h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>>All German children must visit a concentration camp as part of their schooling.<<

Are you sure about that, Gno? Mine haven't. (although they have been with me, they haven't been with the school.)

I'll be honest, I've wondered about the criteria laid down by organisations like UNESCO, National Trust, English Heritage etc.

How many old buildings, castles, parks, industrial structures etc. They all cost money to provide upkeep, prevent any variations unless in keeping with the original fabric and locality.

They rarely make allowances for the disabled, citing the above reasons, and are often in totally inaccessible areas.

I'm unsure if there are too many WHS, as the planet is rather large, so there is room for them, except invariably they are confined, pretty much, to the Western World.

Preservation of WHS in areas of conflict do pose a problem. When they've gone, they've gone.

I admit copies can be built to replace the originals, and to someone like me, I'd probably not know the difference. I had always thought Rodin's 'The Kiss' in the V&A was the original, not a copy. Does that make me a Philistine? Probably. Does it stop me enjoying the objects etc? No.

The thing that really annoys me is places owned by the National Trust and English Heritage fill buildings previously occupied by 'Famous' people, or places that are 'Famous', with objects purporting to be those of the person, or place, when in fact they are of the time, and moved around as the preserved place requires.

I'd far rather they put up a sign saying 'This is how Fred Smith's office may have looked at the time he occupied the premises. The desk and blotter are originals, the rest are of the period' It provides honesty and, I find it is thought-provoking. After all much of that that is preserved has been vacant or reused prior to being purchased/taken on by the above.

Just my or two!

As you were. Back to the Armegeddon

MMF

"invariably they are confined, pretty much, to the Western World" [MMF]

I checked out this claim by looking at the map and counting the number of countries that have sites. I grant you that France, Germany, and the U.S. have rather a lot of such sites, while Greenland only has one. On the other hand, the number of sites in China, the world's most populous country as well as a nonwestern one, is pretty good. New Zealand has four sites. Frankly, I don't see any significant land areas that lack them, though I may not have scrutinized the list enough.

This might help. Would be interesting to know the number by continent % area.

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/stat/#s1

And by Nation.

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/stat/#s2

MMF

Thank you. That was most helpful.

Militant Islam has been notable for extremes of iconoclasm since they broke with Byzantium in the 7th century AD.

There's a real risk that a site designated a world heritage site in an Islamic country may be targeted precisely on that account unless it is an Islamic site.

Organisations like the National Trust do tend to base their decisions on what they preserve based on what looks a pretty picture on tea towels and boxes of fudge, rather than what is actually historically significant. For instance, on the Isle of Wight as part of Operation Neptune (a plan in which the National Trust sought to purchase as much of the UK's coastline as they could, they now own a third of the Island's coastline) they ended up owning a large number of the Island's Victorian forts. These are quite historically significant, especially New Needles Battery, which at the time they purchased the site was used as a test site for the UK's space rocket programme. The UK's only rocket site could be considered quite significant, but instead the National Trust bulldozed the lot.

<BB<

"based on what looks a pretty picture on tea towels and boxes of fudge" [Bluebottle]



What, you would want tea towels and fudge boxes to look less than pretty?

The NT will charge you to leave the country if they own all the coast