As a taxpayer and parent I wish to complain. Why aren't there government check lists for cultural experiences?
Like verifying death, there must be vital signs of culture to check for. After a weekend in Yorkshire I need a mirror to tell whether it is hazed by culture's breath, or whether we were just having fun.
Museums don't seem to come into the cultural calculation at all, but that's OK since on our visit to Yorkshire we barely crossed the threshold of one. The Yorkshire Museum charges.
If it had been free we would certainly have spent our spare 20 minutes there; as it was we looked wistfully past the barrier into the first gallery, bought some postcards and trudged on.
The Saxon Stones of Barwick-in-Elmet may be art, since they're old, and quite hard to understand. They are also jolly hard to access, being in an ancient church where we had to move a heavy oak lectern and the Mother's Union banner to get at them - which all seemed encouraging.
But our guide said the wriggly creature on the stones has been interpreted as a pre-lapsarian serpent in Eden - before losing its legs as punishment for hanging out in the 'hood chatting up girls - so it may just have been religious studies, which is not proper culture after all.
The status of archaeology as culture also seems dodgy, but the Viking battle in the frosty darkness must have been, since it cost money and there was an almighty cock-up at the box office, usually sure signs.
It was full of drama, as when several dead Vikings fell with visible reluctance onto the frozen ground and a rather weedy Saxon's helmet dropped over his eyes so he charged blindly onto a Viking spear.
Anyway, if anyone can say definitively whether all this counted as engaging with culture, I'd be most grateful. I calculate we packed in 20 hours of something into 40 hours, so either Samuel is so much in credit he can lay on the living room floor with his Gameboy until Easter, or so much in deficit that I should drop him off at the South Bank and collect him sometime in May. I really need to know.
Like verifying death, there must be vital signs of culture to check for. After a weekend in Yorkshire I need a mirror to tell whether it is hazed by culture's breath, or whether we were just having fun.
Museums don't seem to come into the cultural calculation at all, but that's OK since on our visit to Yorkshire we barely crossed the threshold of one. The Yorkshire Museum charges.
If it had been free we would certainly have spent our spare 20 minutes there; as it was we looked wistfully past the barrier into the first gallery, bought some postcards and trudged on.
The Saxon Stones of Barwick-in-Elmet may be art, since they're old, and quite hard to understand. They are also jolly hard to access, being in an ancient church where we had to move a heavy oak lectern and the Mother's Union banner to get at them - which all seemed encouraging.
But our guide said the wriggly creature on the stones has been interpreted as a pre-lapsarian serpent in Eden - before losing its legs as punishment for hanging out in the 'hood chatting up girls - so it may just have been religious studies, which is not proper culture after all.
The status of archaeology as culture also seems dodgy, but the Viking battle in the frosty darkness must have been, since it cost money and there was an almighty cock-up at the box office, usually sure signs.
It was full of drama, as when several dead Vikings fell with visible reluctance onto the frozen ground and a rather weedy Saxon's helmet dropped over his eyes so he charged blindly onto a Viking spear.
Anyway, if anyone can say definitively whether all this counted as engaging with culture, I'd be most grateful. I calculate we packed in 20 hours of something into 40 hours, so either Samuel is so much in credit he can lay on the living room floor with his Gameboy until Easter, or so much in deficit that I should drop him off at the South Bank and collect him sometime in May. I really need to know.
