Dead in the water?

I've moaned before about those, set by chance as custodians of our historic environment, who have no vision. But what happens when the vision is desperately wrong, and at odds with a century or more of best practice?

I was going to hold off from this, but:

Tit of the Week (and probably Tit of the Year) is Dame Simone Thurley, known (behind his back at English Heretics) as Gloriana. Anyone who doesn't understand this opprobrium has presumably not watched the previously media-savvy Thurley wrecking his organisation's reputation by inviting in the same TV crew who gave the National Trust a good kicking a couple of years ago. Exactly what he expected to gain by this four part BBC 2 series is unclear, but those of us "at the coal face" are less than enchanted by last week's episode where "the squint test" was introduced (if you squint at a Grade II* listed building after it's been gutted, it looks the same, so plastic windows, concrete tiles, the sophistication of the original design with varied but controlled infill, etc, no longer matter, according to EH), while this week's performance hints at familial corruption (we never imagined he even had a wife, though she made Lady Macbeth look like the kitten cuddling type - which in itself speaks volumes) which would make the Dear Leader Gordon blush.

No doubt Simone would say something about the recipe for omelettes requiring broken eggs. But note that English Heritage's impoverished relative, CADW, in Wales, for all its own failings dictated by circumstance, has at least managed a few notable conservation successes (not least in presenting its own properties), without them being tied to the "personality" of its own Chief Executive. Can anyone name him? I thought not.

Simon Thurley is an architectural historian of modest ability, who in normal life might be expected to make a living at a minor university (like the one I attended, except that my tutors had open eyes and minds, and encouraged the same in their students - even me). But his slight media talents (as a young Dan Cruickshank-in-waiting) have propelled him beyond his abilities. And now he has allowed that deficiency to be broadcast to the world.

If anyone fancies a (hollow) laugh:

http://www.simonthurley.com/

Thou art weighed in the balance, and found wanting.

I haven’t actually been away, but I have been terribly busy with all manner of other things – and this post is just a thank you to the Society of Antiquaries (no less) for noticing...

http://www.sal.org.uk/salon/#section13

“Of course, if English Heritage staff want to know more about life at the coal face of conservation area work, they could do worse than read the ‘Confessions of a Conservation Officer’ blog. This blogger’s trenchant reflections on the life of a Conservation Officer at a small English local council have been flowing through at weekly intervals since the beginning of 2009 and have gathered a loyal readership for their poignancy. But the blog has dried up recently — perhaps because doing the day job and writing a blog is proving too much; but if the anonymous blogger happens to be reading this, please do keep up the good work!

Also anonymous are the occasional contributions sent to Current Archaeology magazine by Amicus Curiae, in which our ‘Friend of the Court’ seeks to explain the terms and concepts that govern modern archaeology. In the May 2009 issue of the magazine, s/he finds black humour in the definition of conservation as ‘the process of managing change’ (William Morris, you should be with us now) as stated in the IfA’s ‘Standard and Guidance for Stewardship of the Historic Environment’, and in the five key rules that curatorial archaeologists live by, of which Rule No 5 states: ‘all archaeological activity must be governed by a paper chase’. Amicus may be anonymous but s/he quite clearly writes from bitter experience.”