Day 64-65. Keeping on the fringe of politics

Typical student day, saving money after yesterday's shenanigans: checked out the Parliament square (no protestors), wandered round some of the lesser tourist sights and snacked on rather good street food. 

While visiting Filopapou Hill, opposite the Acropolis, I encountered a fairly wild old guy who seemed to be taking a young person, possibly a relative, on the tour. However this seemed to involve a lot of shouting and generally being unpleasant - especially in his disparaging references to the fucking English who he wanted shot for what they'd done to the Greeks. I think he was talking mainly about the Elgin Marbles but, being English myself, didn't want to press him too closely on that one.

However it set me thinking. Next morning, I was the very first visitor to the Acropolis, and enjoyed wandering around the site which is impressive, if a bit chaotic, with thousands of fragments of carved stone and marble generally lying around all over the hillside. "Why are we not returning the Elgin marbles?" I thought to myself. 'They are doing lots of good conservation and restoration work and surely the least we can do is give back the originals."

Fortunately I kept my naive thoughts to myself until I had a chance to check out some of the arguments on Wikipedia (here), where it emerged that the Greeks want the originals back partly for symbolic reasons and partly so they can put them into their paid-entry Acropolis Museum, not back on to the original building. The British Museum puts up a fair case a. for the marbles having been legally acquired (ie not stolen) in the first place and b. for their remaining in a secure, managed environment where access is free.

Like the case of the recently released Croatian generals, I'm staying out of the political discussion but it's interesting to hear the local point of view.