Tuesday 15 March 2011

Viaduct III

Talk about two peoples divided by a common language. I suppose I may have muddied the waters by naming a post "Viaduct" which actually shows an image of a road cutting.

This is the Hockley Viaduct:




The point is, I have finally got to stand on top of it (where the railway used to run), in order to look over at the mighty cutting where the M3 motorway runs through Twyford Down.

8 comments:

Dave Leeke said...

Yep, like this one - it reminds me of the Sutton Hoo helmet.

Mind you, I live in Suffolk so it's everywhere I look.

The verification reads "muffsbi". Probably a Russian spy in a "Carry On" movie.

Bronislaus Janulis / Framewright said...

Well, there, a proper VIADUCT. With a both through and over aspects. Though, I'm hardly the one to correct any ones language.

Bronislaus Janulis / Framewright said...

And, what glorious brick work.

Martin said...

Makes me wonder how the M3 cutting will be regarded in 140 years or so. Obviously, there would have been a public reaction when the viaduct was first built, in spite of the undeniably beautiful brickwork.

Mike C. said...

Martin,

An excellent point, and increasingly a question I ask myself.

Imagine the fuss when the Iron Age hillfort went up on nearby St. Catherine's Hill -- though I imagine they had a much shorter way with protest in those days.

There is a conservatism behind conservation (and not just etymologically) that can be quite stifling -- the Fire of London in 1666 may have done us all a huge favour... Imagine being saddled with a London with a mediaeval street plan and large quantities of untouchable wooden buildings.

Though I am sympathetic to the urge behind preservation, at some point one has to accept that the reason old things are valued is not because they are old but because they have survived.

Mike

Jack Nelson said...

I was wondering why the posts were called viaduct, I thought MAYBE it was a difference between English on your side of the Atlantic and American English. I was even tempted to send you a "Why a duck?" comment, figuring you were old enough to get the reference.

Mike C. said...

Jack Nelson,

"Why a duck?" indeed -- "why a chickens?", etc. If a man's old enough for Shakespeare, he's old enough for the Marx Brothers.

My kids were raised with VHS tapes of all the main Marx Bros. films slipped in between all the "normal" kids' stuff -- I wanted there to be a black&white space in their minds, where frenzied immigrants stow away in cruise ships and there ain't no sanity clause. Even Postman Pat becomes funny, once you're a Marxist.

Mike

Tony_C said...

Dave,

Wouldn't that be "-ski?"

How about "a performer of cunnilingus on those indifferent to the muffsbi's gender" - a self-referential definition!

Veriword (thanks Kent): ruine - almost bankrupt?