The Occupy Norwich encampment on Hay Hill, Norwich. Photo: Steve Adams.
Occupy Norwich protest camp an eyesore?
Stacia Briggs
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
2:00 AM
One of the recurring arguments I’ve seen for the Occupy Norwich tent-dwellers moving on to pastures new is that their encampment “is an eyesore”.
The sculptures that usually dominate Haymarket. Photo: Bill Smith.Without wishing to delve into the politics of the matter (and, indeed, having been told to be a bit less ‘Private Eye’ and a bit more ‘cuddly’ by He Who Pays My Wages) I would counter this argument by pointing to the striking contemporary art that shares a home with the protesters.
Under the watchful eye of the Thomas Browne statue lies a giant marble brain, a large eye and granite seats and tables engraved with some of Browne’s impenetrable musings.
As an aside, quickly, one of my first assignments for the Evening News was to wander forth into the city and ask shoppers who they thought Thomas Browne was.
The best answer, by a country mile, was that he was an ancestor of Philip Browne, purveyor of clothes for the kind of men I have never attracted on the basis that I look like I dress in the dark (because I do).
Thomas Browne was, in fact, a Norwich boy what done good back in the 1600s when he was a leading light in the fields of medicine, religion, science and the esoteric – kind of like an olden-days Puppet Man.
His memorial, which cost £200,000, resembles the grisly scene of a particularly messy autopsy on a giant concrete man.
Creators Anne and Patrick Poirier said: “Our wish is that people will have the curiosity to stop and sit, reflect, eat or read a good book, maybe by Thomas Browne, and to have their own thoughts.”
Pick any time of day, and I can guarantee you that you’ll find a clutch of skateboarders, emos or transients perched on a stone eyelid pondering the majestic works of Thomas Browne, playfully squabbling over who gets to read Religio Medici next.
“It’s not fair!” one will shout, “you got to read Pseudodoxi Epidemica AND The Garden of Cyrys and the Quincunciall Lozenge first too!”
My personal favourite of Browne’s books is his bodice-ripper Hdriotaphia, Urn Burial, A Brief Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns Lately Found in Norfolk. I tell you, once you start on that one, you won’t eat, sleep or visit the toilet until you’ve devoured the entire thing.
Whatever else you think of the protesters, they have to wake up every morning and see that lot. And know that bloke whose relatives opened Philip Browne is watching their every move.
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8 comments
Thanks for some great prose Stacia, so befitting. The expensive art work that was coyly rejected by the Forums great and doughty, is misplaced in Hay hill, too many sculptures in one place. I for one thank the occupy movements for keeping the issue of bonuses, banks and a more sustainable financial system alive, they have done well, despite some of the bile thrown at them. With police and council wanting to put a 'rag tag ' on their movement and demand for provocative pictures showing the police shoving them off, running high in the local press, a dignified exit from Hay hill seems to give them some hard choices to make.
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ingo wagenknecht
Friday, February 10, 2012
The fountain and pool were never rancid, the council drained and cleaned it every week. A lot of people sat around the pool and got enjoyment from the splashing of the fountains thats untill the brain dead idiots thought it great to thow a bottle of washing up liquid in to it , now we are a City without a civic fountain.
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Rorping
Friday, February 10, 2012
Here are a couple of quotes by Sir Thomas that are rather in tune with the message of the occupy movement: "Be charitable before wealth make thee covetous"-Christian Morals Sect.V "A slave unto Mammon makes no servant to God"-Christian Morals Sect.V
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ianbarker
Thursday, February 9, 2012
I have fond memories of Hay Hill - it took me to my favourite watering hole , the George & Dragon , and dear old Mary.
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Dick Turnip
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
i remember when it was a poolfountain, how many times did it get filled with washing up liquid,, lolll
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morello
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
In the 1950s it was a lovely Green Space !
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Albert Cooper
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
These people are obstructing a public right of way, so why have they not been moved on before? This council just does not seem have the interest in tackling such problems, or fly posting, graffiti, cars parked on the path, etc, etc.
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COLD
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
I always preferred the rancid dirty old fountain and pools that used to be on Hay Hill. They used to attract various punks and Rockers in the 1970s.
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NigelS
Tuesday, February 7, 2012