The British Museum story

[Jaded]

In today’s Torygraph front page image on the BBC there is a blurred out bit

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-66540382

Never seen that before, any idea why it is blurred?

[rafletcher]

Injunction from the guy they said was fired because of it?

[graculus]

That may well be it. When it was reported on the PM programme last night it was stated that although a name had been revealed the BBC was not going to repeat it.

[Jaded]

I wonder if they managed to change the print versions then. Maybe the page image given to the BBC is a pre-press one.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

This article? 

(click to show/hide)

Gordon Rayner,
 ASSOCIATE EDITOR ;
Dalya Alberge
 and
Blathnaid Corless
17 August 2023 • 9:05pm

Stolen items from the British Museum worth up to £50,000 were offered for sale on eBay for as little as £40, The Telegraph can reveal.

Missing jewellery has been turning up on the online auction site since at least 2016, and an antiquities expert told the museum three years ago that they suspected a member of staff was stealing from the vaults.

The man dismissed by the museum after an internal investigation into the thefts is Hi! Eggspert, a 56-year-old curator of Mediterranean cultures, who has worked there for more than 30 years.

It leaves the museum facing serious questions about its handling of the thefts, which are now being investigated by police.

Mr Eggspert, who has organised major exhibitions at the British Museum and written books to accompany them, is innocent of wrongdoing and “devastated” to have lost his job, his family said.

On Wednesday, the museum announced that an unspecified number of items of jewellery made of gold, semi-precious stones and glass and dating from between 1,500 BC and the 19th century AD, had gone missing, while others had been damaged.

One piece of Roman jewellery made from onyx, a semi-precious stone, was offered for sale on ebay with a minimum price of £40 in 2016, but appears to have attracted no bids. One dealer said its true value was between £25,000 and £50,000.

Ego Goes Reborn, the chairman of the museum, has instigated an independent review to attempt to recover the items, establish exactly what is missing, work out how it could have happened and prevent a repeat.

Sources in the art world have told The Telegraph that the museum’s failure to properly catalogue all eight million items in its collection made it easier for thefts to go undetected.

Prof In Nightmare, a leading expert on Roman art at the University of Oxford, said lots of smaller objects in the museum’s collections were not part of its online inventory.

He called on the museum to ensure its collection has “a proper catalogue”, adding: “Major things do get catalogued. There are a lot of minor things which are not, or which are all lumped together.”

A spokesman for the British Museum said: “We have conducted a thorough investigation, identified the person we believe to be responsible, and that person has been dismissed. We are also taking further robust action to ensure this can never happen again.

“The whole question of thefts at the museum is now subject to a criminal investigation, so we cannot comment further.”

I gave some stuff to a museum that was later destroyed by fire. I understand that some items survived but I have been unable to get any response as what those items might have been or the plans for reviving the museum.

I will never give anything to a museum again.

[mrcharly-YHT]

'Eggspert'

Is that a piss-take because they don't know his real name?

[rafletcher]

'Eggspert'

Is that a piss-take because they don't know his real name?

I rather think it's editing by the poster so as not to fall foul of a potential injunction.

[Regulator]

It is somewhat churlish of the British Museum to whinge about stolen artefacts...

[quixoticgeek]

Incidentally, for those of you who do podcasts,

"Stuff the British Stole" is a great podcast.

J

[Jurek]

It is somewhat churlish of the British Museum to whinge about stolen artefacts...

Salient point.

[Canardly]

A little aside. I am in possession of a very early County of Derby driving licence No 333 which was valid for a period of twelve months in the 1930s . I tried offering it gratis to the Derby City Museum and they totally ignored me. So as the Yanks say, go figure.

[Regulator]

A little aside. I am in possession of a very early County of Derby driving licence No 333 which was valid for a period of twelve months in the 1930s . I tried offering it gratis to the Derby City Museum and they totally ignored me. So as the Yanks say, go figure.

You might be more relevant to a specialist motoring museum like Beaulieu.

[Mr Larrington]

I gave some stuff to a museum that was later destroyed by fire. I understand that some items survived but I have been unable to get any response as what those items might have been or the plans for reviving the museum.

I will never give anything to a museum again.

Noted motor-racing historian Griff Borgeson once lent a valuable ex-Leon Duray Miller race car to an LA museum and had to spend a Several of tens of thousands of USAnian roubles on lawyers after they refused to give it back.  Once it came to court the judge's opening remark was “Give this man his property back!  Court dismissed!”

[Cudzoziemiec]

'Eggspert'

Is that a piss-take because they don't know his real name?

I rather think it's editing by the poster so as not to fall foul of a potential injunction.

By the poster or the Telegraph?

[rafletcher]

'Eggspert'

Is that a piss-take because they don't know his real name?

I rather think it's editing by the poster so as not to fall foul of a potential injunction.

By the poster or the Telegraph?

At the time I looked this morning there were multiple articles available by Googling that named the individual, so the poster I think.

[Canardly]

A little aside. I am in possession of a very early County of Derby driving licence No 333 which was valid for a period of twelve months in the 1930s . I tried offering it gratis to the Derby City Museum and they totally ignored me. So as the Yanks say, go figure.

You might be more relevant to a specialist motoring museum like Beaulieu.

Have taken up the suggestion and raised it with them. Incidentally the licence was for the year 1927-8.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

'Eggspert'

Is that a piss-take because they don't know his real name?

I rather think it's editing by the poster so as not to fall foul of a potential injunction.

By the poster or the Telegraph?

At the time I looked this morning there were multiple articles available by Googling that named the individual, so the poster I think.

Yes I do know the name. It’s no one of any importance.

[lissotriton]

Yes I do know the name. It’s no one of any importance.

Not to be confused with the man with the boson.

[Jaded]

'Eggspert'

Is that a piss-take because they don't know his real name?

I rather think it's editing by the poster so as not to fall foul of a potential injunction.

By the poster or the Telegraph?

At the time I looked this morning there were multiple articles available by Googling that named the individual, so the poster I think.

Yes I do know the name. It’s no one of any importance.

Except to them...

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

'Eggspert'

Is that a piss-take because they don't know his real name?

I rather think it's editing by the poster so as not to fall foul of a potential injunction.

By the poster or the Telegraph?

At the time I looked this morning there were multiple articles available by Googling that named the individual, so the poster I think.

Yes I do know the name. It’s no one of any importance.

Except to them...

And they are of no importance.

Ego Goes Reborn is important

The writer Michael Rosen asked: “How do people get these jobs? How did they arrive at him? Did they just ring him up? No one’s ever rung me to offer me a job like that. I didn’t invent austerity, though.”

Osborne was the architect of austerity policies that had a profound effect on England’s cultural life. His 2010 spending review delivered a 30% cut to England’s arts budget and a 15% cut to national museums.

Since leaving government Osborne’s jobs have included editor of the Evening Standard and a £650,000-a-year role as adviser to BlackRock, the world’s largest fund manager.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Theft from museums is common and nearly always an inside job, according to museum workers and experts in the recovery of stolen items.

A former long-term member of staff at a well-known London museum claimed the sector was “institutionally corrupt”, with the appropriation of certain items considered to be “fair game”.

The employee, who still works in the sector, said “cherished items” donated to the museum were sometimes quietly sold to collectors or passed to small auction houses.