Ping John Ashby: m001zlz0

[Nick Odell]

I seem to have arrived back home slap bang in the middle of this.

Does PoI appear?

Nick

[john ashby]

Post by Nick Odell
I seem to have arrived back home slap bang in the middle of this.
Does PoI appear?
Nick

(Un)fortunately not (without looking it up I'm assuming you're referring
to the radio version, It is, of course, available on Sounds so you
haven't necessarily missed anything). The television version shows the
top and back of er head for two 5 second clips but she is shy and
retirng while her colleagues are more eager for exposure (and in
Aurelia's case possibly more worthy of it as having done the initial
audit that revealed the extent of the problem),

Spoilers ahead.

By the end it becomes clear that Katie Razell has an agenda of "we (the
BBC and Ittai Gradel) are so much cleverer than the museum staff and
even the police" based on being able to track people down. It;s typified
by the sneering comment that to catalogue the collection all you need is
a point and shoot camera. Having photographed some gems for PoI it
actually requires a special rig and careful lighting, but that's just
the oicture. You then need the knowledge to identify the stone and the
iconography, plus the stylistic information which might date the item.

In any case tracking down people by taking Ittai's records of sales and
following he trail is what journalists are good at. The police should be
but probably have a lot of protocols to go through in all the separate
jurisdictions plus as soon as a dealer hears they might have been
handling stolen goods they are going to clam up to the police while a
journalist can promise to protect their source. And it's a small part of
the process.

What the museum staff are good at (including the identification
mentioned above) and what PoI is working on is establishing which gems
were at one time in the British Museum. For example, for each of the 260
odd gems that came back from Washington old catalogues have to be
trawled through to see if they can be matched to casts, line drawings or
textual descriptions.

The middle bit is to then establish how they got from the museum to
sultan1966 which should be where the police have expertise.

Sorry, this has been a bit of an infodump.

john

[Nick Odell]

Post by john ashby

Post by Nick Odell
I seem to have arrived back home slap bang in the middle of this.
Does PoI appear?
Nick

(Un)fortunately not (without looking it up I'm assuming you're referring
to the radio version, It is, of course, available on Sounds so you
haven't necessarily missed anything). The television version shows the
top and back of er head for two 5 second clips but she is shy and
retirng while her colleagues are more eager for exposure (and in
Aurelia's case possibly more worthy of it as having done the initial
audit that revealed the extent of the problem),
Spoilers ahead.
By the end it becomes clear that Katie Razell has an agenda of "we (the
BBC and Ittai Gradel) are so much cleverer than the museum staff and
even the police" based on being able to track people down. It;s typified
by the sneering comment that to catalogue the collection all you need is
a point and shoot camera. Having photographed some gems for PoI it
actually requires a special rig and careful lighting, but that's just
the oicture. You then need the knowledge to identify the stone and the
iconography, plus the stylistic information which might date the item.
In any case tracking down people by taking Ittai's records of sales and
following he trail is what journalists are good at. The police should be
but probably have a lot of protocols to go through in all the separate
jurisdictions plus as soon as a dealer hears they might have been
handling stolen goods they are going to clam up to the police while a
journalist can promise to protect their source. And it's a small part of
the process.
What the museum staff are good at (including the identification
mentioned above) and what PoI is working on is establishing which gems
were at one time in the British Museum. For example, for each of the 260
odd gems that came back from Washington old catalogues have to be
trawled through to see if they can be matched to casts, line drawings or
textual descriptions.
The middle bit is to then establish how they got from the museum to
sultan1966 which should be where the police have expertise.
Sorry, this has been a bit of an infodump.

Thanks for that. I didn't know that it had been on TV. Your Sparkly
Underwear thread in February was about the Daily Mail, was it not? I
had been wondering if this were the same podcaster who did the
fearless exposé on the origins of Mad Cow Disease claiming that nobody
knew how it had happened. That one reminded me of the first episode of
Cabin Pressure where Arthur keeps going around to everybody, so
excited because a great piece of metal with engines and wings can
actually fly and nobody understands why. (A quick check determined:
no, that BSE one was by Lucy Proctor.)

Isn't it funny: the BBC seems to have one department dedicated to
squashing conspiracy theories and debunking fake news and another
which churns out "Podcasts" promoting both and which embrace the
spirit of "truthiness."

Nick

[john ashby]

Post by Nick Odell

Post by john ashby

Post by Nick Odell
I seem to have arrived back home slap bang in the middle of this.
Does PoI appear?
Nick

(Un)fortunately not (without looking it up I'm assuming you're referring
to the radio version, It is, of course, available on Sounds so you
haven't necessarily missed anything). The television version shows the
top and back of er head for two 5 second clips but she is shy and
retirng while her colleagues are more eager for exposure (and in
Aurelia's case possibly more worthy of it as having done the initial
audit that revealed the extent of the problem),
Spoilers ahead.
By the end it becomes clear that Katie Razell has an agenda of "we (the
BBC and Ittai Gradel) are so much cleverer than the museum staff and
even the police" based on being able to track people down. It;s typified
by the sneering comment that to catalogue the collection all you need is
a point and shoot camera. Having photographed some gems for PoI it
actually requires a special rig and careful lighting, but that's just
the oicture. You then need the knowledge to identify the stone and the
iconography, plus the stylistic information which might date the item.
In any case tracking down people by taking Ittai's records of sales and
following he trail is what journalists are good at. The police should be
but probably have a lot of protocols to go through in all the separate
jurisdictions plus as soon as a dealer hears they might have been
handling stolen goods they are going to clam up to the police while a
journalist can promise to protect their source. And it's a small part of
the process.
What the museum staff are good at (including the identification
mentioned above) and what PoI is working on is establishing which gems
were at one time in the British Museum. For example, for each of the 260
odd gems that came back from Washington old catalogues have to be
trawled through to see if they can be matched to casts, line drawings or
textual descriptions.
The middle bit is to then establish how they got from the museum to
sultan1966 which should be where the police have expertise.
Sorry, this has been a bit of an infodump.

Thanks for that. I didn't know that it had been on TV.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001zrbs/scams-scandals-thief-at-the-british-museum

john