While shopping in Istanbul, Dalrymple sorts through the tacky tourist souvenirs and has a sudden idea: We should build a National Museum of Kitsch. An example of one of its pieces:

The object that inspired my idea was an alarm clock in the form of a pink plastic mosque with gold-colored decorations on sale for three Euros on a street-stand. Its alarm was in the form of a muezzin’s call, and if it went on for long enough, if the sleeper failed to wake and to turn it off, the verses that the muezzin recited changed and his tone grew more urgent. I thought I detected a note of moral disapproval entering his call.

There were four colors of mosques to choose from: apple green, baby blue, lemon yellow, and shocking pink. It was the latter that I chose because it was the worst, if judgments of good and bad could be said to apply to this particular genre of object. A real collector, I suppose, would have bought all four.

I have seen this alarm clock and can confirm its kitschiness. Read the whole amusing piece here.