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From Modelzone to Memoryzone

29/8/2013

 
Modelzone, Broadmarsh, Nottingham
Earlier today I carried out some contemporary archaeology. The site of excavation was Nottingham’s branch of Modelzone. This toy and hobby retailer has gone into administration and all eighteen of its remaining stores will close over the coming weeks.(1) Today it was the turn of the outlet at Broadmarsh shopping centre. Its demise is part of the terminal decline of this much-derided mall. Back in January I watched the last death throes of shoe emporium Gordon Scott.(2) This had occupied a unit adjacent to Modelzone ever since Broadmarsh opened in the 1970s. Nowadays customers in search of footwear must exit the mall and make their way to Lister Gate.

The closure of Modelzone is worth recording, not least as a reminder that over 500 people have lost their jobs following the company’s liquidation.(3)

Given that they are now things-of-the-past, all manner of quotidian Modelzone-related artefacts have suddenly accrued heritage-value. Thus the till receipt recording my last purchase plus the plastic carrier bag with its Modelzone logo merit preservation in preparation for their future museum-status.

My choice of purchase on this final day was deliberate. It involved a box of British paratroopers from the Falklands War, lovingly sculpted in plastic in a scale of 1:76. It seemed appropriate to buy these tokens of a post-imperial (sic) military adventure just as Britain is on the cusp of war with a new foreign enemy. (But see Supplemental note below.)

Syria war protest in Nottingham on August 29, 2013
But not all Britons are as enthusiastic for another Middle East campaign as the current British government.(4) Upon leaving Broadmarsh I headed for Old Market Square. At “Speakers’ Corner” I came across a small band of protestors, urging the people of Nottingham to join them in opposing any British involvement in Syria’s bloody civil conflict.

One thing seems certain, however. If British soldiers do engage this new foe, it will no doubt lead to the production of more model soldiers. One day it will become possible to purchase items from the range marked:

    “British Paratroopers (Syria War, 2013-?)”

We shall have to acquire them from an online store, of course given that soon the notion of physical shops on something that used to be known as “the high-street” will be a quaint, nostalgic Woolworths-sweet-wrapped memory (the last bag of which sold on eBay for a reported £14,500 (5)).



___
Notes

(1) Simon Neville, “Modelzone toy retailer collapses after failure to find buyer”, The Guardian, 28/09/2013, http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/aug/28/modelzone-collapses-deloitte-fails-buyer.
(2) Stuart Burch, “Respect for the Riddler”, 27/01/2013, http://www.stuartburch.com/1/post/2013/01/respect-for-the-riddler.html.
(3) Neville, op cit.
(4) “Syria crisis: David Cameron makes case for military action”, 29/08/2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23883427.
(5) “Last ever bag of Woolworths pick 'n' mix sweets sells for £14,500 on eBay”, Daily Mail, 21/02/2009, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1151542/Last-bag-Woolworths-pick-n-mix-sweets-sells-14-500-eBay.html.



Supplemental
30/08/2013

Cancel that box of toy soldiers! In a rare outbreak of democracy, the Westminster parliament has put a temporary halt to a British foreign policy formulated in Washington DC.(1) Can it really be that, at long last, “Britain's illusion of empire is over”?(2) Only time will tell. But for now at least let us savour the true taste of Tony Blair’s political legacy.

(1) “Syria crisis: Commentators react to Cameron defeat”, BBC News, 30/08/2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23894749.
(2) Polly Toynbee, “No 10 curses, but Britain’s illusion of empire is over”, The Guardian, 29/08/2013, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/29/no-10-curses-but-empire-is-over.

An enduring discord

8/4/2013

 
“Where there is discord, may we bring harmony...”

These words of St. Francis of Assisi were cited by Margaret Thatcher on the steps of Number 10 Downing Street on Friday 4th May 1979 – the day she took office as the first female prime minister of Great Britain. Mrs Thatcher went on to add some thoughts of her own: “and to all the British people – howsoever they voted – may I say this. Now that the Election is over, may we get together and strive to serve and strengthen the country of which we’re so proud to be a part.”(1)

This is indicative of a paradox that runs right through Thatcher’s long and eventful period in power.

Those who laud her achievements urge her detractors to accept that, whilst they might not have agreed with her politics, she should be admired as a great patriot with a “lion-hearted love for this country”. That was how David Cameron characterised her on the day she died. He chose to deliver his eulogy on the spot from where his predecessor addressed the media back in 1979. Nevertheless, at the same time as praising the person he regarded as “saving” the country, Cameron added: “We can’t deny that Lady Thatcher divided opinion.” He insisted, however, that Thatcher “has her well-earned place in history and the enduring respect and gratitude of the British people.”(2)

It is characteristic of Mr Cameron that he should deliver such a contradictory statement. If Thatcher “divided opinion” how can “the British people” be of one mind? And if she loved Britain so much, how could Thatcher encourage a climate in which some Britons prospered and thrived at the expense of others?

This continues to pose a problem now that she is dead. How should she be memorialised? Bear in mind that a statue erected in her lifetime has already been decapitated by an irate “patriot”.(3)

An early opportunity to test the public mood will come during the ceremony leading to her cremation. Whilst she will not be given a state funeral, she will be accorded a military procession to St Paul’s Cathedral. During that parade all manner of socialists, former miners, Irish nationalists, Argentines, anti-Apartheid veterans, LGBT campaigners and others might seek to pay their final respects in ways that will subvert David Cameron’s confident assertion regarding Thatcher’s “place in history and the enduring respect and gratitude of the British people.”

Once the funeral is over thoughts will turn to a more permanent commemoration. At that point the Iron Lady will be transmogrified into bronze. The obvious place to site such a memorial is Parliament Square.(5) There she can surmount a pedestal alongside the petrified Churchill and generate an interesting dialogue with the statues of two South Africans, Jan Smuts and Nelson Mandela.

Thatcher’s opposition to international sanctions against Apartheid South Africa – plus her hostility to German reunification – are reminders that differences of opinion over her legacy are not confined to England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. In each of these areas one can cite a litany of issues that remain contentious today, from the North-South divide in England to the piloting of the Poll Tax in Scotland, the decimation of the industrial communities of South Wales and her administration’s secret negotiations with the IRA in stark contrast to Thatcher’s publicly stated position.

