So, after over 200 years of waiting, the profoundly overdue creation of a statue honouring the great polymath Mary Wollstencraft - the undoubted pioneer of feminism - has been unveiled...

Spoiler:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/10/insulting-to-her-mary-wollstonecraft-sculpture-sparks-backlash

Interestingly one of the points I gained in my work Zoom quiz triumph this lunchtime was for knowing that MW wrote Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

I actually really like Maggi Hambling.

Well, her work at least.

She's a pretty formidable old boot in all honesty.

I do feel that she's pushed the 'qu**r' envelope a bit far on this one though.

Also, facially, it looks considerably like MH than it does MW.

They didn't even include a model of Frankenstein, and that's her only good book.

Meanwhile, Turkmenistan’s president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has just unveiled a gisnt statue of his favorite dog pic.twitter.com/NSlIlXbAoH

— Piotr Zalewski (@p_zalewski) November 12, 2020

It's probably got a grim and depressing undertow to it that story.

I'm pretty sure that the president of Turkmenistan is deranged despot.

It's like Caligula making his horse a senator.

Or Judge Cal creating Judge Fish.

I find the stans a bit of a mystery. Despite my natural aptitude for geography, I could only place them on a map in the right place, but not necessarily labeled correctly. I would like to have a proper look around the white and gold city - whichever of them that's in. It looks like someone from Essex and someone from the Soviet Union collaborated as best they could. White Gold indeed.

Can tramps sleep on it?

That is the only condition relative to the worth of public 'art' such as this.

That said, speaking as a non-(full time)-tramp I would say that it is conceptually and aesthetically - and objectively - naff to an almost emetic level.

I don't like them, I want to straighten the books out before they get permanently bent.

My dislike of cast in metal statues continues unabated, with the unveiling of the latest addition to our great capital. I've never seen one I actually like, and I still haven't. It's apparently coupled with an art form in one of my equally disliked art forms - poetry. I can't help feeling 'The Measure of a Man' belongs in a book, safely contained for those who care to enjoy poetry to do so in their own leisure time.

I'm assuming you're referring to the Lady Di one.

It's not the worst I've seen, but it's not artistic, interpretive or daring enough.

Much too bland and safe (for a decidedly middle class palate basically), yet still naff and mawkish (for the plebs).

A municipal triumph no doubt.

I am. No, it's not totally offensive. It's just 'there', doing nothing for no reason. Her legs were much better than that.

It's not for me to critique her family, but having buried a famously lonely girl alone on an island, they've now made a woman who achieved glamour look like a Fulham mummy walking through a supermarket car park with her kids.

Correction: other people's kids.

Clare Balding is trending on Twitter.

Because of people saying it looks like her.

I do not feel it does.

The Call of the Wendigo wrote:

Clare Balding is trending on Twitter.

Because of people saying it looks like her.

I do not feel it does.

It does actually.

Nightjar wrote:

Correction: other people's kids.

Yes. Other peoples kids. Possibly a statue concept more suited to Madonna.