On Wednesday morning, in order to avoid some horrible central London traffic on my way to Bloomsbury, I was driven on a devious route that went through Admiralty Arch. For those who don’t know it, this arch is a grossly monumental building dating from the height of the British Empire, round about 1910 (you can see the Roman numerals at the top of the first photograph). It sits on the corner of Trafalgar Square, a gateway down The Mall, the wide avenue with coral-coloured asphalt that features in every state procession to or from Buckingham Palace.
As I say, the traffic was awful. We were sitting there trying to get into Trafalgar Square for five or ten minutes. After a while, I noticed the lampposts:
They have little galleons on top , with the wind in their sails. They’re all heading down The Mall, in the direction of the palace. The inscription is E-RI, for king Edward VII, Emperor of India. Edward’s mother, Queen Victoria, was the first Empress of India. Her daughter the Princess Royal had married the German Kaiser – or emperor – Friedrich III, and with Victoria a mere queen her daughter (confusingly also called Victoria) now outranked her at the dinner table. The prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, made the queen Empress of India and equilibrium was restored.
The base of each post is supported by dolphins’ tails and scallop shells.
I hope I haven’t got the chronology of this all wrong: I assume the lampposts date from the construction of Admiralty Arch, somewhere around 1910. It’s sad we couldn’t build lampposts like this today, neither as innocent nor as decorative; of course we’ve had two world wars and a severe case of modernism since 1910. In the years leading up to the First World War, propriety may have stopped the designer adding mermaids draped in seaweed; there surely must have been some limit to whimsy in those days. Or is it an example of cool British equanimity: in Belfast and up in Scotland, the Admiralty was building the Dreadnought-class battleships that were to win the battle of Jutland in 1916, while in London it was decorating the streets with tiny bronze-cast galleons inspired by a Peter Pan illustration or a Gilbert & Sullivan stageset.
Before you get to one-armed, one-eyed Admiral Nelson on his perch in Trafalgar Square, you pass Captain James Cook. He has all his limbs and looks as if he’s discovering something – in that overcoat, probably not Hawaii.
A Bad Guide 
of course we’ve had two world wars and a severe case of modernism since 1910
=)
Great post!
I always think about all the great craftsmen that made this kind of things.
One could imagine the translucent part of the lamp to be made of an ostrich egg from some part of the Empire, most probably East Africa – though not from Tanganyika, which was still German in 1910. Or maybe it is made of an elephant bird’s egg, though Madagascar was then part of another empire.
What can be read on a plate at the feet of a statue burning under Port-Louis’ scorching sun:
Edward VII
by the grace of God, of the
United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland
and of all the British
dominions beyond the seas,
king, defender of the faith
emperor of India
died at Buckingham palace
on the 6th May 1910
Were these London artefacts put there after or before his death?
One thing I heard many years ago is that the then Prince of Wales was used to live a relatively dissolute life in France and was known by ces dames, or some of them, under the nickname of “Doudou”, which obviously comes from the name Édouard, and that sweet name was said to have been used again after he was crowned king and emperor. But I haven’t been able to find anything on this, be it on the internet.
That’s because doudous are now extinct.
I was struck by the date being formulated as MDCCCCX. I can’t remember having seen four consecutive C’s in a Roman numeral. I would have expected MCMX, but it seems that both forms are acceptable. Of course MDCCCCX is more expansive and imperial.
Calligraphers – or at least those “in the know” never use subtraction in Roman numerals. It was quite shocking to go from mdcccclxxxxviiii to just mm. You can’t use them to do math if you introduce subtraction. The only exception might be in the sorts of inscriptions that cleverly conceal dates by working the letters of a Roman numeral into a common-or-garden text.
And looking at that photo, even though the letters are barely in it, it rather looks to me as though an I might have fallen off the end? Or what are those black spots after the X?
I highly commend you for producing something so interesting and beautiful from being stuck in traffic.
More! More!
I do apologise – I see they are extraneous interpoints. Sorry.
Thanks for the math explanation. I know it’s usually IIII rather than IV on clock and watch faces.
an elephant bird’s egg
Hmm. I’m going to have to look that up.
Sig, it says on Wikipedia that Edward VII had it built as a memorial to his mum, queen Victoria, but I think that’s absurd. My mother, for example, would certainly not want to be remembered by Admiralty Arch. I know she’d much prefer some crocuses or daffodils planted in grass.
Here‘s one for sale.
Ø, so I could have bought one. It’s good to know they are attributed to Aston Webb, though I’ve got my doubts that it’s true and, anyway, as Julia would I’m sure agree, I think the craftsmen or women who actually made them deserve equal credit with the person who sketched it.
I remember with great pleasure a comedy sketch from my childhood. A row of Roman sailors were ordered to number off.
“aye”; “aye, aye”; “aye, aye, aye”; “aye vee”; ….