It seems inevitable that an official memorial to Lady Thatcher will be erected in the not-too-distant future. All too often such commemorations pretend to be natural occurrences that are universally supported. That lie will be impossible to sustain in this particular instance. A literal Iron Lady will confirm an observation made by Kirk Savage: “Public monuments do not arise as if by natural law to celebrate the deserving; they are built by people with sufficient power to marshal (or impose) public consent to their erection.”(4)

Waves of attacks will be unleashed on any tangible memorial to Thatcher. These will be dismissed as vandalism or accepted as iconoclasm depending on one’s point of view. But the daubs of paint or attempts at decapitation will confirm one thing. Mrs Thatcher achieved much, but by her own measure she failed in at least one regard. She came to office urging Britons to “get together” and help her “bring harmony”. Yet her enduring legacy is division and discord.

And that’s something that even David Cameron cannot deny.

-----
Notes

(1) Margaret Thatcher, “Remarks on becoming Prime Minister (St Francis’s prayer)”, 04/05/1979, http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=104078
(2) Steven Swinford & James Kirkup, “Margaret Thatcher: Iron Lady who made a nation on its knees stand tall”, Daily Telegraph, 08/04/2013, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9980285/Margaret-Thatcher-Iron-Lady-who-made-a-nation-on-its-knees-stand-tall.html
(3) The perpetrator was Paul Kelleher, a thirty-seven year old theatre producer. His justified his actions by claiming that the attack was in protest against global capitalism. See Stuart Burch, On Stage at the Theatre of State: The Monuments and Memorials in Parliament Square, London (A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Nottingham Trent University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, March 2003), pp. 350-351.
(4) Kirk Savage, “The politics of memory: Black emancipation and the Civil War monument”, in John R Gillis (ed.), Commemorations: the politics of national identity, Princeton University Press, 1994, p. 135.
(5) This was something that I called for a decade ago: “An image of Margaret Thatcher in the sacred yet so vulnerable domain of Parliament Square would infuse it with ‘living power’. For the statue, taking its rightful place alongside Churchill, would be finely posited between veneration and disdain and then, in the fullness of time, between neglect and ignorance.” Burch, On Stage at the Theatre of State, 2003, p. 351.

Hashtag headstone

14/1/2013

 
pdftribute
Plans to erect a statue of George Harrison in Henley-on-Thames have been dropped following opposition from The Beatles’ widow, Olivia Harrison. Instead she is reported to favour “a community project in his name.”(1)

This incident reflects longstanding reservations about devoting so much time and money in producing yet another mute monument. Wouldn’t it be better to celebrate a life in ways that benefit the present? And is this not all the more necessary in our increasingly digital age?

With this in mind, it is salutary to see the emergence of a collective commemoration of Aaron Swartz (1986-2013).

During his short life this freedom of speech advocate urged people to sign up to his “Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto”.

His tragic suicide has given rise to the Twitter trend, #pdftribute whereby academics are encouraged to upload their scholarly papers that are withheld from public circulation due to what Swartz condemned as “the privatization of knowledge”.

The result is a collaborative, politically motivated memorial act that is the antithesis of an effigy on a stone pedestal. It is instead a living, livid legacy that is entirely in keeping with the circumstances that led to the death of Aaron Swartz..

___
Note

(1) “George Harrison Henley-on-Thames statue campaign halted”, BBC News, 12/01/2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-20997626.


Messages for posterity

22/10/2012

 
Cover of the book London's Immortals by John Blackwood
Yesterday a group of people gathered in Custom House Square, Belfast. They then opened three large freezers, removed 1,517 diminutive frozen figures and began placing them around the square. When the task was complete they stood back and spent the next twenty minutes watching as these human icicles melted before their eyes.

This happening was part of a festival to mark the centenary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic.

The person responsible for this particular commemorative response was the Brazilian born artist, Néle Azevedo (born 1950). Her poignant idea was entitled, Minimum Monument. It was intended as a celebration of the “ephemeral and diminutive, as opposed to what is monumental and grandiose.”(1)

For instances of the “monumental and grandiose” one might turn to John Blackwood’s book London’s Immortals: The complete commemorative outdoor statues (Savoy Press, 1989). The cover features an individual who exudes monumentality and grandiosity. This is all the more remarkable given that the person being represented is physically frail – so weak in fact that he requires a walking stick to support his gargantuan frame. But his greatness comes from the courage of his convictions rather than the strength of his sinews. The bronze effigy commemorates a man who is seemingly so famous that he requires no elaborate inscription. On the pedestal on which he is placed is but a single word: Churchill.

Statues of this nature are intended to create the illusion of universal acclaim and permanence. This façade came crashing down during my investigations into this sculpture and the other commemorative monuments that surround the Houses of Parliament in London. In the year 2000 a riot broke out where the natural order was inverted: protestors mounted Churchill’s plinth and daubed it with graffiti. In the process they turned the war hero into a bloated warmonger. For a short time this establishment figure became a punk icon (courtesy of the grass mohican draped over his pate).(2)

I wonder what the late, great playwright and author, Dennis Potter would have made of such bad behaviour? I ask because, way back in 1967 in one of his earliest plays for television, Potter took a “swipe at Churchillianism”.(3) Alas, the original recordings of this and two other such works were subsequently deleted by the BBC.

Years later Potter reflected on his vanished play. He dismissed it as “polemical” and “overtly political”, something with which now felt uncomfortable.(4) We are not in a position to judge if he was right to be so self-critical given that the work no longer exists. This makes the title of the play deeply ironic. It was called, Message for Posterity.

That phrase sums up Ivor Roberts Jones’s titanic statue of Churchill that has scowled at parliament ever since its inauguration in 1973.

But messages for posterity do not always have to be like this. They can be more modest and far less bombastic – like Néle Azevedo’s already vanished tribute to the 1,517 lives cut short when the monumental and grandiose prow of the Titanic sank beneath the icy waves of the North Atlantic Ocean.

____
Notes

(1) Nuala McCann, “Poignant ice tribute to Titanic victims”, BBC News, 21/10/2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-20020498
(2) For more about this, see my doctoral thesis, On Stage at the Theatre of State: The Monuments and Memorials in Parliament Square, London (A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Nottingham Trent University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, March 2003).
(3) Graham Fuller (ed.), Potter on Potter, London, Faber and Faber, 1993, p. 17.
(4) Potter on Potter, pp. 31-32.

