TV clip to induce vertigo
A BBC video clip comes this way showing a bloke scaling Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square, London. It’s scary stuff, not recommended viewing for anyone who, like me, experiences vertigo.
The climber is a BBC staffer who is going up a very narrow ladder to interview a group of fellows who do this regularly to clean the pigeon droppings off Lord Nelson.
The raindrops of London are not enough to wash off the pigeon drops. He needs a good scrub every few years. It would not do for the hero of Trafalgar to think he’s back on the poop deck.
The narrow ladder is nothing compared with getting over the considerable overhang of the plinth on which Nelson stands, hundreds of metres up in the air. Hair-raising stuff.
Then, having interviewed the work gang (who perform similar tasks at high altitude all over London), he gets into a bosun’s chair – an arrangement of ropes and pulleys – and slowly and agonisingly winches himself down again to terra firma.
And with him in all this, though of course unseen, is his cameraman.
Bravo – but give us a break! This is terrifying stuff.
And – can you believe it? – this was a feature on BBC children’s television.
It was filmed way back in 1970 and is available on the internet in bundles of old footage.
Worth watching if you’ve got a head for heights.
Blast from the past
WOW, I was in London in 1970, in my callow youth. What fun! Monty Python’s Flying Circus on the telly, the pubs emptying late at night as people went home to watch. The Barry “Bazza” McKenzie cartoon strip in Private Eye – the Aussie hero on a visit to London in his Outback hat, corks dangling from the brim to keep away the flies.
There I strode down the Earl’s Court Road,
When this nosy Pon said: ‘Where’re you from?’
So I told him straight: ‘Australia mate, And I feel like gettin’ plastered.
The beer’s all crook and the sheilas look Like you, you Pommy bastard!’
Lotsa laughs – them wuz the days! And for Monty Python fans: A feature on TV interviews John Cleese and other surviving members of the cast, along with the hilarious sketches, explaining how it all happened. Fascinating stuff.
It was an era of English comedy that sadly seems to have vanished. The Two Ronnies, Steptoe and Son … there’s nothing like them today, just a lot of coarse humbug.
But there is TV and those bundles of footage from the past. That’s the way to go, folks, for real entertainment.
Tailpiece
NELSON was 5 feet four inches. His statue on top of the column in London is 18 feet.
That’s Horatio of about 3:1.
Last word
I CAN’T bring myself to say: “Well, I guess I’ll be toddling along.” It isn’t that I can’t toddle. It’s just that I can’t guess I’ll toddle. | ROBERT BENCHLEY