Richard's Online Journal
Last Moment of Social Pleasure
The following is an actual memorial from Bath Abbey. Not the greatest picture quality in the world, but I only saw it at the last second and had to quickfire. I don’t know who the hapless subject is, but I hope there’s a statue to the person who wrote this somewhere. Possibly a shrine…
Our father, who art somewhere, probably…
I love how every line of this is a back-handed tribute. It’s not only the wonderfully vague ‘Moment of Social Pleasure’, which probably just means ‘got pissed’, but throws up so many other possibilities. It’s the suggestion of “Hopefully he’s in Heaven, but, eh, y’know…” and the final slap of calling it a Humble Tablet. Yes, it may have been a friend writing a memorial for someone with a sense of humour, but I like to think of an angry stonemason, seething at having been emotionally blackmailed into stumping up money to commemorate the Village Git. (Respect for the dead? I’ve heard of it…)
Cheery last line too. Makes you think… cheer up!
Bath Abbey has a few of these unusual photo-spots. Most of the time, it’s your standard religious iconography, but a lot of them really amuse me. Take this apathetic angel for instance. You can almost hear the ringing of the sculptor’s ears after he was told to lose the half-smoked fag and Starbucks mug.
“What? It’s my coffee break.
Still, it’s all very pretty. For some reason, despite having been in Bath for over 8 years now, I’ve never gotten around to heading up to the top of the Abbey to see the place from the highest point. Despite the rain and the wind, today seemed like the time to do it. A hundred of the 200-odd steps up to the top, I started to rethink this — especially at the realisation that who goes up, must come down. If the Abbey really wants to boost its visitors, two words: Helter Skelter. Kids would love it.
I don’t know how much it costs to bribe the staff into letting you spin the wheels of the clock round at mad speed while shouting ‘THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH!’ to the terrified parishioners staring up in horror from street level, but it’s more than ?5.32. I asked.
Illusion of good weather kindly supplied by Photoshop
Other images up on Flickr, hidden amongst the 95,321,654 World of Warcraft screenshots. Note to self, must redress that balance…