In those days you could assume that the kiddy-winkies would get the joke.
AJP, there is one question you might need to ask yourself first: is your mother an empress?
I see that you eventually removed the -e in Cook’s name – e-cooking is not quite up and running yet.
He has all his limbs and looks as if he’s discovering something – in that overcoat, probably not Hawaii.
If I’m not mistaken, the first time he travelled to the other side of our planet he went to Tahiti to observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the sun. He couldn’t have worn that coat there either, be it in Tahiti or on Venus, where the temperature is above 450 °C.
… 450 °C not being a mere Fahrenheit 451, but 842 ºF (for those who might need the conversion from metric to imperial units)…
The most useful lesson I learned from Latin at school was that derision was an entirely sensible response to People in Authority advancing dim-witted reasons for doing things. I have in mind the idiocy of “It will help you guess the meaning of unfamiliar English words if you know their Latin origins”.
On the other hand it does mean that I can, laboriously and approximately, translate bits of medieval Latin found in in old churches and on degree certificates. This is poor reward for the hours otherwise fruitlessly spent.
P.S Our poor wee primrose is buried by an inch of snow, with more falling.
the idiocy of “It will help you guess the meaning of unfamiliar English words if you know their Latin origins”
I adhered to that .principle many decades ago. In the meantime, I have met many non-academic Germans who had no trouble learning hundreds of un-Germanic Fremdwörter like Detektiv, Klima, Chaos, Hygiene. It’s a puzzle, though, what fremd is supposed to mean.
Familiar German words only occasionally derive from Latin/Greek, so they already are no help in guessing the meaning of unfamiliar German words of Latin/Greek derivation. You just learn the damn things, und fertig.
“It’s a puzzle, though, what fremd is supposed to mean” … since these are everyday German words. Lurking in the word Fremdwort is a kind of appeal to remain aware of impurities (“the language of our race”). It’s not the fault of linguists in general that the word has taken on this extra connotation.
I have this story from my son, who heard it from several eyewitnesses. A college professor of Central European origin once puzzled some students by the way she pronounced the word chaos. It sounded to them like cows. Well, okay, the final sibilant was unvoiced–but, being used to her accent, they knew that that was in fact exactly how she would have said cows. She said the puzzling word a number of times, and she seemed not to notice the students’ startled looks and questioning sideways glances.
The German word Chaos, spoken quickly, might well sound like “cows” to an American.
The “-ao-” in the German Chaos is dipththong, whereas the English word “chaos” is pronounced “KAY-oss”.
is a diphthong
might well sound like “cows” to an American
Yes, especially in the middle of an English sentence.
I think that the speaker was Hungarian, but I imagine you could get the same effect with almost any language other than English.
Chaos in Laos.
Does anyone in Britain say “LAY-oss”? In the US we do say “lay-Ocean” for the adjective, but our Laos is more like other peoples chaos.
Among the Hmong?
When I lived in Germany, there was a Polish or Hungarian construction manager who used to warn us against actions that in his opinion would result in “komplett Cows”.
Lots of people used to say “Lay-oss” in Britain, similar to “Lagos”, in Nigeria, (but no G). I’ve got no idea which is “right”, but nowadays I’d probably say “louse”, like with wood-lice.
In the days when “Chaos in Laos” was a potential headline, the wags pronounced it Kouse in Louse.
I’ve never heard a non-wag pronounce it.
There’s another thing that might make the word sound like “cows”, if pronounced by a non-German English-speaker. The final -s in Chaos is “s” as in “hiss”, not “z” as in “cowz”.
It just struck me that it cleverly combines the two major (later) cultural connotations of lampposts, Lili Marleen and Narnia.
Where does Narnia come in? I’m a bit rusty.
That’s exactly the right question. The Lamp-post.,
I’m not that much of a Narnia aficionado, by the way. It’s just that I happen to live nearby.
My daughter (a big “aficionada”) would be thrilled
it cleverly combines …
What cleverly combines them?
Hey, don’t make me explain art!
The lamppost is posed outside the admiralty as if it were the barracks of Lili Marleen’s boyfriend, and the ship on top looks exactly like the Dawn Treader.
Oh, I see. I should have googled Lili Marleen before asking. Alles klar.
On a totally different subject: there are occasional news stories about parents whose competitive urges boil over in connection with children’s hockey games, or baseball games, or soccer games, but Easter egg hunts?
Egging them on? Or only giving ovations?
local man dies
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/News/St-Neots-Lord-of-the-Manor-Peter-Rowley-dies-20130327084046.htm
They still use Common Land in St Neots.
http://common-land.com/lands/view/6399
I find it hard to believe this so-called St Neots is the largest town in the new, improved Cambridgeshire that includes Huntingdonshire and probably Rutland and many other small counties with long histories. I’ve never heard of St Neots. I noticed there was no mention of wallabies in that article.
