Final Word: Game of Thrones

By Paul Moore

There are weeks when I sit down to write and my mind is absolutely empty. There is nothing new about my head being empty of course but most times it does not matter. When an article has to be written, however, it becomes a problem.

Conversely, there are weeks when there are so many interesting things happening that it is almost too difficult to decide which to interrogate. This was one such week and ultimately I could not decide which was the better story. So I decided to write about them all. Strangely, it was then that a theme connecting them all began to emerge.

Essentially they all have to do with popular culture and the ways in which we engage with such culture. Two of them related to museums.

Museums are strange places at the best of times. Most are sombre spaces filled with outmoded artefacts which have been rendered lifeless by being put on display, many in glass cases, where they are even further removed from any visitor who might have an interest. Some years ago I taught a class in museum studies and each and every one of them was horrified when I suggested that, with the advent of 3D printing, a copy of the artefacts could be made and given to all who came to view it. Apparently this was undermining the ‘authentic’ nature of a sacred object. Many museums have noticed the fact that because every other facet of life is steeped in interaction, visitors now take it for granted that a museum space must be the same.

This was illustrated brilliantly this week when a couple visiting a museum in Verona in Italy came upon a crystal chair on exhibit. The piece, called the Van Gogh chair, was made from Swarovski crystal but the couple, not unnaturally, saw a chair and decided to sit on it. Cue collapse of said chair and a couple fleeing the museum. Police have apparently released footage of the crystal wreckers in the hope that they can be apprehended, although it will be interesting to see what charges can be brought against two people using an object for the purpose for which it was designed.

Later in the week came news of a chair of a different type. It was reported that two men had been sentenced for stealing a gold toilet which was on exhibition in Blenheim Palace, the house where Winston Churchill as born. By coincidence the gold toilet was also made by an Italian artist and was stolen immediately after the launch event for its installation.

It seems it was melted down and there is now no trace of it. I am desperately trying to avoid saying that was good money flushed down the loo. The piece was called ‘America’ and was in every way a fitting symbol for what the USA has come to represent under its present president who would, I have no doubt, have had it installed in the White House given half a chance.

Finally, towards the end of the week came the news that a college in Scotland is to offer a course (or should that be curse?) examining Oasis. The same college has form having previously offered a masterclass in Taylor Swift. It has of course to be purely coincidental that this masterclass is being offered with the Oasis reunion only weeks away and I have no doubt the college will claim it is merely helping fans prepare for the big event.

So what do all these examples of popular culture have in common? Well the first two are examples of where one would normally put one’s posterior, while the third is an example of the type of material that ought to be put in the golden throne and rapidly flushed away before it can cause any further offence.