Elf Blood

I’ve been meaning to write this musing for quite a while now – I was thinking about the Duke of Wellington statue in Glasgow, the one that sits outside the Gallery of Modern Art and is almost always adorned with a traffic cone hat (sometimes someone feels sorry for the horse and it gets a wee hat too).

Glasgow City Council went through a phase a few years ago of being absolutely OBSESSED with removing the traffic cones, and ensuring that no new cones were placed there (to absolutely no success, I am happy to report). Their thinking was that, for such a prominent figure in such a prominent place in the city, to have it sullied by drunken behaviour in public, in front of all the tourists, was doing the city a disservice.

The Glasgwegian population by and large has disagreed with the council, for one very good reason:

It’s feckin’ HILARIOUS.

It’s not as if somebody’s spray-painted a massive cock on the side of the plinth, or hacked off the statue’s head Bart-Simpson style. It’s a simple traffic cone. It’s ESPECIALLY funny if the horse gets one as well, because that’s Glasgow all over; we love fairness, and even though the horse is just, well, a horse, why doesn’t it deserve a wee hat of its own?

And, to be honest, the more that Glasgow City Council rails against the practice, the funnier it gets. As I was thinking about that the other night, it struck me – the traffic cone may have started out as a drunken bet, yes, but the meaning has morphed into something else altogether. It’s now a symbol of defiance, of standing up to authority, of not being pushed around and of offbeat humour.

Essentially, has the traffic cone on the Duke of Wellington’s head not itself become a work of art? Not only is it immediately identifiable, it is becoming an essential part of the city’s landscape – the Duke looks naked without his hat – and its very existence harbours a deeper meaning.

Or am I over-romanticising it? What  do you think? Is this art, or am I simply a sucker for creatively vandalised statues?

Either way, have a great weekend you guys, and I’ll see you on Monday! Toodles!

M.