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Obliterated By Time
Jul. 23rd, 2008 07:01 pmThe Wilton Road exit of Victoria underground - why exactly was it closed for a fortnight? They've not even stuck up electricity-hungry mediatronic ad screens, which seems to be the main 'improvement' visible after all the other disruptive works on the station, or replaced the broken tiles on the floor.
The British Museum's Hadrian exhibition is well worth a look if you get chance. It's nothing like as caught up in tendentious claims of contemporary 'relevance' as the advance press could suggest - yes, we get it, Hadrian pulled out of Mesopotamia aka Iraq. And Rome was very dependent on olive oil. And...the Wall has something to do with the rise of the SNP, maybe? Forget that, all of it. If you get chance, read Marguerite Yourcenar's literal ghostwrite of Hadrian's Memoirs* beforehand, that'll bring you closer to how much he has in common with us simply by being recognisable as a human and an individual across all that gulf of years. Somehow it helps that one of the statues of him - the only one native to Britain - is rubbish, making him look like a monkey. The most impressive one's at the entrance, fragments only pulled from the Turkish sands within the last year, unseen between Then and Now. Flawed and human, but with all that gulf of years...it brings time home to you, or it did to me. Surprisingly few things can do that.
The statues of his lover Antinous are interesting. The giant head is beautiful, but the one of Antinous as Osiris is a puzzler. I've never seen a statue look embarrassed before; noble, nonplussed, even long-suffering like the !William Huskisson statue in Pimlico Gardens, but never like they'd been caught in a sex-game by someone inappropriate. And really, who makes a statue of a male lust object as Osiris with a notable bulge under the loincloth in place of said god's mythical lack? These Romans were crazy!
What else? Some giant metal peacocks from Hadrian's mausoleum - I wondered whether people living in an age before Ray Harryhausen would have been as certain they were about to come to life. And a glass bowl from the Jewish revolt which didn't even look old, much less historical; if you found it you'd just use it for fruit, not call a museum. That says so much more about the relevance of history than some cheap line about the turbulence of the Middle East.
Guy's hospital is so much more impressive and ominous than the cheap facsimile they had the Judoon nick in Doctor Who, isn't it? I do wish they didn't always have to use the London Borough of Cardiff, it's really not an adequate substitute.
*Her manuscript is there, tucked away to the side of the route in, easily missed.
The British Museum's Hadrian exhibition is well worth a look if you get chance. It's nothing like as caught up in tendentious claims of contemporary 'relevance' as the advance press could suggest - yes, we get it, Hadrian pulled out of Mesopotamia aka Iraq. And Rome was very dependent on olive oil. And...the Wall has something to do with the rise of the SNP, maybe? Forget that, all of it. If you get chance, read Marguerite Yourcenar's literal ghostwrite of Hadrian's Memoirs* beforehand, that'll bring you closer to how much he has in common with us simply by being recognisable as a human and an individual across all that gulf of years. Somehow it helps that one of the statues of him - the only one native to Britain - is rubbish, making him look like a monkey. The most impressive one's at the entrance, fragments only pulled from the Turkish sands within the last year, unseen between Then and Now. Flawed and human, but with all that gulf of years...it brings time home to you, or it did to me. Surprisingly few things can do that.
The statues of his lover Antinous are interesting. The giant head is beautiful, but the one of Antinous as Osiris is a puzzler. I've never seen a statue look embarrassed before; noble, nonplussed, even long-suffering like the !William Huskisson statue in Pimlico Gardens, but never like they'd been caught in a sex-game by someone inappropriate. And really, who makes a statue of a male lust object as Osiris with a notable bulge under the loincloth in place of said god's mythical lack? These Romans were crazy!
What else? Some giant metal peacocks from Hadrian's mausoleum - I wondered whether people living in an age before Ray Harryhausen would have been as certain they were about to come to life. And a glass bowl from the Jewish revolt which didn't even look old, much less historical; if you found it you'd just use it for fruit, not call a museum. That says so much more about the relevance of history than some cheap line about the turbulence of the Middle East.
Guy's hospital is so much more impressive and ominous than the cheap facsimile they had the Judoon nick in Doctor Who, isn't it? I do wish they didn't always have to use the London Borough of Cardiff, it's really not an adequate substitute.
*Her manuscript is there, tucked away to the side of the route in, easily missed.
Tags:
- doctor who,
- gay,
- gods,
- hadrian,
- jewish,
- london,
- marguerite yourcenar,
- peons,
- ray harryhausen,
- rome,
- time,
- wtf
