Dear Dr Nicholas Penny (under the circumstances it doesn't seem quite right to address you as Nick), I came through your temple forecourt this morning.
It is true there was a lifesize dinosaur lashed with bright blue tape onto a low-loader beside the fountains; a party of Japanese tourists drinking paper cups of coffee on those peculiar benches, listening politely to a guide yelling about the battle of Trafalgar; a pavement artist perpetrating a Last Supper which might have caused Leonardo to take up accountancy instead; a St John Ambulance man shouting first aid tips from the plinth; and a sprawled man sleeping off the night before on that patch of grass directly below your window.
Give or take the man on the grass, I thought it was all rather jolly. But then I remember Trafalgar Square when it was greyer than a temple (there were at least moneychangers in the temple).
I came from Paris, where I was so entranced by the brand new Pompidou Centre that I spent two days in the building or just hanging around the square outside among the fire eaters, hippy bead sellers, jugglers, and pavement artists perpetrating terrible Leonardos - some things never change - in a blissful blur of art and street life. God forgive me, I'd never seen living statues before and I was entranced by them, too - I was very young.
Well, Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery weren't like that. With half a day to kill between boat trains I headed for the gallery, and spent a cold, wet hour in the square waiting for your doors to open.
The fountains were off, the rain was down, the pigeons were sodden, and there wasn't so much as a tea stall, never mind a Moroccan fire eater selling cardamom coffee. It was a useful decompression chamber for the greyness of Dublin in those days, but it made me wretched. By the time the doors did open I was so wet and miserable I hadn't the heart for art, and squelched off towards an earlier train.
Dr Penny, are you really sure you want that reverent, grey space back? I don't. But by all means have the living statues arrested.
It is true there was a lifesize dinosaur lashed with bright blue tape onto a low-loader beside the fountains; a party of Japanese tourists drinking paper cups of coffee on those peculiar benches, listening politely to a guide yelling about the battle of Trafalgar; a pavement artist perpetrating a Last Supper which might have caused Leonardo to take up accountancy instead; a St John Ambulance man shouting first aid tips from the plinth; and a sprawled man sleeping off the night before on that patch of grass directly below your window.
Give or take the man on the grass, I thought it was all rather jolly. But then I remember Trafalgar Square when it was greyer than a temple (there were at least moneychangers in the temple).
I came from Paris, where I was so entranced by the brand new Pompidou Centre that I spent two days in the building or just hanging around the square outside among the fire eaters, hippy bead sellers, jugglers, and pavement artists perpetrating terrible Leonardos - some things never change - in a blissful blur of art and street life. God forgive me, I'd never seen living statues before and I was entranced by them, too - I was very young.
Well, Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery weren't like that. With half a day to kill between boat trains I headed for the gallery, and spent a cold, wet hour in the square waiting for your doors to open.
The fountains were off, the rain was down, the pigeons were sodden, and there wasn't so much as a tea stall, never mind a Moroccan fire eater selling cardamom coffee. It was a useful decompression chamber for the greyness of Dublin in those days, but it made me wretched. By the time the doors did open I was so wet and miserable I hadn't the heart for art, and squelched off towards an earlier train.
Dr Penny, are you really sure you want that reverent, grey space back? I don't. But by all means have the living statues arrested.
