Angel of the South

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/7880889.stm

Personally, I'm unimpressed. That horse looks so wooden and will look even worse when its 50foot high. The rearing Invicta horse of Kent County Council would have been so much better.

Note, the "artist" is a former Turner Prize winner. Now, why am I not surprised by his design?

 

Totally agree Aaron, its a poor stance, also the horse should not have a bridle, it should look free and wild.
Looks a bit like one of those very poor, old paintings, that crop up from time to time on Antiques Road show, think they are by some geezer called, Stubbs?

 

Just wondering how its an Angel!!! Its a horse At least ours looks like an Angel...

 

Not seen the Angel of the North in person only pictures.

But it looks more like a rusting aircraft wing stuck on a figures back to me.
That aint no Angel.:D

Back to the white horse effort.

Why is it at Ebbsfleet, Not a part of Kent I am familiar with, but surely its nearly in London.

 

Its all about regeneration and showing off to visitors when they arrive on Eurostar. With a big white horse that looks like a My Little Pony toy. Great!

 

So, who is going to arrive at Ebbsfleet?
What is there for the continental visitor?

Surely everyone will go to St Pancras, and just wish the train had not wasted time stopping in EBBSFLEET.

It will end up like Ashford "International", and by passed.:hehe:

 

http://www.highspeed1.com/services/southeastern-railway/

Found this load of old pony,

Sounds very good, but how much will it cost to travel on and the usual poor old commuters will still be risking life and limb travelling everyday to London on a third world cattle truck railway.

 

Ebbsfleet is useful for us locals, its just off Junction 2 of the M25. At my last company the Directors had to go to France where the HQ was at a moment's notice and Ebbsfleet is a lot more accessible than Ashford.

Apparently there's a new town being planned for the area too. As if the Medway Valley area doesn't have enough housing built on the flood plains.

Still, a decent sculpture would have been preferable. A horse I don't mind, just not one with a bridle. I really wonder if the "artist" did any drawing at all.

 

As I said, its almost in London, probably will be one day, so why put the white horse of Kent there?

How about on the hills around where the tunnel comes out at Cheriton.

 

Well, youngdaisy will agree that when the Angel was proposed people were saying exactly the same kind of stuff about it. First I heard was when I attended a Christian Conference in Sunderland shortly after it had been commissioned and he referred to 'that unsightly, rusting aircraft wing up on the A1'. But there was a documentary done by Look North on it's 10th birthday and they went back to all the people who'd been on record slating it then and asked them if they still felt the same. The vast majority had developed quite an affection and pride in the monument.

But having said all that - I, too, thought that this horse reminded me too much of the plaster ornaments handed out at seaside bingo games years ago. Yuk!

 

The Angel of the North, whilst controversial at the time is at least a good piece of sculpture and in a fitting location.

The statue of the horse (note I said statue, not sculpture as the latter implies some work went into designing it) looks like a plastic children's toy.

Costing £2million....

 

One question.............WHY?

 

It sounds like the Christian Conference bloke described it very well. The first time I saw the angel of the north for real, my initial reaction was of horror that someone had been allowed to dump a load of sc r a p metal into a field, then I realised what it was.

The only saving grace as far as I'm concerned, is that in hundreds of years, some archealogists will find a piece of it, and conclude that we all worshipped it and sacrificed goats around it while dancing aound it naked in the moonlight. That would be quite funny.

What I don't understand is why we keep get loads of junk appearing all over the place. I've seen old bits of machinery mounted in the middle of roundabouts, someone put a very well corroded anchor on the promenade at redcar I noticed when I last went up that way, and now someone's made a huge horse thing for no good reason.

I wonder what would happen if I decided to sc r a p my car, and after dismantling it I put bits of it on roundabouts, on posts in town centres and the likes. I reckon I'd get done. Yet our tax is being used to pay for someone else to do more less exactly that.