British Museum

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Extra, Extra

Leaseholders in dodgy tower blocks are being presented with £10,000 bills for fire safety improvements. Do what? The British Museum seem to have proved that Noah’s Ark was round. Fascinating stuff. Against all odds, the London Gateway project looks set to commence. Boris doesn’t seem …

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British Museum Extension Gets Planning Permission

Camden Council has approved the revised plan for a major extension at the British Museum, which will house a research wing, conservation labs, logistics, and new galleries giving ample space to stage large-scale temporary exhibitions. The original proposal by Rogers Sirk Harbour & Parners was …

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Egypt Wants Loan Of Rosetta Stone

Forget the Elgin Marbles. There’s a new ancient-monument-causing-International-brouhaha in town. The British Museum is under pressure from Egypt to return the Rosetta Stone. The Museum has held the stone for over 200 years after acquiring it from the defeated armies of Napoleon. Like a lithic …

Christopher Lee in Hammer Horror's breakthrough film, Dracula

Arts Ahead: What’s On In London 27 October – 2 November

Good ol’ Christopher Lee in Hammer Horror’s breakthrough film, Dracula In a week dominated by hasty Halloween costume-buying, we’re pleased to bring you other options for filling your free time. So you can head out, instead of hiding behind the sofa on Saturday night with …

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Treasury Stumps Up Cash For National Film Centre

Image by pintofstripe We never had Gordon Brown as much of a film buff, but the PM is mugging for the camera like old Tinseltown royalty after strong-arming his chums at the Treasury to stump up the cash that had threatened to derail a number …

Plans for the Tate Modern extension, by Herzog & de Meuron

Museum Extensions Update

The ‘museum extension fever‘ we mused about earlier in the year was soon threatened by a combination of funding fumble and council kybosh, but what’s happened since then? The British Museum’s £135 million extension, designed by Richard Rogers’ firm, was snipped by Camden Council who …

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The Saturday Strangeness

122. What do you get if you cross a carp with a monkey? In episode 98 I spoke of the purported ‘mermaid’ brought to London in 1822 by a Captain Eades. Eades exhibited the fraudulent freak which turned out to be nothing more than a …

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Museum Extensions News: Good, Bad, & Ugly

Decisions on two major museum extension projects were announced yesterday, with news both good and bad. Let’s get the bad out of the way: the proposed new wing of the British Museum was unceremoniously shot down by Camden Council. Despite planning officers, Cabe and English …

Plans for the Tate Modern extension, by Herzog & de Meuron

Museum Extensions Under Threat

Plans for the Tate Modern extension, by Herzog & de Meuron Damn you, recession! Not content with rising unemployment, enormous public debt and letting the bankers get away with it, now you want to take away our fabulous museum extensions as well? You won’t be …

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Hitchens Hobby Horse: Reunify The Parthenon Sculptures

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Literary Preview: World Literature Weekend @ LRB

If our poke around the London Review Bookshop the other week whetted your appetite for a visit, clear your diary for this weekend cos they’re holding a festival of world literature. If you’re heading to the talk between Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti and not-quite-Oxford-professor-of-poetry Ruth …