30 Thursday January 13 2022 | the times
Letters to the Editor
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1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GFSir, Richard Morrison comments well
on the latest call from Athens to have
the Elgin marbles returned (analysis,
Jan 11). Elgin’s acquisition of these was
no act of “looting” but arguably an
attempt at ensuring their future
preservation. The Ottoman rulers of
Athens had no natural inclination to
respect Greek buildings since their
countrymen’s disastrous use of the
temple as an ammunition store in the
previous century. One wonders what
state the Great Altar of Zeus would be
in today on its hill above modern
Bergama, had it not been transported
to Berlin by German archaeologists
long before Turkey realised the
financial benefits from tourism of
maintaining classical sites. The loan
of the Palermo fragment to the new
Athens museum reflects Sicily’s
awareness of its Greek roots and
needs to be seen in that context.
John Davie
Former lecturer in Classics at Oxford
University; Thurlestone, DevonSir, The issue about the Parthenon
frieze is moral and aesthetic and is
clouded by legal arguments over
ownership, as Professor Paul
Cartledge points out (letter, Jan 12).
The key question is where they aredisplayed to their best advantage:
separated from their provenance and
from other fragments that physically
join them, displayed inside-out and in
the dull London light, or in view of
the Parthenon, reconnected with
adjoining fragments, displayed the
right way round, and bathed in
Mediterranean light?
To me there is no choice.
Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill
Faculty of Classics, University of
CambridgeSir, The case for returning the Elgin
Marbles is stronger than you suggest:
Elgin paid bribes to obtain the
sculptures, which is evidenced by his
accounts submitted to a select
committee; the government paid all
expenses to obtain the sculptures and
took a mortgage over them dated
December 4, 1815; and parliament
granted £35,000 to the British
Museum to buy the sculptures from
Elgin. The government, as mortgagee,
recouped the grant and Elgin was
given a monetary reward. As Elgin
never had title to the marbles, neither
can the museum.
OM Lewis
Author, The Mortgage on the Elgin
Marbles; Richmond, SurreySir, James Kirkup is spot on when he
says that very little will change after
the pandemic, especially regarding
NHS funding, because that falls in the
“too difficult” box (“The post-Covid
revolution has been cancelled, Jan 11).
It was clear to many of us years ago
that the policy of closing hospital
beds and not expanding the number
of doctors and nurses would lead to
this present situation. Already
“critical incident” reporting across the
NHS is increasing, but this happens
almost very year through winter
pressures and is not confined to
Covid alone. What is required is a
significant increase in spending on
the NHS and social care. This can
only be achieved through a structural
change in funding that involves
insurance systems and does not rely
solely on tax revenues. This is the
situation across most of Europe,
where the number of beds and
hospital staff is much higher. Until
politicians are braver and the public
more pragmatic in their approach to
this issue, things will not change.
Dr Richard Morey
Ret’d GP, Hythe, KentTruth about the
Dream Big myth
Sir, The story of Elizabeth Holmes,
the US entrepreneur with “Dream
Big” ambitions who has recently been
convicted of criminal fraud, is
unfashionable yet important (“The
Dream Big myth sells us dangerous
lies”, Clare Foges, Jan 10; letter, Jan
11). It is unfashionable because it
highlights the dangers in believing
there is nothing that can’t be achieved
by hard work — even when these
dreams are achieved by highly
questionable means. Its importance is
that this ethos permeates business
practice and regulation, with failure
—– bankruptcy — being portrayed as
something to be overcome by hard
work and by learning. Yet, for every
Walt Disney, who failed but went on
to achieve greatness, there are
notable recidivists such as Dominic
Chappell. Despite the reliable science
showing that former bankrupts are
more likely to be recidivists than
learners, legislators in many countries
have made it easier in recent years for
former bankrupts to return to
business ownership. My forecast is
that Elizabeth Holmes will be back in
business within a decade.
David Storey
Emeritus professor, University of
Sussex Business School; EastbourneUtterly spifflicated
Sir, As Carol Midgley observes
(Notebook, Jan 8), Billy Connolly’s
word for drunk is “trousered”, but
surely the most descriptive term for
someone who is inebriated is one
from Barbados: “cat-spraddled”,
meaning that the legs and arms are
splayed out like a cat, in different
directions, so that the person cannot
stand or walk properly.
