There can’t be a better spot in the whole of London than the British Museum, the crown jewel of the city’s cultural life and a fantastic tribute to the British fascination with exploring the world around us. I recommend anyone visiting this country to take a look – and it’s free, so one of the few places in London where you won’t get fleeced.
But, and as much as I love being able to see them, the Museum’s Elgin Marbles belong to Greece, and the subject will never go away.
It has come up again because the British Museum is loaning one of the relics, a headless statue of the river god Ilissos, to St Petersburg’s State Hermitage Museum. This is very good news, considering Anglo-Russian relations are at their lowest point in a quarter of a century; where antiquities cross borders, armies won’t, perhaps.
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