Why not compete for them?

The Brits are talking about returning the Elgin marbles to Greece, but I don't think they should just hand them over. I mean, the Greeks already lost them once.

It happened back in the 5th century B.C. King Gyro of the Greek city-state of Souvlaki was feeling pretty envious of King Cyrus of Persia, who not only had a bigger kingdom, but also had managed to get a plug in the Bible. Gyro looked around to see what he could do to take Cyrus down a peg, when he suddenly got a great idea: how about challenging Cyrus to a game of marbles? You see, Gyro had on his staff an excellent marble shooter named Elgin, and the guy had defeated all comers. Nobody could flick those bumboozlers the way Elgin did, and he could even make his minis perform like they were smashers. In short, the guy was quite the shooter, so Gyro had no fear of losing the royal marbles to Cyrus. 

When Gyro issued the challenge, Cyrus latched onto it with pleasure. In fact, Cyrus said, "I'll serve as my own mibster, I love the game!" Gyro figured this was just Cyrus getting a big head again, so, feeling confident, he suggested a time and place, a lovely little island in the Aegean Sea called Staphyloccocus.

The day of the big event rolled around, Cyrus and Elgin shook hands, and flipped a coin to see who went first. Elgin won the toss, and proceeded to methodically knock Cyrus's marbles out of the circle. When he was down to his last marble -  a beautiful blue bonker made of lapis lazuli -  Cyrus suddenly stomped it so that it was level with the dirt. Elgin, perplexed by this move, said, "Hey, your majesty, what gives? You can't do that."  Cyrus smiled and had one of his flunkies bring over some bulky clay tablets. "I have here", Cyrus said, "Hammurabi's Code and Book of Games. It says clearly, that a player can execute an elephant stomp as a last ditch defensive maneuver." Elgin said, "Here, gimme that." He read the rules as handed down by Hammurabi, and said, "Well, you can't fight city hall. But I think I can knock your blue marble outta there anyhow." 

So, he dug his knuckles into the dirt and used that powerful thumb of his to fire a lighting fast shot at Cyrus's marble - which it hit solidly. But instead of plowing it out of the ground, it ricocheted and hit Gyro right between the eyes, knocking him cold. Elgin looked with horror at his king, and watched as Cyrus used his turn to expertly knock all of his opponent's marbles out of the circle. 

"Hah! Looks like winsies for me!", Cyrus said. "Tell Gyro thanks for the game, and I'll be sure to give his marbles a place of honor back home."

Elgin, however, had no plans to stick around until Gyro regained consciousness. So he immediately fled to another Greek city-state - the Kingdom of Calamari - and got a job driving a wagon for an ouzo distiller, delivering the stuff to all the local Greek restaurants - which is redundant, I guess, because all the restaurants in the area were Greek at that time. Anyhow, the distiller began to notice what you might call inventory shrinkage after Elgin was hired, so he was fired not long after, and he subsequently disappeared from history.

Hundreds of year later, when the Turks took over and began treating all their subject peoples like footstools (hence the name "Ottoman"), the Persian king at the time lost the ancient Greek marbles to the Sultan in another contest. The Turks, who figured they had enough junk lying around, eventually gave the Elgin marbles to a Brit named Thomas Bruce, who was so pleased, he began to call himself the Earl of Elgin. 

So, I'm saying that if Greece wants the marbles back, they ought to compete for 'em, fair and square. Oh, there's the phone. Let me get that. Hello? Bruce, how you doin'? Hey everybody, it's friend and commenter Bruce. What's that? What? Not those kind of marbles? Statues? Are you sure? Ah, yeah, yeah, I see. Let me call you back in awhile, ok? Bye. 

Sorry, folks, wrong number. Say, did I ever tell you how the planet Uranus got its name?

Update  Here's another person, like me, who is interested in history.