking visitors to actually handle your objects. What can you offer them aurally. Robyn's Handle Me is a good place to start

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4UHNhVSrEM

or Fleetwood Mac's Hold Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAbfPDZdEBU

For the more anxious the Travelling Wilburys Handle With Care may offer an easy way in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8s9dmuAKvU

Or Tori Amos' Precious Things

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Croz1_USr3U

What about tunes to avoid? Top of my list would be The Damned's Smash It Up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux1Za8Wmz_s

Nick Lowe's I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80A26-uo-CA

and the ultimate in cultural destructive nihilism, Joy Division, Atrocity Exhibition

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3suV4k7gF0


Listen, enjoy, relax, open up those cabinets and let the handling begin

A Briton's EU Elegy

The church bell tolls the knell of parting way,

       The defeated man climbs slowly o'er the gate,

The Briton homeward plods his weary way,

       And leaves Europe for darkness due to hate.



Now fades the glimm'ring future on the night,

       And all the air a solemn stillness holds,

Save where UKIP man preens his droning spite,

      As lousy thinking doth infect the polls;



Save us from yonder lonely tow'r

      The moping spirit tabloid to the mass complain

And so, Britannia finds her secret bow'r,

      Returns to her ancient solitary reign.


For Cameron no more number 10's hearth shall burn,

       The tired PM shows his evening care:

84 Tories write to save their sire's concern,

      Or vie to have his envied role to share.



Beneath that rugged hair, that blonded shade,

     Heaves Boris Johnson's mould'ring heap,

Is in his narrow mind for ever laid,

       The rude leaver of Europe, asleep.



That breezy call in a Scottish Morn,

    The Sturgeon twitt'ring from the stone-built stead,

The crow's shrill clarion, or her echoing horn,

     No more shall Union keep Scots from their EU bed.



Oft did Ireland to their violence yield,

     Their divided soul the cycle had been broke;

How quickly will they take their guns to wield!

    As borders rise and calls to unite occur in one stroke!



The day with markets in sad array

    The currency's downward path we saw it borne.

Approach with dread where the economy will lay,

    Grav'd on the stone where we will mourn.



Here he rests his head upon the lap of Earth

    A hostage to Fortune and to Fame unknown.

Fair Albion frown'd on EU's worth,

    And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.



Never has Thomas Grey's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard seemed so apt and poignant

on this sad day

The Museum of Tomorrow may actually be The Museum of Tomorrow

Source: http://museudoamanha.org.br/

Welcome to 'The Museum of Tomorrow'

"The Museum of Tomorrow is a different kind of science museum. A space conceived through the values of sustainability and conviviality that explores the ever-changing times we’re witnessing and the possible paths we may take during the next 50 years."*

 This new cultural organisation is in Rio de Janeiro and could be an intriguing stop off point for the masses of sports enthusiasts for this year's Olympic Games.

But is it a museum?

An initial review (from John Orna-Ornstein* no less) is very positive.  Here is his twitter review in full.

"Only one object, but @museudoamanha is thoughtful, beautiful, supremely relevant and rather brilliant."

I was drawn to his comment, '...only one object..'. In the museum world we have been working to a museum definition by our Museums Association since 1998.

'Museums enable people to explore collections for inspiration, learning and enjoyment. They are institutions that collect, safeguard and make accessible artefacts and specimens, which they hold in trust for society.' (my italics).

According to this definition a museum of one object is not a museum.

One object does not a collection make. If that is the case I have a second hand Ford Ka collection, all of which are in working order (just). But I am not the Working Museum of Second Hand Everyday Affordable City Cars.

So what is the difference?

The difference is the 'inspiration, learning and enjoyment' part of the MA definition and is pertinent to the remaining part of Orna-Ornstein's review.

As soon as we break from our 'collections' fetishism we release the shackles. If we think of artefacts and specimens as tools that may be used to inspire and not an end in themselves, all of a sudden we can have more enlightened disposal policies, more engagement with artefacts in the public domain (there are excellent examples out there) and develop the museum's outward focus on society rather than inward of collection conservation and management.

Furthermore Orna-Ornstein has identified an element of museum work that is implicit within the definition, but, in my view, should be explicit - relevance. Museums are about today (some forget that) and should be working hard for society now. It sounds like this new museum is trying to do just that.

Let us all work towards a less collections dependent definition of a museum that explicitly challenges us to be relevant to the society as it is now and will be in the future.

In which case Rio's Museum of Tomorrow, may actually be the museum of tomorrow.



* http://museudoamanha.org.br/en/welcome
**John Orna-Ornstein is Arts Council England's Director of Museums

Museum of Kevin Bacon

Given the ubiquity of Kevin Bacon memes around the world in internet land, I've been surprised and disappointed that he hasn't invaded popular museum culture. Never fear I'm here to redress the balance. Feel free to join in if you like.

Challenge: Replace one word in a museum or exhibition or gallery with the word 'Bacon'

Here's an simple start

Natural Bacon Museum

You see its easy - soon you be muttering things like Bacon Transport Museum in your sleep and then you'll graduate to more obscure ones like,

New Bedford Whaling Bacon 

and after a while they just come tumbling out

The Museum of Jurassic Bacon

The Victoria and Bacon Museum

Bacon Rivers Museum

Bacon Collar Museum

Museum of Mental Bacon

Museum of Baconcraft

Museum of Brands, Packaging and Bacon

The Museum of Bad Bacon

Museum of Medieval Torture Bacon

Museum of Vampires and Legendary Bacon

all with no mention of Harry Potter

These are just the museums, any temporary exhibitions that might be suitable for the 'Bacon' treatment?

Try it you might like it and be sure to send me your best suggestions