Jimmy Savile and damnatio memoriae

10/10/2012

 
Jimmy Savile and damnatio memoriae
The British Museum possesses many thousands of fascinating objects. One of its self-styled “highlights” is a rather plain looking marble inscription. It comes from Rome and is dated around AD 193-211. What makes it so interesting are the things it does not show. These include the names of two relatives of the Roman emperor, Septimius Severus (AD 145-211), namely his daughter-in-law Plautilla and his son Geta. The latter was murdered by Septimius Severus’ other son Caracalla. He was Plautilla’s husband and Geta’s brother. The two siblings were bitter rivals following the death of their father. It is believed that Caracalla murdered Geta and then had his treacherous and much despised wife executed. And, to make matters even worse, they were then subjected to the posthumous punishment of damnatio memoriae:

   their names were expunged from all official records and inscriptions
   and their statues and all images of them were destroyed.
   This process [damnatio memoriae] was the most horrendous fate
   a Roman could suffer, as it removed him from the memory of society.(1)

However, removing Geta from public consciousness was not a straightforward matter. Caracalla was obliged to give his brother a proper funeral and burial due to Geta’s popularity both with the Roman army and among substantial sections of Roman society. This explains why the names of Geta and Plautilla were included on the British Museum’s marble inscription, only to be scratched out later on.

Why am I mentioning all this? Because a modern-day form of damnatio memoriae is currently unfolding in British society. This is in relation to the disc jockey, children’s television presenter and media celebrity, Sir Jimmy Savile OBE, KCSG, LLD (1926-2011). When he died last year at the ripe old age of 84 he was hailed a loveable hero who had done much for charity. Now, however, revelations have come to light suggesting that he was, in the words of the police, a “predatory sex offender”.(2)

As a result, strenuous efforts are being made to expunge him from the public record.(3) Thus, the charity that bears his name is considering a rebrand. A plaque attached to his former home in Scarborough was vandalised and has since been removed. So too has the sign denoting “Savile’s View” in the same town. Meanwhile, in Leeds, his name has been deleted from a list of great achievers at the Civic Hall. A statue in Glasgow has been taken down in an act of officially sanctioned iconoclasm. The same fate has been dished out to the elaborate headstone marking Savile’s grave. This last-named act of damnatio memoriae is in some ways a pity given the unintended poignancy of the epitaph inscribed on the stone: “It Was Good While It Lasted”. It was almost as if Savile knew that he would one day have to atone for his evil deeds.

Atonement has, alas, come too late for those that suffered at the hands of Savile. To make matters worse, his considerable fame has been replaced by a burgeoning notoriety. This is reminiscent of the damnatio memoriae that befell Geta and his sister-in-law Plautilla. The marble inscription that once carried their name is a “highlight” of the British Museum precisely because of the dark deeds associated with them and the futile efforts made  to delete them from history. In their case, damnatio memoriae has, in a perverse way, enhanced their posthumous status centuries after their grisly deaths. Let’s hope that the same will not be said of the late Jimmy Savile – an individual who has gone from saint to scoundrel in the space of just a few short months.

___
Notes

(1) “Marble inscription with damnatio memoriae of Geta, son of Septimius Severus” (Roman, AD 193-211, from Rome, Italy, height 81.5 cm, width 47.5 cm, British Museum, Townley Collection, GR 1805.7-3.210, http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/gr/m/marble_inscription.aspx).
(2) Martin Beckford, “Sir Jimmy Savile was a ‘predatory sex offender’, police say”, The Daily Telegraph, 09/10/2012, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9597158/Sir-Jimmy-Savile-was-a-predatory-sex-offender-police-say.html.
(3) “Jimmy Savile’s headstone removed from Scarborough cemetery” and “Sir Jimmy Savile Scarborough footpath sign removed”, BBC News, 12/10 & 08/10/2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-19893373 and www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-19867893.

Maidstone Museum mutates

2/6/2012

 
Images to accompany my recent exhibition review of Maidstone Museum & Bentlif Art Gallery in the county of Kent (Museums Journal, Issue 112 (05), pp. 54-57).

The museum is rightly grateful to that most capacious of collectors, Julius Brenchley (1816-73). This hoarder has been mentioned in an earlier blog posting, which also alluded to the bedroom antics of Maidstone Museum’s former curator, William Lightfoot. See “Brenchley's bedroom benefaction”.

Who will police the London Olympics?

14/5/2012

 
Judge Dredd at the London Olympics
Security measures are being put into place to safeguard the much-heralded London Olympics.

It comes as a blessed relief to discover that the streets of Britain’s Megacity are to be patrolled by thousands of military personnel. The skies above will echo to the roar of attack aircraft. The waters will be awash with warships. Meanwhile, tower blocks in the vicinity will house surface-to-air missiles. Networks of surveillance cameras will monitor the streets.

And rest assured that, in the unlikely event that disturbances should occur, sonic cannons will be swiftly deployed. They will be wielded by the “tens of thousands of troops and private security guards working alongside police officers and the security services”.

But how will honest, law-abiding citizens recognize these guardians of the peace? Well, I can exclusively reveal the new-look uniforms with which they are to be issued (see image). Of course, should you be fortunate enough to come across such an operative, you will be left in no doubt.

They are just what Britain needs in these troubled times of austerity: judge, jury and executioner rolled into one.

Chief among these lawgivers is Judge Dredd of Dennis Potter Block in the Brimstone-&-Treacle Sector. He has already seen service at the first Luna Olympics.

When asked if he had a message for any olympian perps, muties, monsters and fatties, Dredd replied simply: I AM the law.

And with that in mind, let the Brit-Cit games begin!

Cromwell Tower and the all-New Palace at Westminster

25/3/2012

 
A regicide in a royalist pantheon
I am a republican with little interest in the pharmaceutical industry. This summer will therefore be a testing time for me, what with London hosting the Olympic Games and the British monarch celebrating her diamond jubilee.

Fortunately these two events are only temporary. They will, however, leave lasting legacies. One such is the 175,000 m2 Westfield Stratford City shopping centre. Britain’s gold medal haul would really rocket if the "Retail Relay" were to become an Olympic event.

Heaven on earth is now a reality for the shoppers of London.

Meanwhile, another legacy project has yet to be accomplished. And, in an effort to help ensure that it remains that way, I have rushed to my keyboard with the same zeal as a drug-fuelled athlete reacting to the boom of the starting pistol.

For it grieves me to report that a group of cretinous politicians are proposing to turn the Houses of Parliament's "Big Ben" into the "Elizabeth Tower" in honour of our dear old queen.(1)

Now, a number of arguments can be deployed to support this obsequious suggestion.

Firstly, the name change wouldn't really matter. The vast majority of locals and visitors would continue to mistakenly refer to it as "Big Ben". Its proper – and far more mundane title – is simply "the Clock Tower". Big Ben alludes to its great bell, which in turn is probably a reference to the politician and engineer, Sir Benjamin Hall (1802-67).

