5.15pm on day 5,115 and it’s the start of the 15th year of the blog. All of which is numerologically pleasing but has nothing to do with the shot, and the shot has nothing to do with my birthday as such. As the stormtrooper helmet was there, it got worn by Mark, at least for a short time. Tony looks on in his usual measured fashion.
In the late 18th century a teenager called John Walton found a great horde of Roman artefacts buried in the village of Ribchester. The most significant object therein was a ceremonial helmet, now displayed in the British Museum in London; what remains in the tiny museum in Ribchester, depicted here, is just a replica.
In which case: why not display it without the glass? If it could be touched, held, perhaps even worn, at least then we could get a sense of the materiality of the thing, experience it as a tangible object. I’m not saying it’s valueless in itself but stick it behind glass and something is lost.
Being 42 