{"id":16030,"date":"2023-12-24T08:58:43","date_gmt":"2023-12-24T08:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/should-an-agency-cleaner-in-the-basement\/"},"modified":"2023-12-24T08:58:43","modified_gmt":"2023-12-24T08:58:43","slug":"should-an-agency-cleaner-in-the-basement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/should-an-agency-cleaner-in-the-basement\/","title":{"rendered":"should an agency cleaner in the basement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" size-full wp-image-16028\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/07c094d01177902cf8661f35cdc25d62.jpg\" alt=\"courtesy the artist\" width=\"514\" height=\"442\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/07c094d01177902cf8661f35cdc25d62.jpg 514w, http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/07c094d01177902cf8661f35cdc25d62-300x258.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/07c094d01177902cf8661f35cdc25d62-441x379.jpg 441w, http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/07c094d01177902cf8661f35cdc25d62-1x1.jpg 1w, http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/07c094d01177902cf8661f35cdc25d62-10x10.jpg 10w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 514px) 100vw, 514px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MrWfdTqSRVc?si=dTr7lXh0fLCyFn_3\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" title=\"YouTube video player\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>should an agency cleaner in the basement<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>of the British Museum find <br \/>in some forgotten room <br \/>an old earthenware lamp<\/p>\n<p>and choose to rub it, <br \/>rub it with the sleeve of<br \/>her overall, gentle<\/p>\n<p>and curious, knowing this<br \/>is not strictly within the T&#038;Cs<br \/>of her employment, but<\/p>\n<p>should she do that <br \/>and lo! a <em>djinn<\/em> appear,<br \/>stir itself to life and ask<\/p>\n<p><em>Yeah? What?<\/em><br \/>and should she, thinking of<br \/>her neighbours in the flat<\/p>\n<p>next door, the sobbing heard <br \/>through a shared and common wall<br \/>whisper <em>Gaza. Peace<\/em><\/p>\n<p>and should the <em>djinn<\/em> nod,<br \/>fade, vanish, the lamp <br \/>a dusty artefact and<\/p>\n<p>she alone with the dead<br \/>hours of the night, miles<br \/>to tread before she sleeps<\/p>\n<p>should she finish her shift,<br \/>wait, half-awake, for the 6am<br \/>bus that will carry her home<\/p>\n<p>to newsrooms, airwaves, screens <br \/>in meltdown, jabbering the endless<br \/><em>Who? How? Why?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>should a prime minister\u2019s son <br \/>cower in hospital scrubs <br \/>in the ruins of Al-Shifa<\/p>\n<p>a diplomat and her family<br \/>flee down Salah-al-Din Road, <br \/>searching for safety and water<\/p>\n<p>should, in Khan Younis,<br \/>a pundit with a white flag <br \/>stumble into the sights<\/p>\n<p>of a sniper, the president\u2019s<br \/>mistress beneath the rubble<br \/>of a building, buried alive<\/p>\n<p>should all this come to pass<br \/>there will be ceasefire before<br \/>the cleaner turns the key<\/p>\n<p>in her front door,<br \/>trucks of aid in their hundreds<br \/>before the sun has set.<\/p>\n<p>Tomorrow, we will begin to rebuild.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>should an agency cleaner in the basement of the British Museum find in some forgotten room an old earthenware lamp and choose to rub it, rub it&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":496,"featured_media":16028,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1660],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/496"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}