I wonder why there are so many sculptures depicting humans and animals or fish? Does the chap paying wrestle with the problem of which to have and then think – I know, I’ll have ’em both?
There is the boy and dolphin at the north end of Battersea Bridge, the girl and dog in The Green Park outside the station and another boy and dolphin in Hyde Park. The dolphin looks pretty disgruntled.
It is by Alexander Munro, a prolific Pre-Raphaelite sculptor in the 1850s and 60s. He used his friend George MacDonald’s nine year-old son, Greville, as a model. While he was at work Lewis Carroll dropped in and suggested to the boy that he swapped heads with the sculpture, the principle advantage being that he wouldn’t have to comb his hair. This found favour with him. He subsequently found another plus, namely that the boy wouldn’t be able to talk. Greville was less enthusiastic about the swap.
If you’d like to bag another Munro you need go no further than Berkeley Square and take a look at his Lansdowne Fountain; not sure who his model is this time.
Now I know we all like a tipple but this is ridiculous:
PORNSTAR MARTINI £10.00
Ketel One Vodka, passion fruit liqueur, passion fruit purée, cloudy apple juice, vanilla syrup, Blanc De Blancs.
It’s on the menu at Brasserie Blanc but I couldn’t order it for myself – it would have to be for a stud muffin. (A guy or girl who is beautiful and sexy to the opposite sex. A stud muffin is usually extremely cute and cuddly, and is a lover not a fighter.)
Meanwhile my personalised number plates have arrived. Genealogists may point out that B6 would be more accurate.
Personalised number plates ???
That is worse than fitted carpets………….
I can see the purpose of fitted carpets – however need to be enlightened as to the purpose of personalised number plates ? Solution to identity crisis?
Personalized number plate indeed………….what next engraved gold identity bracelet? It is all so ‘Del Boy’.
An engraved gold bracelet is a fine thing. Good enough for Noel Coward, not least in “In Which We Serve”. My wife frowned on mine and now I go about without any jewellery. It cd hardly be claimed that it is somehow un-aristocratic to be flashy – indeed vulgarity is one of the commonest guises and poses of some of the poshest people. Like many snobs I am common enough to fear I cannot pulling real display, though.
Your German princely memories prompt me to wonder if you know Richard Hughes’s “Fox in the Attic”. It is a rare piece of sustained (but quite muscular) poetic novel writing and has the sort of encounter you allude to.
I have found my battered Penguin edition of Fox in the Attic and must re-read it.