Secondly, the re-christening would bring this iconic symbol in line with the Victoria Tower on the other side of the building. This erection takes its name from Queen Victoria, Britain's erstwhile longest-serving monarch.

Ditching Ben in favour of Liz would add yet another royal epithet to the Houses of Parliament – or, to give it its formal designation: the New Palace at Westminster. This title reflects the fact that Sir Charles Barry's architectural fantasy arose from the ashes of the old palace. Only Westminster Hall survived the inferno that engulfed this ancient edifice in 1834.

The centuries-old Westminster Hall is skilfully integrated into Barry's neo-gothic design. Earlier this month the queen paid it a visit in order to witness the unveiling of a stained-glass window to mark her jubilee.(2)

As she looked up at this glittering tribute, I wonder if she spared a thought for Charles I? For it was in that very same building way back in January 1649 that this soon-to-be-beheaded monarch was put on trial – and sentenced to death.

Charles's nemesis was Oliver Cromwell.

Cromwell was still causing a right royal rumpus two centuries later. This was in relation to the decorative scheme planned for the New Palace at Westminster. If you look carefully you'll see that parliament's façade is festooned with statues of the various kings and queens that have ruled England and Britain through the ages.

This carved history posed a dilemma to its designers: what should be done about Cromwell?

For the sake of historical accuracy and completeness he ought to have been slotted in between Charles I (executed in 1649) and his son, Charles II (restored to the throne in 1660).

But placing a regicide in a royalist pantheon proved to be a commemorative step too far.(3) Cromwell was sculpturally excised from British history. Not until the very end of the 19th century was the Lord Protector rewarded with a statue. He stands there to this day: at one remove, deep in thought and with his back turned to parliament.(4)

So, whether you like it or not, Cromwell is part of Britain's political and monarchical history. If "Big Ben" must have new nomenclature, then it should from this year on be known as "Cromwell Tower".

What better way to mark Queen Elizabeth's jubilee? A silent admonition not only to this monarch but to all her heirs: they occupy positions of privilege and power not by right but by accidents of birth.

Other, far less anachronistic and slightly more democratic systems are possible.

The Cromwell Tower will remind the House of Windsor and all their subjects that we should not take the status quo for granted.

God Save the Queen!

____
Notes
(1) James Chapman, "Bong! Will Big Ben tower be renamed after the Queen? MPs call for the London landmark to be renamed for the Diamond Jubilee", Daily Mail, 23/03/2012, accessed 25/03/2012 at, www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2118999/Big-Ben-renamed-Elizabeth-Tower-Queen.html.
(2) Jon Craig, "Westminster To Honour Queen's Diamond Jubilee", Sky News, 20/03/2012, accessed 25/03/2012 at, http://news.sky.com/home/politics/article/16192187.
(3) The phrase "A regicide in a royalist pantheon" appears in the fifth chapter of my PhD, which concerned the commemorative history and symbolism of parliament and the adjacent square. See Stuart Burch, On Stage at the Theatre of State: The Monuments and Memorials in Parliament Square, London (Nottingham Trent University, 2003).
(4) The stupendous statue of Cromwell - with bible in one hand and sword in the other - was made by Sir William Hamo Thornycroft RA (1850-1925) and completed (without an unveiling ceremony) in 1899. Ever since 1950 he has stood face-to-face with a lead bust of Charles I inserted into a niche on the façade of St. Margaret's Church opposite...
     ... as can be seen below:

Jebediah Springfield apes Colonel George Taylor

19/2/2012

 
Jebediah Springfield apes Colonel George Taylor

Nottingham, not Newcastle

18/2/2012

 
First Duke of Newcastle on Nottingham CastleSculptor: Sir William Wilson (1641-1710), c.1680




William Cavendish, the First Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
is notable in Nottingham not Newcastle
on the site of a slighted castle that has been unfortified
upon the façade of a fired house that is no longer a home
above a door that is now a window
that looks into a room without a floor
of a pioneering public art gallery
which has now been
privatized behind a paywall.

William Cavendish, the First Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne


assaulted, belittled, castigated, decapitated,
emasculated, flayed, goaded, hobbled,
incapacitated, jinxed, kiboshed, lacerated,
maimed, nobbled, ostracized, pelted, queered,
rubbished, slated, traduced, usurped, vilified,
whacked, xoanoned, yoked, zapped




Nicholas Hawksmoor drawing of Nottingham Castle c. 1685
From a sketch by Nicholas Hawksmoor, c. 1685

Brenchley's bedroom benefaction

14/2/2012

 
Julius Lucius Brenchley
Sculptor: Joseph Durham ARA, FSA (1814-77)
_

JULIUS LUCIUS BRENCHLEY,
BENEFACTOR,
BORN at KINGSLEY HOUSE, MAIDSTONE, 30th NOVEMBER, 1816,
DIED at FOLKESTONE, 24th FEBRUARY, 1873.
After many years of travel, returning to England, he bought,
laid out, and transferred to the Maidstone Local Board the
adjacent Public Garden, and at his death bequeathed his
collections of Natural History, Books, and Works of Art to
Trustees, with an Endowment for their preservation and
exhibition in this Museum.


Alternative plaque:

_  JULIUS LUCIUS BRENCHLEY,
HOARDER,
I died and left Maidstone Museum
so much stuff
that its curator had to
give up his bedroom
and move into the attic

Walk Don't Walk

13/2/2012

 
Walk Don't Walk
Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington D.C.

Snake in the grass

30/12/2011

 

United enemies

15/11/2011

 
United enemies
Next month the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds will open an exhibition entitled, "United Enemies". It aims to explore "the problem of sculpture in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s".

