Comments by "iggle" (@iggle6448) on "Our Institutions Despise Our Heritage + Why The Left Hates Good Art" video.

  1. It's a bizarre an deeply worrying outfit. I once had to give a series of talks to them on my area of expertise, extending democracy. They were clearly unsettled.
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  2. ​ @telephassarose3501  Quite. I have to hope that the original concept was good and beautiful. Though the execution was utterly abominable. IMHO, it's not about romanticising Diana but simply about presenting her as she actually was. Queen Victoria's statues, without variance as far as I'm aware, look just like her photos. How did the Victorian sculptors manage that? And, as you say, how did this present sculptor, with myriad forms of technology available to him, go so badly wrong? I can think of three deliberate reasons: 1. The RF didn't want such a beautiful, alluring statue that would become a Diana shrine, which I think is still a possibility, given her enduring popularity. 2. Diana's sons, remembering her with childish memories only saw Diana as 'mumsie' and not the extraordinarily attractive, feminine, elegant and captivating woman that she was. Thus, they approved all the sculptor's drawings and photos as he progressed his work, and perhaps made suggestions for tweaks to make it more mumsie according to their memories of her. 3. The sculptor is simply not into women. His male forms are striking and beautiful. Maybe he's gay and Diana's beauty and allure simply didn't touch him - this is, after all, a depiction of her that reduces her to that of an almost comedic weekend M>F crossdresser with bad wigs and a penchant for Primark end of line bargains. Perhaps he's had more practice at creating male art forms. Perhaps he's not all that good at sculpture.And perhaps those who were in charge of selecting sculptors deliberately bore all this in mind. Whatever, this piece is a total travesty and nothing like it could very easily have been if done by a sympathetic sculptor. (What also bothers me is all the many people trying to turn themselves inside out and upside down, trying to wipe the evidence of their own eyes and cognition, to find something good, something of Diana in this leaden scowling, lumpen hausfrau.)
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  3. I'd forgotten all about that book. A biggie, as you say, at universities 30-40 odd years ago.I just pulled my university text copy out of a forgotten bookcase in the spare room, I flicked through the pages and speed-read a few of them. Its pages are unsullied by pencilled notes, or bookmarks. I realised that I'd never even read this thing. Though I probably lifted one or two juicy looking quotes from it to stick in essays that would please the prof. Because that's what we did in those days. We didn't bother with the pre-wokeist preoccupations of ivory tower professors. We just chucked in a bit of the bilge they craved. We played them. I got a jolly good degree out of it. The profs thought they'd won. We students moved on, they didn't. (Anyone after an as-new copy of this early wokeist word salad...?)
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  4.  @markkavanagh7377  This is so true. Though for how much longer? I heard a despicable statistic yesterday: a third of the UK population lives in poverty (about half and half absolute and relative). We are not an affluent society any longer. How many young people will want to saddle themselves with £30K loans starting out in life? In a reduced economy people make do and mend. I'm thinking that there could well be a resurgence of FE and apprenticeships.
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  5. qv. the entirely inappropriate Amazonian masculinity of the Diana statue. Compare and contrast with any ancient Greek or Renaissance statuary.
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  6.  @conrad152  Thank you, you're very kind. Whilst I'm rather exercised about this abysmal portrayal! And I can't believe that so many people are re-running the Emperor's New Clothes confabulation and saying how good it is, and how much of 'Diana's kindness and empathy' and such bs they can see in it!
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