Louvre Yourself

My last post probably took the piss a bit in terms of the word-padding to meet my Nanowrimo totals. If you haven't read it then count yourself lucky at having avoided such a fate. I'll try and be more concise this week (not least because I've already written four pages of the novel today, meaning I only need 500 words from this).

But I will indulge myself by slagging off museums for a bit before getting started. I was in Paris this week, and as part of the obligatory tourism checklist found myself traipsing around the Louvre for a couple of hours.

To give it credit, the building itself is stunning, and the pyramid outside is pretty fun too. But there are simply too many things inside. By the time you see your fourth pot from pre-historic Europe you've seen three too many. Maybe it would be interesting if there was a narrative to it (we're considering a guide for the next museum trip), but wandering around looking at a million relics (which are sort of interesting just by dint of being ancient, I will admit), loses its novelty pretty quickly.

So perhaps I am a philistine, but what do people get from museums? I know that the Louvre is particularly massive, and we probably didn't tackle it in the optimal manner, but does anyone actually retain any of the information that they read on those little plaques? Has a single fact about Roman pot-making ever been recalled by a museum-goer more than two hours after they have left the museum?

You would think that museums would be the ideal place to stock up on trivia for quizzes, but the whole experience is constructed in a way to direct any interesting info in one eye and out the other. Perhaps its the fact that there is simply so much stuff. If there was only one pot, and that pot had a fascinating story, and a fascinating place in history then it might stick with us.

Or am I wrong, and do you all genuinely love aimlessly dragging your feet from statue to sword, from chamber pot to chaise longue? This is a real question, by the way - I am not being in any way facetious.

Also, and this must be said. The Mona Lisa is a complete joke. About two times the size of a postage stamp and with nothing to recommend it other than the fact its being so heavily recommended by the museum. What is it about the Mona Lisa, other than the fact its the Mona Lisa, which makes it anything but uninspiring. Or is it purely the history of it that makes it so interesting - is the only reason its the most expensive painting ever because it always has been? A self-fulfilling prophecy.

(And I know its not actually the most expensive, but that's just because its been on display since 1797. It has an estimated "value" of nearly $1b, according to its insurers, while the highest selling painting was "worth" a mere $540m)

You're definitely thinking that I'm a philistine at this point, so I'm going to stop before I turn the rest of you off.

There were some nice mosaics, I'll admit that much.

But onto the episode. If you want to watch the episode before reading the rest of the review you can do so here.

The second match of the second round was between the Open University, who had just charged through the repechage, and the University of East Anglia, who had given Strathclyde a whipping the first round.

Wearing a Keith Haring shirt, which my boss would probably really like, but I don't have him for Secret Santa this year (and its probably too expensive anyway), Davidson takes the first starter with Silent Spring. Two bonuses on the blue plaques you get on houses where famous people once lived, or used a telephone, or popped into for a wee, were followed by Davidson taking his second ten pointer. It would not be his last.

This strong start prompts Tobin into an early neg, dropping his team into negative figures. Surprisingly, no one picks up his mistake, even when Guadalajara is mentioned, but perhaps I only know that its in Mexico because they have a football team, from whom Manchester United signed Javier Hernandez in 2010. Maybe the only shocking thing is how much of my geographical knowledge can be traced back to sports.

Davidson's hat-trick won Open a bonus set on logic gates AND they take two. UEA get off the mark, and receive some applause when Yates takes the picture starter very quickly. She blunders on the next starter though, allowing Davidson to swoop in with his fourth (paleontology rather than geology).

Paisley gives Shiress her first starter, and UEA closed the gap to 35 points. A guess of Austria from Holt stretches this back out again, and from here Open went on an absolute rampage.

This started with Eleanor Catton from Davidson, pronouncing the Ts with a very Aberdeenshire glottal stop. He gives another demonstration of this on the music starter with Beethoven. I had a discussion with a friend (also Aberdonian), about this very linguistic concept at the weekend. In words like Catton and Beethoven, it is simply easier to abandon the Ts - I don't know why everyone doesn't do it.

Anyway, Gavaghan and then Romans chipped in with some more starters for Open, who are well out of sight at this point. Davidson adds another with Van Gogh's Wheatfield of Crows on the second picture starter. By the time Shiress recognises the fact that the Munsell chart is for colours, the game is over.

A fun question on place names shared between Earth and Middle Earth gives Open the chance to demonstrate their Lord of the Rings nerd credentials, before a couple of starters from UEA.

Romans, from right next to Reading, gets a starter on Reading, before Gavaghan closes the game out with Readers Digest.

Open 265 - 130 UEA

Rajan asks Open if their big win gives them confidence going into the next round, and Davidson laughs, saying that it doesn't. But it should. He is immense on the buzzer, with Romans and Gavaghan pretty handy too. They'll be pretty hard to beat, I reckon. For UEA, a solid performance, but ultimately they came up against a stronger team on this occasion.

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