Libertarian Librarian

We've all had bad days. We've all tripped or stumbled or fumbled and broken something important or rare or of tremendous sentimental value. Next time you do that, just remember it could be worse. You could be this guy:

A clumsy visitor to a Cambridge museum has destroyed a set of priceless 300-year-old Chinese vases after tripping up on his shoelace, the Daily Telegraph reported Monday.

The three Qing vases, dating from the late 17th or early 18th century, had stood on a windowsill at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, southeast England, for at least 40 years.

Which, naturally, takes me back to one of the Pink Panther movies in which Peter Sellers, for reasons I forget, has a metal glove on his hand with which he pulverizes a vase on a pedastal. The shocked owner (curator?) gasps, "That was a priceless Ming Vase!" to which Sellers replies, in his over-the-top French accent, "Not any more."

And if you're having a bad day at work, remember that it could be worse. You could be one of the museum workers charged with reassembling the vases:

"They are in very, very small pieces but we are determined to put them back together," said the museum's assistant director Margaret Greeves.

Heh. And you thought those 3-D foam puzzles were challenging.

And as a side note, as much as I like Steve Martin and Kevin Kline, why did they sign on for this? The trailers look dreadfully unfunny-- and the last attempt to resurrect this series didn't exactly blow the doors off the box office, bringing in a "whopping" $2.5 million.

I mean, when one of your big selling points is that a film is from the director of Cheaper By the Dozen (Shawn Levy-- anyone? No?) you might want to rethink the whole project.

Labels: Entertainment, Miscellaneous