Showing posts with label white horse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label white horse. Show all posts

Friday, 9 March 2012

Paddy Power Desecrates Ancient Monument

So having a quiet flick through the website of Horse and Hound and what do I discover?

Paddy Power have decided to add an Uffington White Jockey to the Uffington White Horse.

Now we don't know what the White Horse is all about. Some say religious, some say a territorial  power-symbol, intimidating other tribes. Some might say - what's the difference between those two anyway, to somebody from the Bronze Age. At least, I might say that.

And I recall how, long and merry ago now, I cycled out to Uffington from Oxford with a friend, climbed up to the top, and felt an almost physical sense of oppressive power. Although admittedly that was only because we realised how close we were to Swindon.

Paddy Power should be ashamed. They've trampled around an ancient monument which they could easily have damaged. Have they never heard of Photoshop? Let's face it, if they'd Photoshopped the Horse they could have put some more topical rider on it. Like David Cameron, with a blue flashing light on the horse and a Sun logo.

In any case, we all know there's only once that the landscape round the White Horse was added to with good reason - that celebratory,  free-spirited challenge to gray authority that is "Cloudbusting". Take it away, Kate.

Thursday, 4 September 2008

Horse and Hounds

Yet another hill figure cut into the grass.  This time the Uffington White Horse.  Great.  And to make matters worse, it would appear that some Beaker Folk chose to pretend to be members of the Vale of the White Horse hunt.  Glad to see that the Hunting with Hounds act wasn't broken.  On the other hand, dressing Burton up in a fox costume and chasing him around the village on mountain bikes while armed with brooms wasn't exactly friendly, was it?