Big Up The Bee...

Ahem. A long overdue photo here from the artist formerly known as Serena Wombat, given that she sent me it aaaaaagaes ago. So along ago that she has since changed her name to Bee!

Here the B provides a beautiful imitation the "Walking Madonna" statue, created by Dame Elizabeth Frink, which stands, or rather walks, outside Salisbury Cathedral, a rather stunning cathedral found in Wiltshire, England.

Caesar's Return...

This week, as promised, I’m going to publish some more photos from the esteemed guests and visitors to the site. Yes, its time to open up the visitors’ gallery once again…

Having already taken a look at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, this shot comes from Caesars Palace in Atlantic City, courtesy of Eric Wormann. Taking a look at the website for this establishment, I have to say I’m sold as the security looks up to the job!

Ashes Eve...

Ahem, I did say that I’d post some more pictures from our esteemed visitors this week, but I just wanted to publish these in advance of an important sporting encounter, which starts tomorrow…

The latest Ashes series begins tomorrow at Lords (which by coincidence is where these photos were taken). To those not in the know, this is a cricket series played between England and Australia, which was first played in 1861, and is currently played once in England and once in Australia every four years or so. It has always been one of the most intense rivalries* in world cricket, and has produced a number of classic matches over the years.

Much has been made of the fact that the English have not won the Ashes since 1986, nearly twenty years ago. That’s around two thirds of my life to date. My dad has been resident in Australia since the 1970s, and has become a keen supporter of the Aussies, so there’s a bit of an added spice to proceedings in the Adams family! We currently have our best team since 1986, and many say we actually have a chance of competing this time round! Lets hope so. Stand By Your Statue is very much looking forward to seven weeks of brilliant cricket action, and, on the eve of the first Test match, would just like to say………………c’mon England!!

* These rivalries also extend to the fans, as was experienced by the Ultimate Olympian (bowling a fierce delivery above) and housemate John (hitting a cracking boundary below) when they were Standing By Their Statues at Lords a couple of weeks ago. By all accounts, some Aussie fans, who were drunk on VB and nineteen years of success, gave them quite a hard time when posing for these photos. Let us hope that nineteen years of hurt for the English fans can be forgotten about this summer.

Celebrity Stand By Your Statue

Once again my apologies for the technical difficulties last week, which prevented me from posting a few more statues, along with people standing by them.

To make up for this, I thought I’d treat you to what I hope will become a regular series, namely pictures of celebrities stood by and imitating their own statues! Are you a celebrity? Are you famous enough to have had a statue erected of you? Do you have a photo of you Stood By your Statue? If so, then please email them in!

And so, enough small talk, who is the first celebrity to send their photo in I hear you ask?

*huge great drum roll*

Why it is none other than Bert, famous superstar from the TV series Sesame Street. Nice to see that his good friend Ernie was able to look on as Bert stands by his staue of Bert.



Nice one Bert!

(rumours that Bert is evil are scandalous and untrue in my opinion. He’s a legend, simple as that).

An Interuption to the Service...

Dear All,

My apologies for the lack of updates this week, as the interweb has been down at home and I have been unable to post any pictures. I have tried all of the correct measures to fix this technical problem, such as turning it off and on again, smacking it with a hammer and setting it on fire, but to no avail.

In the meantime, please get out there and take photos of folks stood by their statues and send them in (to the email address in my profile) and I will endeavour to publish them and talk about the beautiful statues and countries of the world. Many thanks to those that have sent in their photos, some more of which I will be publishing next week (technical difficulties permitting).

Yours apologetically,

Statue John

Introducing Leeeeeeeeeoooooon!!

Continuing with another alternative Stand By Your Statue theme of people stood by their namesakes, tonight it gives me great pleasure to introduce you to the Oxford legend that is Leon (who’d have thought it!), happily Stood by his Leon at Glasto 2005! We are fortunate enough to witness our Leon holding on to two of his favourite things in life, namely a pint and fire!

And that is just about it in terms of Glasto Stand by Your Statue moments :( Huge thanks to Michael and Emily Eavis for allowing us all to come down to their farm and have the best weekend of our lives each year, and to all the thousands of people who help to make it the greatest festival in the world. Roll on 2007…

(To those of you who attended with me, and to those of you who are just plain nosey, I’ve belatedly posted a few more ‘regular’ Glasto photos here. Enjoy!)

Frog Fauna...

Tonight we present the second of an occasional series known as Stand By Your Shrubbery. This big frog was located in the Greenpeace field at Glastonbury, and like our friends the wicker ladies, would have been ceremoniously burned at the end of the festival.

Dragons and Sticks...

Ok, just a few more to post from the Glastonbury 2005 festival. I’m fairly certain that this is a sculpture of a dragon, also found in the green fields. Please note the Barbie doll on a stick in the foreground. Glastonbury is a haven for people who like to walk around with things attached to sticks. Things seen attached to sticks this year included: many pairs of pants, Yoda, the legendary pigeon, Kylie Minogue*, snakes, Sadam, David Hasselhoff and inflatable sheep.

* We here at Stand By Your Statue extend our best wishes to Kylie and family and hope for a speedy full recovery. We also commend you on a fine website!