I took a picture of this mural on a visit to Glasgow a couple of years ago, but didn’t use it at the time: in fact, the one I took then was possibly better as from outside the pub courtyard we see her left hand coming down to pick up little insect-like pedestrians on the street. But from the courtyard of O’Neill’s pub the ‘Girl With a Magnifying Glass’ (look it up on Google Maps) seems to be inspecting the drinkers, somewhat scientifically…
I took the morning off and came up to Plantation House, the residence of the Governor of St Helena, to do the tour, and like the other 7 people doing it with me, we stoically let ourselves be shown vaguely interesting items of furniture and portraits of the British royal family for 90 minutes or so in order that we could then get through to the real reason we were all there; to have the honour of meeting Jonathan, who at around 192 is the world’s oldest living land animal whose age is (more or less) known. And he did not seem at all bothered by his weekly dose of humans — seeming as interested in us as we were in him. I think he’s a complete dude, and could not resist making him the day’s image even though he’s appeared before. But he totally deserves his relative fame, if you ask me.
Being 42 