Sometimes it's all in a name!
I got a brilliant book yesterday from my mate, Marilyn. The book is called Behind the Scenes at the Museum of Baked Beans: my search for Britain’s Maddest Museums. It’s by Hunter Davies which is as good a reason as any to read, right?
But… the thing about it is that just reading the chapter titles, says it all. I spend a year trying to get my head around the UK and it’s fear of discussing it’s Britishness and in one fell swoop, Davies nails the museums that CAN demonstrate Englishness. It’s phatic, you know? It can’t properly be named, but there it is in all of it’s discussion.
With chapter headings like: The British Lawnmower Museum, The Sheep Show, The Casbah and the Beatles, The National Football Museum, The Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker, The Teddy Bears of Whitney and of course The Baked Bean Museum of Excellence. It's interesting to compare them to the national museums I saw, where their names belied the culture of the place in which they were located, these museums name Britishness explicitly. What could be more British than baked beans... don't answer that!
But… the thing about it is that just reading the chapter titles, says it all. I spend a year trying to get my head around the UK and it’s fear of discussing it’s Britishness and in one fell swoop, Davies nails the museums that CAN demonstrate Englishness. It’s phatic, you know? It can’t properly be named, but there it is in all of it’s discussion.
With chapter headings like: The British Lawnmower Museum, The Sheep Show, The Casbah and the Beatles, The National Football Museum, The Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker, The Teddy Bears of Whitney and of course The Baked Bean Museum of Excellence. It's interesting to compare them to the national museums I saw, where their names belied the culture of the place in which they were located, these museums name Britishness explicitly. What could be more British than baked beans... don't answer that!