Seriously, there are several less than
toy-soldier related posts today; all centered on the 'teeming metropolis' of
Fleet in Hampshire, but all with a cultural theme/element or some figural
connection which lead me to take the pictures I'm now offloading on your
unsuspecting ass!
We're starting with Fleet BID's follow-up
to last Christmas's nutcrackers, with a summer season of large fibre-glass
animal mouldings which were liberally chained-up round town to encourage people
into the town when they wanted to go to the beach - or just melt where they
lay!
Appearing over the weekend of the 21st/22nd
of July, ready for the 23rd, I found this one first, and I recon it's the
best, but if you're still reading you're welcome to disagree with me as we go
down the page . . . it's a giant hippopotamus!
Placed behind a bench (to make climbing on
it all the easier) it had a sign saying "Please do not sit on the animals"! That's the risk-assessor
wonks at the town-hall for you; pathetic.
Another three hundred yards and I
encountered King Kong's little brother! Scale's totally out with the hippo',
and this one is clearly designed to have two children sit on him at once (and
over the five or so weeks many did), one on his left knee, the other in his
right hand; despite another of the idiot-signs.
Realising 'the game was afoot', I crossed the
road and went into the mall, reasoning there was bound to be one or two in
there - missing the parrots (four doors down) completely!
What we call the 'glass menagerie' anyway
(Fleet's 'Mall') had a most disappointing thing pretending to be an elephant
and called 'Elephant', showing no clear signs of Asian or African
heritage/breed and a rather too-pink colour, even as a 'baby' elephant it's not
very good . . . but ride-able!
Out the other end of the mall and back
across the road I found this chap near the Library, he's supposed to be a grizzly,
but looks quite amiable to me, and he - obviously - has the same seating
arrangements for little people as the gorilla. 2nd best!
Nearby and almost opposite the Library I
found a fine lion with a mane that was about as good as you can get with
boat-building technology! I like the whiskers too!
I popped into the Town Hall to ask what was
going on, and they said "Nothing to
do with us, but they're fun aren't they, I've seen a Zebra in the Library and a
big monkey by the traffic lights!", and sure-enough I found this chap
hiding from the carpet-men round the back by the stage-entrance.
The 'big monkey' turned out to be a
Mandrill, but he was behind a highly-reflective window and I never got a good
shot of him, despite going back a few times!
The same was true of the parrots, which I
found on the way back through town that evening. Very well done, possibly resin
rather the fibre-glass, the deatil was finer and the painting, although
formulaic was very effective - they would look good in a garden, say;
half-hidden in a rhododendron?
After the refit in the café, the Zebra
moseyed-on through to the front of the building so he could be seen from the
car-park!
Meanwhile, the national press had an
identical gorilla causing all sorts of upset hundreds of miles away . . . with his 'bare' arse and beady-eyes! I wouldn't
call it a 'life-like' replica though, it's three times the size of the biggest
gorilla ever known - I'll bet; they are big, but not that big!
Obviously these things can be hired for
events or corporate 'stuff' and somewhere there's a warehouse or two full of
'em! I noticed the other day Basingrad has the nutcrackers, with new names -
don't worry I won't subject you to them again this year . . . I've giant jelly-babies
and woolly-mice lined-up instead!
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