The slogan emblazoned on the institute's facade resonates with the war memorial outside. One of the allegorical groups at its base features a sculpture of St George conquering the dragon. The saint and the serpent are "united enemies" – frozen forever in a brutal bronze embrace and "symbolical... of the everlasting struggle between good and evil."(1)

But all is not as it seems. The Carrara marble obelisk, plinth and steps were executed by Carlo Domenico Magnoni (c.1871-1961). Henry Charles Fehr (1867-1940) was responsible for the bronze sculptures. The ensemble once stood in the City Square just outside the main railway station. Henry Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood unveiled it there in 1922.(2) Fifteen years later it was shifted to Victoria Gardens on The Headrow, where it still stands. Originally Fehr's "Winged Victory" hovered triumphantly over St George. This was removed in 1967. Since 1991 the more pacific "Angel of Peace" by Ian Jubb (born 1947) has surmounted the dragon slayer. This chimes with Fehr's allegory of "Peace" which, like St George, stands at the base of the obelisk.(3)

So, whilst this memorial looks fixed and unchanging, appearances can be deceptive. The Leeds War Memorial does all it can to convince us that it speaks for everyone, forever - a truly public pronouncement. The patina of time adds to its nostalgic allure. But compare present-day attitudes with this newspaper article published in 1922:

    After something like three years of procrastination, mainly due to a lack of
    monetary support, the Leeds War Memorial has become an accomplished
    fact with the fixing of the date for the unveiling ceremony, which will be on
    October 14. The project has been attended by criticism and scarcely-veiled
    hostility since its inception. By the time Sir Reginald Blomfield's plans had
    been provisionally accepted by the War Memorial Committee most of the
    parishes and districts had their individual memorials, either erected or in
    hand. No doubt this was one of the reasons the subscription-list for the fund
    of £70,000 never reached £7,000; others lay in objections to the memorial
    design; in objections to the Cookridge Street site; in a contention more than
    once urged that a war memorial ought to afford benefit to the living disabled,
    for instance, rather than a memorialising of the dead; and also in the
    unemployment and distress then becoming acute.(4)

The temporary carpet of poppies at the feet of St George; the metamorphosis from victory to peace; and a knowledge of the memorial's deeply contested origins remind us that objects are forever being "perceived and uttered in different ways".(5) A monument's meaning is not stable but is instead "in suspense... and... indeterminate". The Leeds memorial has at various points in its history attracted suffragists, pacifists, war veterans and fairtraders.(6) Its potential significance, it seems, is infinitely malleable. A commemorative memorial such as this is thus "tailored to the needs of the present... and especially the future". Those that gather at symbols of remembrance do so in an effort "to determine, delimit and define the always open meaning of the present." Objects are, in short, subject to all manner of "cognitive 'filling-in' strategies".

One such "cognitive 'filling-in' strategy" is this very blog posting. I began writing it on the eve of my talk to delegates of the "Sculpture and Comic Art" conference taking place in the art gallery directly behind St George and his foe. My talk uses the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu to explore Estonia's Bronze Soldier. This Soviet-era war memorial is simultaneously interpreted as a symbol of liberation and occupation. Opposing camps have clashed at the foot of the statue in a futile effort "to determine, delimit and define the always open meaning of the present." In April 2007 a riot erupted on the streets of Tallinn when the authorities moved the monument from the city centre to a military cemetery. The Bronze Soldier obliged these "united enemies" to realise an uncomfortable truth, namely that objects are "perceived and uttered in different ways".

If you're in any doubt about this, just ask the poor old "Winged Victory". After her removal from the Leeds war memorial she was, like Estonia's Bronze Soldier, moved to a burial place, namely Cottingley Crematorium. However, in 1988 the metal maiden was deemed to be in such a poor state of repair that she was melted down. The only part that escaped this authorised vandalism was the head. It is now in the collections of Leeds City Art Gallery. This decapitated angel of victory looks anything but victorious. What better example could there be of the indeterminacy of meaning and of an object's infinite capacity for being "perceived and uttered in different ways"?

And who knows, perhaps one day St George will also be sent back to the furnace from whence he came? He and the dragon would cease to be "united enemies". The severed serpent might then be set free to embark on an exciting new life full of unanticipated meanings...

Decapitated Victory
____
Notes
(1) Unveiling of the War Memorial by the Right Hon. Viscount Lascelles K.G., D.S.O. Saturday, 14th October, 1922, at 3:30 (Leeds: Jowett & Sowry), p.2.
(2) The Yorkshire Evening News felt it was "appropriate the Viscount Lascelles should perform the duty, as he [had] a distinguished war record and was thrice wounded while serving on the Western front." (6/10/1922).
(3) Information about the monument is derived from interpretation panels in the sculpture galleries of Leeds City Art Gallery (15/11/2011).
(4) "The Leeds War Memorial", The Yorkshire Observer, 6/10/1922.
(5) This and all subsequent quotations are derived from Pierre Bourdieu's "The Social Space and the Genesis of Groups", Theory and Society, Vol. 14, No. 6, 1985, pp. 723-744 (p. 728).
(6) See http://www.visitleeds.co.uk/thedms.aspx?dms=13&feature=1&venue=2193653.


Here today, gone tomorrow

11/11/2011

 
The sound of silence...
Sevenoaks Cottage Hospital
Sevenoaks Cottage Hospital
"Today We Remember Martin Luther King
 – Tomorrow We Don't"


The quotation above doesn't come from some highbrow History book or academic article exploring collective memory. Instead it's from a newspaper. The New York Times, perhaps? Or the Sydney Herald? No, the actual source was The Springfield Shopper.(1) Homer Simpson's local paper is an odd place to study history. Yet this fleeting, one-line gag in The Simpsons is in fact a witty and perceptive appreciation of how societies remember and forget.

The annals of past events are limitless. This gives rise to whole calendars of commemorations – like Martin Luther King Day. An event such as this is one of the mechanisms necessary to filter, rank and arrange the past; to make it manageable and to put it to use. To turn the past into History.

Anniversaries help supply the present with their historical fix. No matter how insatiable we are, there is always a ready supply of past pleasures and pains for us to use and abuse. One anniversary leads to another and another in a bulimic spewing up of the past.(2) And by comparing multiple commemorations of the same event we get an insight into the ways in which the past is put into the service of the present.(3)

Take today, for example. It is Armistice Day. Ninety-three years have passed since the end of the "Great War". This gives rise to the intoning of that familiar mantra:

        On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918,
        the guns fell silent and the First World War came to an end. Today on
        11th November, we remember, in silence, all those who have given
        their lives in war in the cause of peace and freedom.(4)

This moment is marked by repetition. The observing of silences; the laying of wreaths; the tolling of bells; the playing of music. These recurring performances have been re-enacted following a score set down by the Royal British Legion exactly 90 years ago.

Such rituals are intended to interrupt the haphazard unfolding of day-to-day events by inserting a familiar pause – a link in time connecting our present with our past, secure in the knowledge that this will happen again in our future. This is how the chain of history is constructed. Shared memory is deployed to forge collectivities.

