Bloomsbury man gives magnificent gift to Greece
By our sovereign debt correspondents
Lucinda Leverage and Nicolas McMerkel
LONDON:
Saint
Neil MacGregor, the quietly spoken patron saint of Bloomsbury today
astonished the museum world by sending the Parthenon Marbles back to
Athens.
As the ancient fragments were loaded on to the back of a
flatbed truck outside the front entrance to the British Museum, Saint
Neil took a small chopped shallot from his inside pocket and wiped a
tear from his eye.
Visibly moved by his own magnanimity and
clearly struggling to maintain his legendary composure, he clutched to
his breast a copy of his recently-penned international best-selling
blockbuster A History of the World in 100 Looted Objects Belonging to the British Museum and to Nobody Else, So There.
"Greece
is teetering on the edge of the abyss," said the frail Scottish saint
as he watched the venerable ancient fragments being man-handled onto the
back of the waiting lorry. Wiping his nose on a dog-eared replica of
the notorious firman that had enabled Thomas Bruce, Seventh Earl of
Elgin to desecrate the Parthenon in the early nineteenth century, Saint
Neil's voice cracked as he delivered a rousing valediction to the
objects that have for so long mired his museum in ignominy and shame.
Falling to his knees, he raised his eyes to heaven and cried out in a reedy Caledonian brogue, "With
these marbles, I beseech ye Oh Lord! Deliver the Greek people from the
economic apocalypse created by the dismal hedge fund managers, financial
speculators and hateful purveyors of Collateral Debt Obligations and
Credit Default Swaps who still cast their dark spell in the Square Mile
and in that other den of vice across the pond."
At that moment
the sky was rent asunder and an enormous shower of hummus, olives,
retsina and overcooked spaghetti bolognaise rained down upon the
assembled throng of weeping curators and cheering news reporters.
"'Tis
a sign! 'Tis a sign"," cried Saint Neil, beating his breast and taking
up a copy of Museums Journal, with which he began self-flagellating.
At
that point the van loaded with cultural booty drove off in the
direction of the Eurotunnel as Saint Neil and his distraught staff
staggered back to the sanctuary of their Universal Museum, swigging
great draughts of Metaxa Triple X to alleviate the post-colonial fever
spreading amongst them like an airborne virus.
Santa Claus is 103.
