Trafalgar Square’s health hazards

Greater London Authority officials moved on artist Ken Howard in Trafalgar Square, warning that people might trip over his easel. What other serious menaces might one encounter there? Trafalgar Square is not a safe place. It is so unsafe, in fact, that within three minutes of arriving there a pigeon hit me slap in the face. Then, as the bird beat a sluggish retreat, a gaggle of Spanish tourists began to laugh at me, adding insult to facial pigeonry. Greater London Authority officials were not on hand to help me. They were elsewhere, possibly protecting the square from an even greater menace: Royal Academy artist Ken Howard OBE, who, it was reported yesterday , had been moved on by officials insisting that someone could trip over his easel. Annoyed, Howard told reporters: “If these people had been around in previous generations, we wouldn’t have paintings by Monet, Whistler, Sisley or Boudain.” Quite how British local government officials in the late 19th century would have stopped Monet painting a pheasant is unclear, but the man does have a germ of a point. In the course of one short visit to Trafalgar Square yesterday, I counted 10 considerably more serious menaces. 1 Pigeons. See above. No-fly zones begin at home. 2 Street performer. A man juggling with knives . Police did nothing. 3 Massive ship in a bottle. Totally out of scale. This could easily confuse a stupid person into thinking they’ve become a giant, and then crushing someone. 4 Bath full of foamy, semi-naked vegan women. They were making a point about how a single steak has the same environmental impact as 50 baths, apparently. All I know is I was distracted and could easily have fallen over. 5 Weird Olympic clock. Counts backwards and doesn’t tell the real time. Potentially fatal to people who schedule insulin injections using faulty commemorative timepieces. 6 Giant concrete steps. Whose great idea was it to put these next to the semi-naked vegans? 7 Fountains. Mum always used to warn that you can drown in 2in of water. There’s around 2ft of water in these death traps. That’s enough to drown 12 times. 8 Huge lions. Sure, they’re made of brass for now . But what happens when lightning hits? They’re also way too tall. Fall off one and your lion-riding days are over. 9 This woman. Who is she? She could literally do anything . 10 This bloke in a suit. That’s a coffee he’s holding. A scalding-hot face-melting coffee. Someone needs to get in there and pin him to the ground asap. I’m looking at you, “the police”. London Painting Art Tom Meltzer guardian.co.uk

Posted by on March 23, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.