Repetition and sameness are emphasised. But, if we look carefully, what they actually highlight is that which is different or new. Thus, whilst we are remembering past wars, we are also encouraged to reflect on current conflicts. Those that observe silences or gather around memorials in the UK are made aware that British soldiers in Afghanistan are doing just what their forebears did, namely giving "their lives in war in the cause of peace and freedom."

Not everyone agrees with this, of course. Certain members of the now-illegal "Muslims Against Crusades" were planning a counter demonstration today. They too wished to observe this memorial occasion and its associated symbolism. Yet they would prefer to burn a plastic poppy rather than place it at the foot of an old war memorial. Such behaviour is distasteful and disrespectful – but should it be punishable by imprisonment?

The potency of the poppy confirms the sense in which 'the flower has become an iconic symbol of remembrance and sacrifice.'(5) Its importance and that of the November ritual as a whole appears to be increasing rather than diminishing as the years go by. This explains the seemingly disproportionate amount of attention the media devotes to reports of a war memorial being vandalised or dishonoured. A steadily rising number of plaques listing the names of the dead have been stolen from such monuments. The high value of scrap metal makes an uncomfortable parallel with the high value of the sacrifice inscribed in each and every liquefied name.

The heat required to melt these metal sheets is matched by the temperature rising in commemorative terms. This is due to the imminent arrival of the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War. Will 2014 represent a high-water mark of remembrance? We can't know the answer to this because we simply don't know what the future holds or what future generations will choose to remember and forget.

So it seems fair to say that The Springfield Shopper headline got it right and wrong: "Today We Remember Armistice Day – Tomorrow We Don't". But the day after that we will: it's Remembrance Sunday. And the wreath-laying rituals will be repeated all over again – for some people at least.

_____
Notes

(1) 'The Springfield Shopper', The Simpsons 18/9 (2006).
(2) Pierre Nora, Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past. Vol. III: Symbols, New York, Columbia University Press, 1998, p. 609.
(3) Stuart Burch, 'The Texture of Heritage: A Reading of the 750th Anniversary of Stockholm', International Journal of Heritage Studies, Vol. 11 (3), 2005, pp. 211-233.
(4) BBC Radio 4 News, 11:00, 11/11/2011.
(5) Angus Crawford, The World at One, BBC Radio 4, 11/11/2011.

__________
Supplemental
18/11/2011

One American citizen who does not observe Martin Luther King Day is George Orr, the principal protagonist in Ursula K. Le Guin's superb book, The Lathe of Heaven (1971). He is able to alter the world by having what he terms "effective" dreams (p.13). Orr's unconscious solution to racism is to dream into existence a globe populated solely by grey-skinned people. But in so doing he erases the woman he loves: Heather Lelache's "color of brown was an essential part of her, not an accident... She could not exist in the gray (sic) people's world. She had not been born." (p. 129) And that is not all: this is also now a world that "found in it no address that had been delivered on a battlefield in Gettysburg, nor any man known to history named Martin Luther King." (p. 129) All this might seem like "a small price to pay for the complete retroactive abolition of racial prejudice". But George Orr finds the situation "intolerable. That every soul on earth should have a body the color of a battleship: no!" (p. 129).

Source:
Le Guin, Ursula K. (1971/2001) The Lathe of Heaven (London: Orion)


Mark Duggan's Britain

10/9/2011

 
Building Britain's Future RIP
Building Britain's Future was a policy initiative launched in 2009 by the then British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. It was his government's "radical vision for a fairer, stronger and more prosperous society". One of its goals was to invest in affordable housing of the sort being implemented by the Newlon Housing Trust. This "not for profit" association is developing 537 homes in Tottenham Hale, a district in the London Borough of Haringey. A large billboard at the building site on Ferry Lane advertises this fact. On it is the Building Britain's Future logo.

Directly opposite this sign are bunches of flowers tied to a railing. It was here on Thursday 4th August 2011 that a police officer shot and killed Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old resident of Tottenham's Broadwater Farm estate. It was his death that sparked off riots across London and in other parts of England.

The destruction and despair wrought by this sustained violence represents an enormous setback for all attempts to build Britain's future. The riots have not only caused physical damage. The international image of London (and with it Britain) has been tarnished by the media attention given to the aftermath of Mark Duggan's shooting exactly 27 miles from Stansted Airport.

Who was Mark Duggan? A loving father of four who had maintained a relationship with his childhood sweetheart from the age of 17? Or a drug-dealing gangster who carried a gun following the murder of his cousin last year?

Whoever he was, he has attained posthumous fame.

The site of his death has become a spontaneous shrine, a temporary memorial and a "fatal attraction". I chose to visit the spot on the day of his funeral. The flowers were dead or dying. The messages have become indistinct. Rubbish had begun to accumulate. Most revealing is the floral tribute that probably originally read: "N17". This is presumably intended to signify the postcode of the Broadwater Farm estate where Duggan was born and grew up. The number "7" has been damaged. Was this caused by thoughtless vandalism or a deliberate act? If it was the latter, it would imply that the perpetrator was a member of a rival gang and that the floral tribute was no innocent sign of remembrance but a token of an endemic turf war.

Soon the flowers and other items will be cleared away - and with it the memory of Mark Duggan. Will a plaque be erected there one day? A statue to the fallen "martyr"? A memorial to the riots of 2011?

No. Instead it will all be forgotten. What occurred on that spot will be erased, just like the vast majority of lifestories. But traces of the past will remain - such as this blog posting. It has been motivated by the belief that we need to remember Mark Duggan and what he stood for. In doing so we will be forced to ask some difficult and distasteful questions.

Many would, however, much prefer it if we could just sweep him aside as easily as removing the flowers on Ferry Lane.

But if we do that we will have learnt nothing from the violence that erupted in the summer of 2011. Our ignorance and forgetfulness will mean that the same things will happen again and again. For it should be recalled that Duggan was three years old when the Broadwater Farm riot of 1985 broke out. His own children are also growing up under the shadow of violence and disorder. If we choose to forget Mark Duggan then his death will count for nothing except despair.

The little boy with a paper crown that I spotted on Ferry Lane deserves so much more. It is our duty to see that he grows up in a Britain with a future.

Parasites of the past

8/9/2011

 
Raoul Wallenbergs Torg
Square in Stockholm dedicated to Wallenberg
Today's issue of the Swedish newspaper, Dagens Nyheter features an article entitled, "Humans are like parasites" (Björling 2011). This interesting idea is derived from a statement made by the American artist Andrea Zittel at the opening of a new exhibition of her work.

