Another Coup for Antiques Roadshow?

You may recall the hype surrounding the amazing “discovery” on BBC Antiques Roadshow, when the council brought in a smaller version of the Angel of the North, which they knew they had and is not an antique. Well don’t you just bet they are already planning to “discover” this model of the Angel of the South in a few year’s time.  Yes Kent is to have the biggest statue of a horse that anyone’s ever built. A towering 50m or 164 feet in the old money (how many hands is that?) and costing a mere £2,000,000.

Even ignoring the Antiques Roadshow potential there is still so much fun to be had here.  “Kent, it’s a one horse county.” And depending which way it faces, visitors coming at it from the “south” will be able to gaze straight up the biggest horse’s arse in the world. “Kent, UK, home of the biggest horse’s arse!” Surely something we can all be proud of.

Without even pausing to consider how many life-saving operations might be performed for £2,000,000, how many Tony Blair peace missions to the Middle East could be funded (4 apparently), or how many starving people could be fed, there is one extra-bright spot on the horizon. It hasn’t got planning permission yet. Perhaps it may never be built. And then just think how that will push the value of the brand new antique model of the world’s biggest horse’s arse that never was!

The View from the South

Amazing Discovery

I think not actually.  BBC1′s Antiques Roadshow did a big PR exercise to try to boost it’s ratings.  A week of stories in the media teasing the biggest “find” the show had ever discovered. The programme came from Newcastle that week.

What did it turn out to be?  Was it an unknown Titian masterpiece found in an attic?  A long lost manuscript by Shakespeare?  An inherited piece of rare Georgian silverware? No, no, and no again. It was a smaller scale version of the Angel of the North statue which the sculptor made when he tendered for the commission to do the real thing. And it was brought along by a member of the local council who had voted his approval of the project. Worth a lot of money and with artistic merit, yes.  But was it lost?  No.  Was it an antique?  No.  Did anyone discover it?  Did they buffalo.

So perhaps this weekAntiques Roadshow will come from South Kensington and perhaps one of the nice curators will “find” something of value in their museums.  Or maybe the show could come from BBC Television Centre where the producer might “discover” a total crock of sh*t.

I feel much better now.  This must be what blogs are for.