Richard Meere
Longdon, StaffsWalking the walk
Sir, Further to Matthew Parris’s
comment about identifying his
partner’s gait from the air (Notebook,
Jan 12), I was once at an outdoor
event and went up to a friend of my
mother’s who I hadn’t seen for more
than 20 years. Before I could open
my mouth and introduce myself, she
said: “I know exactly who you are.
You walk in exactly the same way as
your mother.”
Lucinda Fleming
Farnham, SurreyCorrections and
clarifications
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Street, London SE1 9GF
Freedom to protest
Sir, This week and next the House of
Lords is voting on the government’s
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts
Bill. According to Liberty, the bill will
give police the choice on where, when
and how people can protest; create
new stop and search powers that will
exacerbate discriminatory over-
policing of communities of colour;
and potentially criminalise the way of
life of nomadic Gypsy, Roma and
Traveller communities.
Protest, from the suffragettes and
Black Lives Matter to the movement
for LGBTQ+ rights and the School
Strike for Climate, has long been vital
to the preservation of democratic
society and for securing our civil
liberties. As writers and publishers we
believe the right to protest goes hand
in hand with the right to freedom of
expression and a free press. If we lose
one, we lose them all. These measures
form an attack on our fundamental
rights and will have the most
detrimental impact on marginalised
communities, silencing the very
voices we believe should be
championed. We support those
groups and organisations fighting to
oppose this bill and urge members of
the House of Lords to stand up for
democracy by voting against this bill.
Bernardine Evaristo; Robert
Macfarlane; Armando Iannucci;
Alan Hollinghurst; Candice Carty-
Williams; Pat Barker; Jackie Kay;
Tracy Chevalier; Malorie Blackman;
Sarah Waters; Susie Orbach
Plus a further 310 signatories at the
times.co.uk/letters
Right to offend
Sir, Peter Frost correctly identifies the
difficulty of navigating precious
freedoms, and the delicacy of
balancing competing rights and
opposing protected characteristics
(letter, Jan 10). But it is not to courts
and tribunals that he should look for
authoritative guidance: their function
is to resolve particular cases brought
by individual litigants, which
inevitably will have binary outcomes.
Any general remarks in first-instance
judgments will be of limited utility. It
is time for the Equality and Human
Rights Commission to provide
statutory guidance, as it is empowered
and mandated to do under the
provisions of the Equality Act 2006.
Professor Mark Hill QC
Francis Taylor Building, Temple
The case for returning the Elgin Marbles
Sir, For years one of the reasons put
forward for not returning the Elgin
Marbles was because the Greeks had
nowhere suitable to display them
(leading article, Jan 12; news, Jan 11)
In 2009, however, one of the most
beautiful new museums in Europe
opened beneath the Acropolis, as
your editorial mentions. Designed by
the Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi,
its top floor has a breathtaking view
of the Parthenon through a curtain
wall of glass. The original sculptures,
facing outwards, are shown here in an
imaginative recreation. The missing
pieces in the British Museum and the
Louvre are represented by plaster
casts, but they are dead, absorbing
rather than reflecting the Attic light
that brings the marble originals to life.
At the British Museum, the
sculptures are shown facing the
wrong direction: into the space rather
than outwards. The dreary London
light, seeping through a grubby glass
roof, does nothing for the Pentelic
marble in which the sculptures are
carved. The Italians have made a
generous gesture. It is time for the
trustees of the BM to do the same.
Richard Calvocoressi
Director, the Henry Moore
Foundation 2007-15; CambridgePandemic amnesia
from the times january 13, 1922THE
INFLUENZA
EPIDEMIC
Garden work party
Sir, The PM, in apologising for the
garden party at No 10, said he thought
it was a “work event” and he only
stayed for 25 minutes. He failed to say
what the work was, why he only stayed
for 25 minutes and what work carried
on after he left. He also omitted to
explain what role his fiancée played, as
from the photos Carrie Symonds was
clearly present, yet she was not a
member of the government, a civil
servant or a special adviser. The
evidence clearly points towards it
being a party, as the email invitation
indicates with its mention of “bring
your own booze”. A BYOB invitation in
working hours is a culture alien to me
in my nearly 20 years in Whitehall.
