Picture Imperfect

For those of you who might have been worried - I survived the chocolate nipple poisoning. Indeed, I was so well recovered today that I visited the British Museum in London. You know what would really improve the British Museum? Banning bloody cameras and camera phones, that's what! My enjoyment of the exhibits was greatly marred by burks trying to take pictures of everything. Just go to the shop and buy some postcards, or a book. Trust me, the focus and lighting on those photos will be far better than anything you can achieve. I found the situation particularly frustrating in the Egyptian galleries, with hordes of tourists trying to have their pictures taken with the mummys. Show some respect for the dead - isn't it bad enough that the poor buggers have been dug up and taken halfway around the world to be gawped at by the great unwashed?

The Elgin marbles - sorry, Parthenon galleries as they like to call them now - were almost as bad. After spoiling a few tourists' pictures by refusing to move out of the way and walking across their field of view, I decided to seek out some of the less popular galleries. Mesopotamia and the ancient Levant didn't seem to be so popular with the snap-happy brigade. Which is their loss, as these exhibits give a fascinating glimpse at the dawn of civilisation. Africa, with its salutary tales of imperial exploitation also seemed relatively unpopular. Undeservedly so, as there is some fascinating stuff there. Even when I left the museum this afternoon I wasn't free from the idiots with cameras. Another place photography should be banned is on Hungerford Bridge (or Bridges, as these days there are two pedestrian walkways). I lost count of the number of times I had to negotiate obstructions caused by numpties posing for pictures there as I tried to get back to Waterloo. Lest anyone suspect that I didn't enjoy my trip today, I actually did. But there's no doubt that it would have been even more enjoyable if not for the proliferation of these idiots who seem to want to record and quantify every part of their existence by committing it to film (or digital memory). When did the human memory of experience stop being sufficient?