Foreign Office's antique anaconda cost £10,000 to re-stuff

Originally Posted by Maggy J

£10,£10,000,£100,0000 or ten million..it's still waste surely?

I'm not even playing party politics here folks.I truly think it's a waste of public money and my inner soul cringes.

No, £10, £10,000 or £10,000,000, it's only a waste if value is destroyed rather than created or maintained.

I don't suppose anyone has come across an estimate of what Albert is worth have they?

[danielf]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

What the hell does a stuffed snake have to do with art?

Surely, I don't have to explain that the fact that some things don't have an immediate practical purpose (such as Art) doesn't necessarily mean they're not worth pursuing?

I would have gladly donated 10 grand if it was Hague getting stuffed

[Osem]

I heard that when he was in power John Prescott spent £££'s getting himself stuffed.

Originally Posted by danielf

Surely, I don't have to explain that the fact that some things don't have an immediate practical purpose (such as Art) doesn't necessarily mean they're not worth pursuing?

Sorry I should have remembered Hirst's shark..But even then I did ask what a shark in formaldehyde had to do with art.

So what does a stuffed snake have to do with art?

[Osem]

Parliament and the Ciivil Service is full of stuffed artefacts and we should support them.

Originally Posted by Osem

Parliament and the Ciivil Service is full of stuffed artefacts and we should support them.

Whatever their political persuasion?

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

Whatever their political persuasion?

O' course. They're all true gentlemen and fine ole folke doing their best to drag us mere mortals out o' the gutter....

Frankly I wish they'd all forget the colour of their badges and work together to get us out of the mess New Labour got us into.

[danielf]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

Sorry I should have remembered Hirst's shark..But even then I did ask what a shark in formaldehyde had to do with art.

So what does a stuffed snake have to do with art?

I'm not sure if you're deliberately or genuinely obtuse.

Many people will question the purpose of art, and whether we should spend public money on it. Many people will question the purpose of re-stuffing a Victorian era Anaconda. Neither serves a practical purpose. Some things are worth keeping just for quirkiness. They might be considered art in future. If an art teacher thinks quirky things aren't worth investing in, then I have little hope for the future of art.

Somethings are worth the money for their culture or their history. The world and life would be a very sad and boring place otherwise. Everything doesn't have to have an immediate financial payoff to be worth of our money and time. The Olympics were a great example of this.

[nomadking]

It sounds like they may have been legally obliged to restore it. Did they know what the full cost was going to be, before going ahead? They might have assumed that the cost would have been low as it's not exactly a complicated shape or pose.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by Chris

Not if failing to spend £10k on preserving an antique asset results in that asset's value plummeting or vanishing entirely.

Or they could've sent it somewhere other than the natural history museum who'd have done it cheaper, I find it amusing to that billy hague and his cronies share a building with a snake, bet it fits right in...

Originally Posted by Chris

No, £10, £10,000 or £10,000,000, it's only a waste if value is destroyed rather than created or maintained.

I don't suppose anyone has come across an estimate of what Albert is worth have they?

http://www.preloved.co.uk/adverts/sh...l-pythons.html

http://compare.ebay.co.uk/like/29074...var=sbar&cbt=y

Alive one costs £200

http://www.preloved.co.uk/adverts/sh...ll-python.html

A live pregnant anaconda will cost over $2299.

http://www.backwaterreptiles.com/sna...-for-sale.html

But a dead antique stuffed snake in Google just leads me back to this news tale which appears to have spread across the world overnight.

[danielf]

Originally Posted by danielf

I'm not sure if you're deliberately or genuinely obtuse.

Okay, I've settled on genuine.

Originally Posted by nomadking

It sounds like they may have been legally obliged to restore it. Did they know what the full cost was going to be, before going ahead? They might have assumed that the cost would have been low as it's not exactly a complicated shape or pose.

That's correct ,as a gift to the nation they have a legal obligation to maintain it ,but as with most government jobs it costs 4 times as much as any other because no-one bothers to get quotes or question the price .A snake i assume would be priced per inch which according to this is around $3 per inch