Zittel's view on human behaviour resonated with an item on the previous page of the same newspaper (Söderling 2011). This concerned a dispute between two historians. One is Ulf Zander, the person with whom I collaborated on the article, "Preoccupied by the Past – The Case of Estonia's Museum of Occupations" (Burch & Zander 2008). The other is Tanja Schult. She attended a seminar I gave at Stockholm University earlier this year. After my talk she kindly gave me a copy of her book, A Hero's Many Faces: Raoul Wallenberg in Contemporary Monuments (Schult 2009).

It is the existence of this publication that has given rise to claims of plagiarism. Zander stands accused of incorporating translated extracts into his own book, Hjälten: Raoul Wallenberg inför eftervärlden (Zander 2010). A panel responsible for investigating such cases has previously rejected this claim; but now the publisher of Zander's book has decided to withdraw it from sale.

Zander plans to reissue an amended version of his book under a new title. He dismisses the plagiarism claim, arguing that the extracts in question concern widely known facts rather than specifically attributable ideas. He also points out that Schult is mentioned both in his introduction and conclusion as well as being listed in the references. (One might add that a similar acknowledgement was not reciprocated in an extended article that Schult (2010) had published in the newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet.)

This affair is regrettable, not least because Zander and Schult were originally professional colleagues. Their partnership ended in acrimony, leading Zander to publish Hjälten (The Hero) on his own. Of wider interest is the sense in which this wrangle threatens to overshadow the importance of their research. Raoul Wallenberg's actions during the Second World War saved many Jews from the Holocaust. The commemoration of Wallenberg is therefore not only morally necessary, but also an excellent case to study from a public history perspective. Both Zander and Schult have done much to promote this cause and improve our understanding of the struggle for "ownership" of historical events and personalities. Such legacies of the past are negotiated and contested in the politics of the present. Ironically enough, there can be no better demonstration of this fact that the unfortunate conflict between the academics, Ulf Zander and Tanja Schult.

_________
References

Björling, Sanna Torén (2011) "Människor är som parasiter", Dagens Nyheter, 08/09, Kultur, p.3
Burch, Stuart & Ulf Zander (2008) "Preoccupied by the Past – The Case of Estonia's Museum of Occupations",
    Scandia: Tidskrift för Historisk Forskning, Vol. 74 (2), pp. 53-73
Schult, Tanja (2009) A Hero's Many Faces: Raoul Wallenberg in Contemporary Monuments, Palgrave Macmillan
Schult, Tanja (2010) "Monument med mänskliga proportioner", Svenska Dagbladet, 27/01, accessed 08/09/2011
    at, http://www.svd.se/kultur/understrecket/monument-med-manskliga-proportioner_4157797.svd
Söderling, Fredrik (2011) "Känd historiker anklagad för fusk", Dagens Nyheter, 08/09, Kultur, p.2
Zander, Ulf (2010) Hjälten: Raoul Wallenberg inför eftervärlden, Forum för levande historia


The sculptor, Gustav Kraitz designed the memorial Hope (1998) on Raoul Wallenberg Walk adjacent to the United Nations building in New York. It features a bronze copy of Wallenberg's briefcase. This element is sited in other locations, including the Beth Shalom centre in Nottinghamshire (below).

Bus-stop warrior

3/9/2011

 
Bus-stop warrior
Our urban landscapes are saturated with symbolic meaning to such an extent that even a humdrum pedestrian crossing can become a significant place marker. This is the way with all street furniture. Yet their banal presence and utilitarian function effectively masks their potential meaningfulness.

This is arguably the case with the subject of this blog posting: a bus-stop in the unremarkable town of Royal Tunbridge Wells in the south east of England. Hovering over the waiting passengers is a bronze bayoneted rifle held in the iron grip of a soldier statue. This is the work of the sculptor, Stanley Nicholson Babb FRBS (c.1873-1957) and dates from 1922. It forms the centrepiece of a memorial to the First and Second World Wars. It in turn provides a name and a geographical anchor for the bus-stops that traverse the street in front. They are: War Memorial.

Questions    Do many travellers reflect on this fact or cast an eye up to the ever-present soldier? Of those that do, how many look at the panels listing the dead? As they read the names, do they concur with the sentiments inscribed beneath the bronze feet of the statue: OUR GLORIOUS DEAD?

This token of death seeps into the hurly-burly of the living. Those that fought and died so many years ago still exist, but they have taken on new forms: metamorphosed into stone and bronze; transfigured into bus-stops; inscribed into bus timetables.


___________
Supplemental

I have since discovered that, following a recommendation from English Heritage, the memorial has been granted Grade II listed status (BBC 2011). This should afford it some protection - something that might be necessary if plans go ahead to redevelop the civic centre complex (Pudelek 2011).

BBC (2011) "Tunbridge Wells war memorial given listed status", BBC News, 16/07, accessed 08/09/2011
    at, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-14173615
Pudelek, Jenna (2011) "Tunbridge Wells War Memorial achieves listed status", KOS Media, 16/07, accessed 08/09/2011
    at, http://www.kentnews.co.uk/news/tunbridge_wells_war_memorial_achieves_listed_status_1_970474

A bevy of beautiful busts

27/8/2011

 
Fredsmonumentet, Karlstad (Ivar Johnsson, 1955)
The Peace Monument, Karlstad (23/09/2005)
The Guardian newspaper has published a selection of the "UK's best sculptures of women". Its compiler, Laura Barton, enthuses that the "UK is alive with beautiful sculptures of women" (Barton 2011). Alas, her sweet selection of lovely ladies confirms observations made years ago by the likes of Janet Monk (1992) and Marina Warner (1987). They point out that our streets and squares are swamped with statues of men but hardly any women. Yes, the latter do appear, but almost always as abstract, moralising symbols which, according to Marina Warner, "hardly ever interact with real, individual women" (Warner 1987: 28).

With this in mind, Barton ought to have sought out real women who have distinguished themselves by their beautiful achievements rather than their beautiful breasts. Candidates might include the Emmeline Pankhurst memorial near the Houses of Parliament (Arthur George Walker, 1930). Or how about Mark Quinn's Alison Lapper Pregnant that once graced Trafalgar Square's "Fourth plinth" (Burch 2009)?

One positive outcome of The Guardian's bevy of beauties is the reactions of some online readers. They have used the list to promote statues of "missing" women. A case in point is crittero, who laments the lack of a public monument to Mary Wollstonecraft "'founder' of women's movement". Meanwhile, MissB1983 has provided a link to a very interesting article concerning "Women's erasure from women's memorials" (Dougherty 2011).

