THE MUSEUM OF OBLIVION

SATSUMA          Novelty Pens

 

 A DIARY    The Kings Broadcast

Welcome to OH The Museum of Oblivion here you will find a mixture of the disappearing,   the abandoned and the long lost.  Hopefully some material will entertain you while other items might perhaps provoke a moment's reverie.  Of course you might think it's just old rubbish ... you might be right...you might be wrong.

When food wasn't quite so fast and shops weren't quite so last minute certain types of oranges (possibly even lemons) used to get special treatment and be hand wrapped in decorative tissue papers before being placed in cute little wooden packing crates.  In the UK an added thrill was that these pampered kings of fruit coincided with the festive season of Christmas.  Sadly such fruits are now ignominiously dumped in plastic trays and plastic net bags.  The decorative tissues seem to have disappeared, perhaps they have gone forever.  To give just a taste of them fifteen wrappers are on show in the SATSUMA exhibition.

SATSUMA

THE FORGOTTEN WRAPPERS

Novelty Pens

FOR LAUGHS ONLY      

From time to time there is a desperate need on the part of any shopper to buy useless but entertaining bits of plastic.  From time to time this need coincides with a manufacturer's inspiration that the public is ready.  This is never more visible than in the production of freakish pens which rarely if ever work but are marked by their ridiculous, sometimes sublime, forms.  In Novelty Pens a particular species...the pen as another object, animal, vegetable or implement...is portrayed.  Now, as at the time of purchase, they are for laughs only.

OHTop

This charming record surfaced quite unexpectedly, via a deceased Great Aunt, who, in turn, had found it (no doubt some eighty or so years ago) in a second hand bookshop. It was edited and privately published by the Dean of Westminster in 1861 and given as a gift to the then Archbishop of Dublin. 

It is the private journal of the Dean's mother whose maiden name was Chevenix but whose Christian name does not appear in the text.  It is the story of a perceptive, vivacious and adventurous young woman's journey to Germany in 1799.  If this text and author are not already known to literature and history then they deserve to become so, so please recommend it to your friends.

A DIARY

1799

v

At the close of this memorable day .....

Are the realities of empire always swiftly buried?  Certainly the British Empire seems to have become either a post colonial embarrassment, a joke, a crank's dream or isn't even thought of anymore.  The reality of what it must have been defies imagination, those still alive who remember are fast disappearing.  Perhaps it is in the desire to forget empires that the seeds of their mythologies are set.

The Kings Broadcast Message is an insert taken from The Queen: The Lady's Newspaper a Jubilee issue 8th May 1935.  Shown are a close-up of the text and the montage of empire. Whatever your views it remains an interesting document.

...& The Hushed Empire

...& The Kings Broadcast Message