By Carla Kelly 

If I were asked to describe the neatest thing I saw in London, I think it would be the British Museum. It’s old, it’s huge, it contains basically everything in the world.
Everything except garbage cans – or bins, as the British say. It’s hard to find garbage cans anywhere in London. This lack of places to park trash may date back to the time when the Irish Republican Army took a shine to blowing up prominent places and people. Garbage cans are handy places to park incendiary devices of one kind or other, so most public bins have been removed. I didn’t see huge mounds of trash, so maybe the British do what we did - haul it around until you’re back in your home or hotel.
I realize there are lots of great museums in the world. I’ve been to some of the biggies in the United States, but as far as I can tell, nothing tops the British Museum. You enter the Great Court, walk to just about the nearest exhibition room, and you’re staring at the Rosetta Stone. I mean, there it is. That’s hard to top. I’m no sophisticate - I had trouble wrapping my mind around the reality that I was actually looking at THE Rosetta Stone.
When the crowds get too big around that hunk of history, you walk a little farther and bingo! there are the Elgin Marbles. These are major portions of statuary and friezes taken from the Parthenon by British diplomat Lord Elgin – he said he paid the Ottoman rulers in Athens for them – and brought to England. In 1816, they came to the British Museum, and have remained there ever since.
Controversy swirls around those beautiful objects. Greece insists (and has insisted for years) they should be returned to Athens. Citing their excellent odds for continued preservation and safety in the British Museum, England wants to keep them. Other museums in other countries have bits and pieces of the Parthenon marbles, and some – not all - have repatriated them to Greece. Recent polls indicate that a majority of Brits would like to send the Elgin Marbles home to Athens, too.
I think they should stay where they are, even if the legality is a bit murky. Well, a lot murky. The Greeks might take good care of them, but there are way too many nuts jumping up and down and throwing tantrums in too many parts of the world right now. Just leave the priceless marbles alone, and rethink it some day when we’re not taking off our shoes and removing body parts to get through airport screenings, or feeling downright discouraged when Taliban types blow up irreplaceable works of art in Afghanistan.
Maybe an even greater “museum” experience in London is a visit to Speakers’ Corner at Hyde Park on a typical Sunday. Speakers’ Corner is a living museum to free speech.
We showed up around 10 a.m., and the speakers were already in full voice. Anyone can join in. All you need is a box to stand on, or a step stool, and guts. You get on your soapbox and start talking. Pick a subject, any subject. One African-American with Muslim leanings had quite a crowd gathered around as he spoke at length on the superiority and ultimate domination of Islam. Most people listened respectfully. Some had questions, and others exchanged views.
Another speaker extolled – ahem – at length the virtues of that portion of anatomy that men have and women don’t. A woman not far from him stood on a stepladder and declared us all evil sinners living in a vile world. I almost – but not quite – got up the nerve to ask her, “So what’s your point?”
Maybe that’s the point: She could say what she wanted, and her listeners were free to contradict, rebut or agree. I didn’t see any London Bobbies ready to pounce or issue tickets. This was free speech at its finest, and also at its most bizarre.
In another corner was a man standing on a box and singing in Hebrew. Just a few feet from him were missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, talking about the Book of Mormon. That’s my church.  I went up to them and wished them success.
I wish everyone success at Speakers’ Corner. It’s a little slice of living, breathing democracy in London. Say what you want there; it’s your privilege and your right.