_________
References

Barton, Laura (2011) "Female forms", The Guardian, 25/08, accessed 27/08/2011 at,
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/aug/25/female-uk-sculptures-women
Burch, Stuart (2009) "Trafalgar Square: a public lecture", 09/08, talk given on Trafalgar Square's
    "fourth plinth" as part of Antony Gormley's One & Other (6th July - 14th October 2009). Transcript of talk.
Dougherty, Carolyn (2011) "Women's erasure from women's memorials", 16/06, the f word, accessed 27/08/2011 at,
    http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2011/06/womens_erasure_monuments
Monk, Janice (1992) "Gender in the landscape: expressions of power and meaning",
    in Kay Anderson and Fay Gale (eds.), Inventing Places: Studies in Cultural Geography,
    Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1992, pp. 123-138
Warner, Marina (1987) Monuments and Maidens. The Allegory of the Female Form, London, Pan Books

Heads you win...

24/8/2011

 
Golden Gaddafi
Question: What would be the most appropriate way to signal the end of a 42-year dictatorship?
Answer: By targeting those symbols most closely associated with the regime.

This is exactly what has occurred in Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's compound in the Libyan capital, Tripoli. Its walls have been breached and its defences overrun. And the dictator's decapitated head lolls beneath the feet of jubilant rebel fighters. But this is not the real thing. It's a golden substitute, hacked from the body of an idolatrous statue. Once the symbol of a despot's supremacy, this obscene portrait is now a simple full stop: the final, clinching proof that the tyrant's rule is over.


Gaddafi wanted
Now the hunt is on for the real head...
___________
Supplemental
20/10/2011

Events have now reached their inevitable, bloody conclusion. Colonel Gaddafi never did face justice - just the butts of rifles and the barrel of the gun that appears to have ended his life. Yet "[k]illing him is not enough", insists Alaa al-Ameri writing in the Guardian:

    We have to forget him. To do that we have to expunge his
    influence from every aspect of our lives. Only then can we
    be free of him.(1)

The idea of Gaddafi being utterly erased seems remote, not least given the grisly appeal of death and disaster tourism.(2) And would it be sensible to totally forget this monster? Surely the best way of safeguarding against some future Gaddafi would be to remember the terror and despair that he brought both to the people of Libya and to the citizens of other countries, not least the United Kingdom and the United States. Moreover, we would be wise to remember the cancerous influence he exerted on foreign powers - as exemplified by the actions of the former British premier, Tony Blair.(3)

The people of Libya can be forgiven for wishing to forget Gaddafi. But the people of Britain would do well to keep him in mind.

____
Notes

(1) al-Ameri, Alaa (2011) "Gaddafi is dead. We must now forget him", The Guardian, 20/10, accessed 20/10/2011 at, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/20/gaddafi-dead-libya
(2) See my blog posting, "Sites of sickening sights", 26/08/2011.
(3) Brady, Brian (2011) "Evidence grows of Blair's links with Gaddafi", The Independent, 18/09, accessed 20/10/2011 at, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/evidence-grows-of-blairs-links-with-gaddafi-2356576.html.

City of forgetfulness

24/8/2011

 
... the past had been systematically altered

"One could not learn history from architecture any more than one could learn it from books. Statues, inscriptions, memorial stones, the names of streets – anything that might throw light upon the past had been systematically altered."

George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (orig. pub. 1949), Penguin, 1969, p. 82

Monuments of the mind

20/8/2011

 
Hazlitt on monuments



William Hazlitt's dismissal of statues and other tangible monuments echoes Charles Dickens's desire to avoid being turned into stone.




What the dickens!

19/8/2011

 
            "I conjure my friends on no account to make me the subject of any
            monument, memorial, or testimonial whatever. I rest my claims
            to the remembrance of my country upon my published works..."

So stated Charles Dickens in his will dated 12 May 1869. But with the 200th anniversary of his birth rapidly approaching it would appear that his exhortations will be in vain. Portsmouth, the place of his birth, intends to erect a statue to be inaugurated in April next year.

If Dickens's express wishes are to be ignored, I suggest that a wall of books be erected around the monument. Only those who can demonstrate that they have read at least one of his stories should be allowed to creep between the covers to glimpse the great man of letters, "immovable as a statue" (The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, Macmillan, 1904 ed., p. 278).

This would at least ensure that Dickens's "claims to remembrance" remain based on his "published works".

Statues: mortals with superman (sic) potential

17/8/2011

 
Amundsen by Paulsen, Tromsø, 1937

I'm not a prophet or a stone age man
Just a mortal with potential of a superman
I'm living on

Bowie, David (1971) "Quicksand", Hunky Dory, Rykodisc, 05:03

Anders Behring Breivik is a quisling

11/8/2011

 
Oxford English Dictionary
Groups commemorate notable individuals in a variety of ways. This includes erecting tangible monuments (plaques, statues, obelisks and even whole buildings) as well as grave markers such as memorial headstones. But remembering also takes intangible or non-material form. An instance of this occurs every time the media reports the name of the latest recipient of a "Nobel prize". The award commemorates Alfred Nobel (1833-96), the person who initiated the scheme in his last will and testament. Of course, the fact that many people have never heard of Alfred Nobel is a reminder that forgetting is far more common than remembering.

Another important thing to remember (or forget) is that commemoration need not be a marker of praise. The word "quisling", for instance, means "a traitor to one's country" (OED 2007). It is derived from Vidkun Quisling (1887-1945), the so-called Minister-President of Nazi-occupied Norway. During the war his surname became synonymous with treasonable behaviour. Its use as a noun occurred first in The Times newspaper’s article entitled "Quislings everywhere" (15 April 1940, p.5).

Quisling is a less familiar word today, but it still has currency. It could quite legitimately be used in reference to Anders Behring Breivik (born 1979), a Norwegian whose extreme right-wing beliefs led him to murder 77 of his fellow citizens on 22nd July 2011.

-----------
OED (2007) "quisling, n. and adj." Third edition, December 2007; online version June 2011. <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/156777>; accessed 11 August 2011. An entry for this word was first included in A Supplement to the OED III, 1982.

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    an extinct parasite
    of several hosts
    Why parasite?

    Try the best you can

    Para, jämsides med.
    En annan sort.
    Dénis Lindbohm,
    Bevingaren, 1980: 90

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    Even a parasite like me should be permitted to feed at the banquet of knowledge

    I once posted comments as Bevingaren at guardian.co.uk

    Guggenheim New York, parasitized

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    Note    All parasitoids are parasites, but not all parasites are parasitoids
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