If you are yet to encounter it, then the tale of the Manchester Museum Egyptian statue which spins by itself is a great yarn. My friend sent me a link to the Huffington post and thus my amusement began.

In short, the 10 inch high statue keeps turning and facing the back of it's cabinet, to the confusion of the one person who held the one key to open the cabinet. A time lapse camera was set up and has shown the figure gradually rotating 180 degrees to the left. The main suggestion is that the vibrations of visitor's walking by, combined with a difference in the glass and stone surfaces, cause the effect. Or, Neb-Senu's ghost is bored and trying some gentle breakdancing. Watch the video, it's ace! 

The best part about this story is the reporting.... oh the fun!
"Don't go running to mummy just yet" 
har har, a nice Scooby Doo level pun from Huffington Post

“Curse of the spinning statue!” 
I think I've seen that B-Movie, thanks to DNTV

“The turn of the mummy: God of death statue starts SPINNING on its own in Manchester museum... but is this a sign that there really is a curse of the Pharaohs?”
The Daily Mail’s opted for less punnage, and only moderate fear.

“I sphinx I saw it moving. 
Ancient god's relic starts to walk like an Egyptian”
“…an offering to the Egyptian God Osiris — regarded as the God of the DEAD.”
"Nile be back ... relic starts to move"
Gods bless The Sun, a pun, a pop culture reference and a nice bit of capitalised scaremongering, then more puns.

As the rear of the statue holds a hieroglyphic prayer asking for ‘‘bread, beer and beef’’, and I’m in Manchester this weekend on a Hen Do, I wonder if I can pop in with a can of beer and a MacDonald’s for it?

Cuts not as bad as feared, but "local government is low down the food chain and we know that local government museums or independent museums supported by them are way down the local government food chain." so the outlook is gloomy. See the details and more opinions here.

Perhaps it may ruffle some feathers, but it needs to be said. Now is the time to think like a business, and rather than close, cut and crumple inwards, use this as an impetus to try the new, the unusual, the dangerous. Get together all those ideas that you've never broached because they're possibly upsetting to the 'Friends of the Museum', because the education officer hates working evenings (get someone else to run it) because you weren't sure that the effort would guarantee enough return. 

Use the desperation to spur creativity, and channel worries and panic of those around you into proving that it's worth taking a gamble on the odd ideas. Push and push to try every avenue, because on a Blue Peter budget, with less staff and less expertise, you will find gems which could increase revenue and visitors which you would never otherwise discover.

I don't know the exact painting the very slim foreign art students were studying, but apparently the lady who stopped to make this comment to the room attendant was amused at the difference between them, and the one time idealised image of womanhood in the painting. "She joked that she likes her shape, but wonders if she was born in the wrong period of history, and could have been a muse a few hundred years ago" 

So the interesting folks over at Culture Themes suggested a Museums Cake Day,  for museums and galleries to explore and share all things cake related should they be recipes, images, or actual cake. This lead to a great spread of recipes, finds from archives, baking related objects and imagery, much of which can be found by searching for #muscake

https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/muscake
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23muscake

Now my favourite part was looking for pictures of museum inspired cakes, (nomnomnom) with Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery running a contest that even made it into the news! So here are a few I found online, and was rather amused or impressed by. Go hunt out more yourself and be surprised!

If you are likely to be anywhere near Manchester between June 22 Jun 2013 and 3 Nov 2013, then the Museum of Science and Industry's Creating the Illusion: Animation in the North West looks well worth popping into, and it's free!

Described as a small exhibition, it will delve the depths of the surprisingly eclectic MOSI archives (full sized statue of Count Duckula’s butler Igor) and private collections to look at Cosgrove Hall Films - those wonderful folks responsible for many memorable shows from Danger Mouse to The BFG, and Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music through to my own fondly remembered Cockleshell Bay.

With rather old school but awesome magic lantern, through to making your own moving images, it should be a good one for the nostalgic adults and hands on kids.

Staff member "I think he's got a sort of Japanese sword with him?! What should I do?" 
Security "Approach him, ask politely what it is, and explain that we'll need to store it securely while he looks around."

After the gentleman removed his very ornately handled umbrella from it's very posh waterproof carrying case, and opened it to demonstrate it was not a sword, the staff member apologised and retreated in embarrassment. 

We didn't think to check if it was a sword cane, or he was a a Russian with a grudge and a small poison pellet.