About Andrew Cusack
Writer, web designer, etc.; born in New York; educated in Argentina, Scotland, and South Africa; now based in London. read more
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The Meeting Place
A Bigoted, Drunken Rant
by the Hon. Alexander Shaw
WANDERING AROUND St. Pancras International railway station today, I came across Paul Day’s ‘The Meeting Place.’ The much acclaimed, £1m, nine-meter-high statue of a couple embracing is, at a glance, a nice image for a railway station — a theme of reunion and all that. But looking up at the gargantuan PDA, I started to realise that this was actually an audacious assault on sovereignty and a shameless celebration of European supremacy over Britain.
Note: jacket sleeves.
Note: single vent and effete rucksack.
Let me explain. Firstly, a collaboration of subtle indicators led me to conclude that neither of the figures depicts a Brit. He wears a suit which doesnt’t fit, his jacket has a single (rather than double), vent and he contrives to wear a (rather scruffy, effete) backpack — which the Englishman who has the self-respect to wear leather shoes with his suit and maintain a girlfriend just wouldn’t. His hair is neatly cut, too.
Note: trouser legs.
And then there’s the fantasy of ‘social progress.’ The girl: mid-thirties, no ring on her finger (as far as I could make out), and wearing clothes which would, frankly, preclude from scrubbing behind the fridge. My guess is that she is the sort who would put her kids in child care so she can work in middle management. The meeting is taking place at around six o’clock (she’s been in the office all day, hence the professional attire. He’s come to her, hence the luggage, and neither are smart enough to be going out for the evening). So they’re both junior or mid-ranking professionals, neither is wealthy and she’s got a biological clock to appease — but not at the expense of a career, thank you very much. He’s semi-itinerant, not much of a breadwinner and probably unable to commit himself to her more than once in a while (as their passionate PDA might suggest). I smell an illicit affair. Very glamorous, Mr. Day — you’ve stuck a nine-meter monument to the fraying fabric of our national society in the international rail terminus, hanging our dirty washing out for our European visitors to see.
But it’s worse than that, because I haven’t really started on my race rant yet. Paul Day, who now lives in France (a sign of perhaps dubious loyalties), said that he wanted the figures to be ‘out of time and out of race.’ Now, it’s not as if I’m concerned that these two might be from East of the Rhine — it is that they are from positively nowhere. Their faces look like something from an Aztec wall painting and, I’m sorry, but ‘out of race’ in this instance simply means that the couple appear to both be suffering from a chromosome defect. If you really want to celebrate multi-ethnicity, just make one of them black or something. And to stuff them both into Western clothing — oh dear oh dear. This ‘pan-occidental ambiguity’ is symptomatic of a very dark movement indeed which is gathering momentum in the continental hinterland: European Nationalism.
So to conclude, we have two foreigners (both of them probably French) smooching in our international railway station. If one were obviously French and one British, it might be an elegent and fitting tribute to the rare Anglo-French collaboration which lead to the construction of the Channel Tunnel. But no. What we have here is a foreign orgy — and celebration of societal collapse — in a British public building and at British public expense. It would be like getting the Enclos-St-Laurent arrondissement to erect a statue of Horatio Nelson in Gare du Nord. I’m only glad that the statue of the Great British poet John Betjeman — which stands about fifty yards away — has its back turned.
John Betjeman. One can just see ‘The Meeting Place’ to the left.
Day, for his part, seems immensely proud of his work around London. Admittedly, some of it is very good.
“I can go to the Embankment and stand by my sculpture, the Battle of Britain monument, and feel like I own a part of London,” he says.
Well, Mr. Day, I could go to the Champs-Elysées, defecate on the pavement and feel like I own a part of Paris. Actually, I think I will.
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Very intresting, but very paranoid. I’m curious, however; is this some kind of veiled commentary on the Royal Wedding?
Not merely interesting, but delightfully quirky and original. I hope Mr Shaw will favour Mr Cusack (and us) with further oddments from his intellectual, well, rucksack.
Although I fully endorse Baron Hetterscheidt’s comment, I am forced to add a caveat: why the negative description of the nature of the young Hon’s forceful protest by, presumably, the esteemed Mr Cusack? It is pernicious to describe a perfectly sensible comment about what is in fact a dismal piece of public sculpture as “a bigoted, drunken rant”, even in jest. The piece is acceptably well written: no sign of drunkenness then. And it is clearly the work of an intelligent and perceptive critic; one which only the Guardian or its lapdog the Observer would describe as “bigoted.”
Are you spending too much time in the heart of darkness Mr Cusack?
For the sake of clarity, I will reveal that it was the author who titled the piece, not your humble & obedient servant.
Well then, it is the Hon himself who must be told to buck up!
Never, but never (the stakes are too high), pander to the real bigotry of the Left.
We are right, and they are wrong (in this case it really is that simple), and must be faced down, stared down and ultimately smashed down on every possible occasion.
Yes I know, Brits don’t do that, which is exactly why they have come so perilously close to losing their own country.
Preamble withdrawn.
Andrew …
Quite a coincidence that you posted this “review” of the sculpture at London St. Pancras International … I was in The Capital last week, and after alighting from the 13:30 Brussels EuroStar, I was taken aback by this so-called “art installation.” For a moment I thought it some sort of temporary joke … it looked like some tacky Las Vegas casino adornment. I couldn’t even look at for long, and I hurried by to get out of the madness of St. Pancras to find a calmer tube station at Russell Square where I could continue my journey to Ealing Broadway.
Groeten uit Limburg …
Dear Mr Shaw,
Bravo! I look forward with keen interest to those of your reflections which you may care to offer Mr Cusack for publication on his esteemed blog. Or, perhaps you will start your own?
The woman could be French, and in that case not neccesarily coming from the office. I have unemployed cousins who would still wear a pencil skirt and fitted jacket just to look smart. The man doesn’t dress like a Frenchman because his suit doesn’t fit well, and Frenchmen in suits don’t usually carry backpacks. If I were to try and place their nationalities, I would say French woman and possibly German man, a sign of post WWII reconciliation? or American man, then I’m not sure the significance.
I know I am somewhat visually challenged but Betjeman’s waistcoat looks buttoned up (or down)!