The Banquet Scene, Gypsum wall panel relief fragment, 645 BC – 635 BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum
Recent links of note:
Government shelves foxhunting vote after SNP opposition
Rowena Mason, The Guardian
How quickly hope turns to despair! A mere week after Tories thought they would be able to repeal easily the more onerous aspects of the 2004 Hunting Act, a coalition led by the SNP has dashed the plans. Never mind that the current act allows for traditional foxhunting in Scotland and never mind that the SNP had previously maintained they would vote only on issues affecting their home country: Nicola Sturgeon and her acolytes can’t seem to leave well enough alone.
In Thailand, Everyone Digs the Idea of a Canal, but It Never Goes Anywhere
James Hookway, The Wall Street Journal
It seems that everyone in Thailand has a plan to cut a path from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific. Proponents of the old school see a canal, in the style of the Panama, as the solution, while others such as General Chavalit are more skeptical, claiming that “Digging. It’s just so last century.” The economic boost of such a link, whether by land or sea, is undeniable, but this path has been tread before. Thailand’s history is filled with ambitious plans to overcome the isthmus’s geography and many suspect that, four hundred years after the initial plans were conceived, nothing has changed.
Luddites in Paris
Guy Sorman, City Journal
We New Yorkers have become accustomed to the luxury that is Uber, the on-demand cab hailing service that is a boon to all those who have stood on a corner for minutes upon end waiting for an on-duty yellow cab that never comes. Whatever one thinks of the service, its utility is unquestionable. Parisians are not so fortunate; this week in City Journal, Guy Sorman details the ways in which the city refuses to recognize the value of a dynamic economy.
British Museum could send loans worth £1bn to the Gulf
Martin Bailey, The Art Newspaper
As ISIS continues to place Assyrian reliefs in peril, the value of remaining panels has increased. In what seems to be a move benefitting both sides, the British Museum plans to send nearly one billion pounds worth of their collection to the Zayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi. With many of the pieces in storage and the British Museum facing funding cuts, the fees generated by the loans (estimated to be in the millions of pounds per year) will be a welcome salve in London, while the Gulf stands to boost its credibility as the Louvre and Guggenheim’s cadet branches arrive in the coming years.
From our pages:
After the pounding match
Henrik Bering
A review of Waterloo: The Aftermath by Paul O’Keeffe.