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British Museum to hold 'closing down sale'



It was announced today that the British Museum, under pressure from academics and activists to repatriate artefacts taken from elsewhere in the world, will hold a 'closing down sale'.


Under the slogan 'Everything must go!!!', the museum will encourage descendants of the original owners to turn up and take home its exhibits. 'There are handy labels to show where we got everything, in case of confusion' explained a spokesman.


'And if it turns out no one’s that bothered about a bit of old pot that some distant ancestor of theirs might once have used, well, just come and take it anyway. Frankly we’re tired of the bad publicity.'


Ironically, some of the unclaimed artefacts already form part of an exhibition on European colonialism at a museum in Nairobi.


'We can’t be 100% sure why the British went all over the world collecting these random objects,' explains the card next to one display case. 'Presumably it had some sort of ritual significance for them.'


Stolen goods stolen again, complain thieves



A well known repository of stolen goods in central London announced today that some of them had been stolen again.


Quentin Peterhouse, Head of Larceny at the British Museum, said that staff were shocked to find the stolen articles missing during a routine stocktake.


"We initially wondered if it might be the original owners taking them back," he continued, "but apparently we massacred most of them when we took their stuff, so probably not."


"In any case, it wasn't the things we put on display with little cards explaining where we stole them from," he added. "These were all in a lock-up garage in Bermondsey."


This led Peterhouse to the reluctant conclusion that it must be an inside job involving a member of staff.


"To think that someone who works here could have done this," he said, shaking his head sadly. "I mean, obviously our recruitment process does select for a rather flexible attitude to property rights. But surely we made it clear that's the rule for other countries, not the rule for us."




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