Saturday 25th November 2000
Nuffin the Hamster reports on an honour for the Hamster Presidential Candidate
As the Presidential Election 2000 grinds relentlessly on to
its anticipated stalemate, news from London, England, came amidst shouts from
the American people for a decisive and morally upright President. In an
unprecedented turn of events, Nelson's Column situated at the centre of
Trafalgar Square near the seat of British Government is to be radically
transformed by a lottery grant to the tune of £15 million.
The current lions 'which have seen better days'
are to be wholly replaced by more up-to-date and socially relevant animals that
will remind visitors in times to come of the years in which we currently live
and of the significant contribution that animals have already begun to play in
the development of culture and society in the West.
'We felt it was time for a change' the
mayor of London told us 'when we stripped Britain of its cultural identity of
being a world superpower and replaced it with a more limp-wristed expression of
capitulation'
In years to come, the visitor will be unable to
see symbols of the once great Empire and picture postcards will bear on them the
stunning and newly commissioned statues of Sesame Street's Big Bird, Atom Ant
and, of course, our very own Diddley Squat IV.
Preliminary plaster casts have already been made
in miniature and a bronze crafted by some of the most talented young sculptors
went on display in the Royal Albert and Victoria Museum this week amid loud
cries of approval by most of the capital's press. One reporter told us:
'It's what London needs - and has needed for a long time -
now the visitor will be greeted by right and left-glancing hamsters [both of
which are illustrated here] as they ascend the stairs to the column
itself'
I noted that the miniature bronzes still retained
the whiskers, so much a trademark of rodents the world over.
'We intend keeping these' one designer told me 'We
think that, with the use of high grade steel wire, we can simulate almost
perfectly the exact scale of the whiskers. We had planned to build them with
voice projection capabilities but we felt that this was too cheap. We will,
however, be adding a mechanism in the head that will move from side to side at
regular intervals. It'll be a bit like those dogs that people have in the backs
of their cars'
The project is anticipated to run for at least the
next three years with the first new statues to be seen in the Square sometime in
June 2003. Meanwhile, interested parties can view progress via a monthly, two
day, exhibition which will not only chart developments but will allow the
general public some 'hands-on' demonstrations.
Nuffin the Hamster writes
for the Rodent Weekly.
This article appears courtesy of that paper.
