Never Say Di

By london_will Last edited 218 months ago
Never Say Di
queenmum.jpeg

Glory be! The Queen Mum - bless her, she was such a comfort to the East End during the Crimean War - is to get a memorial on the Mall. A competition has been launched to find a designer for it.

Londonist expects that the choice that Liz herself would have wanted - a branch of Threshers with a Turf Accountant next door - will not be among the inevitable shortlist of bland, artless, insipid, Daily Mail-pleasing designs. Neither would our favoured choice, the grand old lady herself in a perspex box filled with formaldehyde. (A design that would simultaneously appease those possessed of the weird desire to fetishise the monarchy AND trend modern art-fancying metropolitanites. After all, it will be near the ICA.)

But whatever grotesque kitschfest ultimately wins through, the commissioners are being specific on a few pertinent points:

The brief discourages the use of water and "moving parts" so that it will be easy for the Royal Parks to maintain the site.

"Planting schemes should similarly be low maintenance in nature," the brief adds.

Lessons have plainly been learned from the Diana Ditch. Good work, Modern Royals!

Last Updated 09 January 2006