There are nine Muses, at least according to most classical mythology. Sculpted representations of three of them currently occupy the lobby of the Weston Library, while the building across the road has some cosmetic surgery undertaken. I’d like to think I have engaged with eight of them at some point in my life although I must have done something in my karma to upset Terpsichore as she and I have never really got together.
You may or may not have gone to university but if you did, and lived in a hall of residence, unless you did in fact go to Oxford or Cambridge I will bet it did not look like New College, or indeed any one of the other medieval halls that lie around this great seat of learning. Statues, cloisters, that kind of thing. It says a lot that this can be called “New” when it was founded in 1387.
I believe that the person who is the subject of the most statues in the world is Buddha, but I would be fairly sure that Queen Victoria is the most-depicted woman. She never seems to look particularly happy, though: whether she really said ‘We are not amused’ or not. That most public statues have invariably become covered in guano (that’s birdshit, of course) doesn’t help either. This one stands in Dalton Square, Lancaster: another stage in a slow journey north, for Christmas.
On my regular visits to London I have been walking past this statuesque chap since 2016. The sculpture is of Sir Nigel Gresley, designer of the famous Mallard locomotive, which still holds the speed record for a steam locomotive. The statue is about 7 feet high — Sir Nigel wasn’t, though. Apparently, the design was to have originally featured a duck (that is, a mallard) as well as Sir Nige, but this was left off in the end, after, and I quote the Guardian (via Wikipedia) here; “possibly the most acrimonious argument in the long, pedantic history of the railway hobbyist”.
In the brilliant 1980s TV series Edge of Darkness (which I really must watch again some time), there is a scene in which the hero evades his pursuers by deliberately running into the Barbican Centre. It’s an in-joke, but it works: forty years on this is still a rather difficult building complex to find one’s way around. Even as I took this shot there were two young American tourist types stood to my right, debating just which of the concrete ramps and overpasses and underpasses they needed to try next. But what the hell — I still like the place, both to visit and to photograph, and it does give good statuary.
The town of Doncaster has never seemed all that exciting a place to me, but it does have some decent public art: see this mural, for instance, which I pictured on a previous visit and nearly did again, today. Then there is this memorial, which is obviously for some aspect of the coal mining industry (the main statue is clearly a miner, and there are names of collieries on plaques around the base), is impressive, but, I think, also slightly creepy — there’s a ‘buried alive’ thing going on. Although maybe that’s exactly the point.
Oor Wullie is a cartoon character who, since 1936, has appeared in the Scottish Sunday Post. He comes from the D. C. Thomson publishing house in Dundee, who also gave the world Desperate Dan, and like him, Wullie has his statue in the city centre. This family seemed to be enjoying his company — the women, anyway. Maybe not the guy on the right though.
In Manchester, but not my usual parts of the city, so a chance to bring some different views to the blog. The statue of the Dead White Male is of Richard Cobden, and until just now I had no idea who this person was so I have read up about him. It sounds as if he was something of a radical dude, campaigning for years for the repeal of the Corn Laws (which kept the price of bread artificially high and impoverished the masses for the benefit of a few rich landowners), free trade and pacifism. So, go Richard. St Ann’s Church, behind, is a rather noble building as well.
Since I last passed this way in October, this particular piece of random art has acquired a head — and a rather demonic head it is, at least to my eyes. Impressive though. What this is, and why it sits in a yard next to Low Moor railway station, I still have no idea.
Students often give me gifts. Nothing major — I have never received an outright cash bribe, in case you were wondering — but things like tea, or things representative of their country somehow. I don’t solicit these, in fact I often wish they wouldn’t because I’m just doing my job. But some of them are nice and have made it into a kind of permanent residency status in my office at uni. This little idol is an example, and to my shame I can no longer remember who gave it to me or even, with any certainty, what country it is from, though it might be Indonesia.
Being 42 