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The second part of this blog exploring my post-covid reading comes out on International Museum Day. My recommended books question how the narrative around artifacts, publically displayed or hidden in private collections, needs to be rewritten to reflect the violent colonial looting that enabled the creation of western museums.

Inspired by a burst of post-Covid reading here are three books that have challenged me to consider cultural & religious items plundered during colonial & other conflicts but now gathering dust unseen in Museums & Galleries. The British Museum can only put some one percent of their items on display at any one time. Some artifacts, their loss still mourned by indigenous cultures, are still being sold immorally to wealthy collectors at public auction.

Feel free to call into Keith’s new radio Phone in programme where he has an extensive range of guests who he agrees with. In line with current industry practice this programme is designed to reinforce your prejudices at the expense of anyone else’s prejudices. (Err, I think that’s how it works?)

T S Eliot might have thought April was a cruel month but was he sitting shivering in a pub garden looking into a warm but empty inside at the time?