Top 10 ironic tributes
John Rentoul celebrates a forger on a banknote; a pool named after a PM who drowned; and other incongruities
This list was proposed by Ian Reeve, inspired by the first two examples, both Australian.
1. Francis Greenway, the forger on a banknote. The “father of Australian architecture” features on the country’s $10 note, having been transported there after his conviction for forgery in Bristol in 1812.
3. Oliver Cromwell’s statue outside parliament. “He dismissed parliament when it started objecting to what he was doing and became the nearest thing to a military dictator we’ve ever had,” said David Boothroyd.
2. The Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Centre, Melbourne. Named after the prime minister of Australia who disappeared, presumed drowned, in 1967.
4. “I’m the Bishop of Southwark. It’s what I do.” For many years, a group of Anglicans have gathered in person or online in the second weekend of December, said Andrew Graystone. They mark the time when
Bishop Tom Butler was found in a tired and emotional state in the back of a stranger’s car close to London Bridge, and greet each other with the words he himself used on that mysterious night.
5. The World Peace Council, a Soviet front organisation. “It is ironic because the USSR spent the greatest proportion of its GDP on weapons of war of any major developed nation in peacetime,” said Paul T Horgan.
6. Trump Heights, currently a Potemkin billboard in the Golan; a planned Israeli settlement named after the US president and announced on his birthday in 2019. Nominated by Steven Fogel.
7. Spencer Perceval’s pension. “This might be a bit niche,” said David Boothroyd, as if that wasn’t the whole point of the exercise. After Perceval was assassinated, parliament granted his widow and children a massive pension, far more than they needed to live on, which was completely against the late prime minister’s principle of economy in public spending.
8. The Nobel Peace Prize, endowed by Alfred Nobel, who made money from explosives. Thanks to Richard Evans and Gareth Flynn.
9. Ed Balls Day. It is 28 April, to commemorate the day in 2011 that Ed Balls tweeted: “Ed Balls.” Nominated by BurnMarks1962.
10. The statue of the Duke of York. The second son of George III, and probably the Grand Old Duke of York of the nursery rhyme, is on a 124ft column off the Mall: widely held to be so tall so he could escape his creditors. Thanks to Robert Shrimsley.
Honourable mentions to Philip Redhair, for the Fry building, part of the new Home Office HQ on Marsham Street in London, named after Elizabeth Fry, a prominent campaigner against prison overcrowding, deportation and homelessness; and Luke Newton, for the Waterhouse, the Wetherspoons opposite Manchester town hall, named after Alfred Waterhouse, who designed the town hall (as well as London’s Natural History Museum), and who was a teetotal Quaker.
Next week: More Twitter jokes.
Coming soon: Greatest backings of someone before sacking them, starting with Thomas Cromwell, elevated to earl and Lord Great Chamberlain by Henry VIII four weeks before he was arrested for treason.
Your suggestions please, and ideas for future Top 10s, to me on Twitter, or by email to top10@independent.co.uk