Adults are mad for chocolate at this time of year so I’m not surprised that fights break out at Easter-egg hunts. I saw today that our local Turkish shop will be open throughout Easter, very unusual for Norway. Thank God for multicultural societies.
Isle of Ely, Soke of Peterborough, …
Excitement – we’ve just seen a handsome heron in the garden. The year is rolling round.
Dearie, don’t you ever take pictures of these things in your garden? How do we know they’re true? It could have been a pigeon. Not that there’s anything wrong with pigeons.
We had a turkey in our garden today, but I didn’t take a picture.
Someday I will show you a picture of some horribly out of place streetlamps.
I don’t take photos though my beloved sometimes does.
Anyhoo, here’s a terse translation.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/debt-crisis-live/9956271/Cyprus-bailout-live.html
Correction: I did use to take holographic photographs back in the day when that was very high tech. Otherwise, except when obliging tourists, I don’t take photos.
I read the Telegraph is going behind a paywall. I do think it’s shocking how the banks are stealing the Cypriots’ money and giving it to the government. If they don’t give interest on deposits and they don’t give credit I can’t see the point of banks.
I’d be happy to be outraged by your streetlamps, Ø. A wild turkey? How interesting, I think they’re very nice birds. They’re having a programme about turkeys on the box now, but I’m too tired to watch it.
I watch TV when I’m too tired to do other things.
This turkey comes and stares in through the big sliding glass door. Sometimes Tesi feeds it.
There’s one long street in town that has a special kind of lamppost and also a special kind of street sign that I haven’t seen elsewhere. I don’t think they were always there; I think they appeared 10 or 20 years ago. I wonder what the history is. There must be a story. What I imagine is that some well-meaning soul had the bright-sounding idea of sprucing this area up and sold this idea to the town council. Maybe they did not seek professional advice on how to do it. It comes across to me as the equivalent of sad little party hats. Decorations suggestive of, I don’t know, somebody’s idea of ye olde London Towne of an unspecified era, but applied to an area, I won’t say neighborhood even, that isn’t especially urban-looking, a sort of sprawling commercial strip. And worst of all these spindly black vertical structures are seen against a background of multitudes of long horizontal utility cables strung from pole to pole as far as the eye can see, completely spoiling any chance of a good effect. On the street where we live you’ve got street signs on little poles at the corner of the block, and street lights on taller poles, and wires strung between wooden poles, and it’s just there not bothering anybody, looking like everyday background stuff, minding its own business. Whereas in this other place the decorative stuff somehow calls out to me looking embarrassed and sad and out of place.
I don’t usually react so strongly to matters of design, but this pushes some button within me.
Like dearieme, I’m not the photographer in the family.
Not that button – push the other one to take the picture !
So turkeys strolling through your back garden are to the Boston area what apparently foxes are now to London. You must ask Tesi to take a picture next time she sees it and put it on your blog. We’ve got one of those old-fashioned lampposts down the road from us. They never seem convincing. When I see them they just remind me of garden centres. There’s a movement in London boroughs now to limit the amount of ‘street furniture’ (I don’t regard it as furniture, it’s more like old kitchen appliances), so they’re ripping out the railings that prevent pedestrians falling off the sidewalks-slash-pavements and the indecypherable signage about parking regulations. It will be necessary soon, because we’re all going to be driving these things.
Stu, that’s the camera to buy! Mine has hundred of functions I’ll never need (and if I did need them, I’d have to know half-an-hour beforehand).
I don’t think I could ever trust a robotic car. Robotic surgery does not seem to be idiot-proof. Possibly Tesi did take pictures during this week’s turkey encounter.
Next time I see those incongruous Olde-Fashioned lampposts I will close my eyes and think of Narnia.
Robotic surgery should only be conducted on other robots.
I don’t take pictures either. I googled for that one in my neighbourhood.
My wife takes pictures, or she did for a time for her blog. It was too easy taking lots of pictures with the digital camera and way too much work picking and choosing, and then trying to write something funny after being thoroughly fed up, so she stopped blogging.
People think it’s easy and we make tons of money sitting on satin sofas eating soft-centred chocolates all day long, but it’s a very, very tough life blogging.
It’s tough precisely becuase of those soft-centered chocolates and the satin sofa coverings. Chocolates make you fat and lazy, the coverings wear out quickly and are expensive to replace. When you only drink coffee and sit on a wooden chair, as I do, blogging is a healthy, low-cost breeze.
A lampost (and other stuff) I saw in London. By pure chance — it was quite a surprise to recognize something without having ever been on the spot before.
=)
One of many services to the community offered by A Bad Guide…
Ha! That’s wonderful, Sig! I’ll think of you next time I’m there.
…and thanks, Julia. I’m sorry I didn’t see this until now. I must try to keep up.