Mike Evans
GuildfordSir, Your editorial (“Party Politics”, Jan
12) is prescient. It identifies the only
option for Boris Johnson as showing
contrition for Downing Street parties
and his instinct to engage in casuistry.
Claiming that he thought that he was
attending a work event exemplifies his
casuistry, in which opportunistically
selected principles are deliberatelymisused to justify morally
questionable behaviour. Daniel
Finkelstein (comment, Jan 12) aptly
says that no explanation involving not
telling the truth will work.
Professor Ian Kunkler
EdinburghSir, Continuing Daniel Finkelstein’s
“Watergate scenario”, where are the
Tory equivalents of Senator Barry
Goldwater (Republican), House
Republican Leader John Jacob Rhodes
and Senate Republican Leader Hugh
Scott who went to see President Nixon
to tell him that it was time for him to?
Bharat Jashanmal
Bodrum, TurkeySir, In May 2020 my husband was
incarcerated in a care home. He was
denied access to his family and the
closest any of us were able to get to
him was through a Perspex screen in
the garden. We had to wear full PPE
and sit at a distance. Our short visit
was policed by a member of staff.
After the visit, we were hurried away
from the home at speed.
There are garden parties, and there
are garden parties.
Anne Cowan
Ely, Cambsthetimes.co.uk/archiveLand guardians
Sir, It was good to read Alice
Thomson’s views on the future of
farming and wilding (“Farmers are
the key to saving the countryside”,
comment, Jan 12). Too many people
still have a “silo” mentality to solving
problems, such as rewilding, planting
trees, becoming vegetarian etc. When
natural resources are scarce there is
no option but to co-ordinate planning
and negotiate the trade-offs to avoid
conflict. It is a reminder of what the
2030 UN development agenda and
the sustainable development goals are
seeking to achieve. These are just as
relevant to the UK as to the
developing countries, yet I do not
hear much talk about them here.
Working together may sound like a
cosy old record but it is still the only
sensible game in town. Does anyone
know of a better way of surviving?
Melvyn Kay
Consultant to the UN Food and
Agriculture Organisation; Rushden,
NorthantsLetters to The Times must be exclusive
and may be edited. Please include a full
address and daytime telephone number.
Once more this country is in the grip
of an epidemic of influenza. During
the past five or six weeks the number
of cases has steadily risen both in
London and in Northern cities, and
the most recent figures of deaths
show, for the week which ended last
Saturday, a substantial increase.
Nevertheless, the epidemic so far has
been of a comparatively mild
character. It has, too, presented
features peculiar to itself. In 1918-19,
the period of the “Great Epidemic”,
pneumonia and lung complications
were exceedingly prevalent; but now
we are experiencing what has beendescribed as a gastric type of the
malady. The visitation raises again
questions which were so anxiously
propounded three years ago. In what
manner does an epidemic of this
kind arise? How is it propagated? We
are still to a great extent in the dark
on both these points. Indeed it has
recently been suggested that we do
not “catch” influenza at all, but that
certain climatic or other conditions
favour the multiplication of micro-
organisms normally present in the
human air passages. In other words,
when the circumstances are suitable,
the seed, already planted, begins to
grow. It would be foolish to pretend
to any opinion on a subject which is
almost entirely speculative; yet the
theory we have quoted may serve to
show how complicated and difficult
are the issues involved. In the case of
the “Great Epidemic” every effort at
explanation failed, for the disease
was rife in hot and also in cold
countries, in war-ridden areas and inareas remote from war, among well-
fed and ill-fed populations. There
seemed to be no circumstance,
whether of locality or of climate,
which could be successfully indicted.
This should be borne in mind just
now, when facile explanations are
being offered on all hands. We have
a long way to travel before we can
hope to reach conclusions of any
practical value. Meanwhile the best
advice for individuals is to carry on
their work so long as they are well
and not meet trouble halfway by
brooding on the possibility of attack.
If they feel ill, they should go to bed
at once, for their own and their
neighbours’ sake. There are no
“cures” for influenza; but careful and
experienced handling diminishes the
chances of complication; and it is the
complications, rather than the
original attack, which are dangerous.