In March 1817, soon after the Elgin Marbles first went on display in the British Museum, John Keats went to see them with his friend, the painter Benjamin Robert Haydon. Within a week, Keats had written his poem, ‘On Seeing the Elgin Marbles’, and had it published in The Examiner.
It’s very difficult for historical sites, especially in the English-speaking world, to resist Disneyfication. Ironbridge Gorge is no exception. The visitor website proclaims ‘Ironbridge: Valley of Invention’ and displays video of smiling, happy families walking through clean, well-preserved streets, inspecting clean, well-preserved buildings.
I’m not old enough to remember the Great Train Robbery of 1963, but I am old enough to remember the time when the Sex Pistols recorded a couple of songs with Ronnie Biggs, by then the most famous of the robbers.
As with most Britons alive today, there hasn’t been a change of the UK’s Sovereign in my lifetime. Not any more. I don’t follow that branch of the entertainment industry known as ‘The Royals’ and I have no particular affection for its various actors.