CATWOMAN: WHERE WAS KUCHING?

While it is always a pleasure to see Joanna Lumley, Catwoman which she recently presented on ITV was flawed. In the sense of significant omissions.

Joanna played with the ubiquitous cats in Cairo`s Khan el-Kalili Bazaar, but little real emphasis was placed on their status in Pharaonic society when on death, they were afforded the same mummification as humans. In 1888, an Egyptian farmer, near the town of Bani Hasan in Upper Egypt, uncovered a tomb containing around 80,000 cat mummies, from 1000-2000 BC

But the most surprising place left out of her tour of the feline world, was Kuching, capital of the east Malaysian state of Sarawak, home to the world`s only museum entirely devoted to Felis catus among whose 2000 exhibits is a mummified cat from Bani Hassan, on loan from the British Museum.

Cat-lovers have presented most of the 2000 museum artefacts on display out of pure love. There are cat clocks, umbrellas, mugs, brooches, plates, cups, key-rings, teapots, door knockers, aprons earrings and t-shirts. All either shaped like a cat, or depicting a picture of one. From a moggie to a Maine Coon.

A gallery of cat-people includes Charles Dickens, whose cat Wilhemia used to sit on his desk and paw at his snuff; Florence Nightingale who owned some 60 cats, and is said to have never travelled without one, and Queen Victoria, who kept a cat named White Heather at Buckingham Palace.

Anne Frank`s attic ordeal is claimed to have been made more endurable by the presence of her two beloved cats who evidently survived on mice. While Colette, the bi-sexual French novelist, maintained `our perfect companion would never have fewer than four feet.` ie. her dainty little golden-eyed Chartreux named Saha, immortalized in her novella The Cat.

c.Christine Osborne

Image: Cat statue in Kuching Sarawak

Image: Cat in Muttrah souq Oman

Source: www.copix.co.uk

TOURISTS RULE!

Last week I went to the British Museum to have some coins from the lovely Swat Valley, in north-west Pakistan, identified by numismatic experts।

I knew they were old, but not from the 4th century AD! Coins from the Kushan Empire: King Vasishka in front of a fire altar on one side and Shiva with Nandi, the bull-god on the reverse.

I was delighted by this news, but walking through the museum, I was appalled by visitor behaviour. Thousands of tourists hogged every showcase, blocking the view for everyone else, including many British pensioners on a cultural outing.

I waited for an American family to provide space for me to view artefacts from the royal tombs in Ur. But would they budge? Not likely! The woman planted herself in front and there she remained. When she did move, she glared as if to say, it`s my right. I`m here from Des Moines!

The behaviour was equally bad in the Etruscan Room and the crowd gathered around the Elgin Marbles was impenetrable. A tour-guide was lecturing her group of Italian tourists - bugger everyone else!

It was the same in the Egyptian Galleries. And to make things worse, everyone was wearing a backpack so they were taking up the space of two!

Does anyone hate backpacks as much as I do?

There is no admission charge to the British Museum. The Coins Department is open weekdays for a coin identification service 10.00-13.00 and 14.15-16.00 except Wednesday mornings.

c.Christine Osborne

Images: www.copix.co.uk