Lord Richard Attenborough appeared in front of me today on TV at the Nelson Mandela statue event in Parliament Square, London.

Funny how he disappears out of sight for a while, and now he’s back with today’s event, and then I’m sure for the 10th anniversary memorial for the Princess of Wales. The Richard Attenborough Centre in Leicester where he is from includes a very nice signed pic from Diana, for example. Indeed I’ve heard from a guy who used to be in the same cub scout pack as Attenborough back in the day, but I do digress.

What I was going to say was that in reference to the memorial for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington, DC, that maybe the organisers should invite Attenborough,  a trustee of the Mandela Statue Fund, on to their Foundation to help smooth the way forward?

Related Reading

• Outsourcing Dr King to China?

• Sculptor Lei Yixin named chosen for the MLK memorial sculpture

Looks like there’s some controversy (for example in the The Gibson Report posting of 27 August) bubbling up about the awarding of the contract to a Chinese sculpture for the main piece for the MLK Memorial in Washington, DC. I guess from an objective level it also raises interesting issues about best outsourcing practice, especially as in this case the raw material (Chinese granite) as well as the specialized labor all came from China.

Sculptor Lei Yixin
Photo credit: John Harrington

Related Reading

• USA Today story on this subject (25 August)

• Sculptor Lei Yixin named chosen for the memorial sculpture

• Lord Attenborough to the rescue of the MLK statue?