The Irish Imitators...

We continue our little excursion around Boston this evening. I believe that this memorial commemorates the Irish potato famine between 1845 and 1850, and symbolises the fact that there is a large Irish immigrant population in Boston, which magnified during this period. As my research has been a little poor, I shall just say that it may or may not have something to do with the Boston Irish Famine Memorial Park…

The monument features a man and a woman reaching out to each other, both of who are holding a child. This has been brilliantly recreated by Luke and Chris, who, at the time did not have a couple of young children with them so expertly substituted them with their jumpers!

More Than A Feeling…

Greetings all. Tonight and for the rest of this week, and in all likelihood for quite a chunk of next week we embark on a journey to Boston, Massachusetts. All of these photos come courtesy of Housemate John, the Noonster and friend Chris on a fairly recent expedition. Indeed, their mission when visiting said city was to outdo the SwissToni South Korean statue odyssey from a few months back...

So, without further ado, I present the first statue. Here we find Chris brilliantly modelling himself on John Bridge. This is located on the Cambridge Common just off Commonwealth Avenue in the centre of town.

You wouldn’t have thought it by appearance but ‘Deacon’ John Bridge is actually an Essex boy, born in West Ham of all places. At this point, and going off on a slight tangent here, I would just like to point out that West Ham are the finest footballing team in all of this land. Having been born there, John Bridge was no doubt a keen follower of this great team. That didn’t stop him from moving to Boston though, where he was renown for starting one of the first schools in the city, amongst other things.

Hels In Havana...

Just a quick post tonight, as I have to go and watch a man brandishing a sword. This features friend Hels, stood alongside a monument in Havana, Cuba. And what a mighty fine piece of imitation work it is too…

Havana. What a glorious place. City of cigars. City of salsa, timba and afro-cuban jazz. City of rum. City of grand old motor vehicles from the 1960s. Yep, Havana gets the big thumbs up from all here at statue towers…

A Statue Gag...

Tonight I’m going to take a very short break from posting pictures in order to begin what is ultimately likely to be a very unsuccessful and short-lived series on jokes involving statues.

Ahem, so, statue joke numero uno, here goes:

A farmer goes out to his field one morning only to find all of his cows frozen solid. As far as the eye can see are cows, motionless like statues.

It had been a cold night, but he'd never thought anything like this would happen. The realisation of the situation then dawned on him.With his entire livestock gone, how would he make ends meet? How would he feed his wife and kids? How would he pay the mortgage? He sat with his head in his hands, trying to come to terms with his impending poverty.

Just then, an elderly woman walked by, "What's the matter?" asked the oldlady. The farmer gestured toward the frozen cows and explained his predicament tothe woman.

Without hesitation the old woman smiled and began to rub one of the cows noses. After a few seconds the cow began to twitch and was soon back to normal and chewing the cud. One by one the old woman defrosted the cows until the whole field was full of healthy animals. The farmer was delighted and asked the woman what she wanted as a repayment for her deed.

She declined his offer and walked off across the field.

A passer-by who had witnessed the whole thing approached the farmer."You know who that was don't you?" asked the passer-by."No" said the farmer "who?".











"That was Thora Hird."

And so endeth the feature on statue jokes! Perhaps we should stick with the pictures from now on eh?!

Mobile Statue Standing...

A looooong time ago I received this fine little picture of Sarah (more widely known as Rufus Fan to some), but this picture was slightly different to the ones I usually post in that it had been taken using her mobile phone. At the time I also had a couple of statue pics on my phone, so I thought I would simply transfer these onto my computer and then I could write a nice little post on the joys of taking photos of statues on your phone…

…four months and a fair bit of faffing around later and I have finally managed to transfer my photos onto this here computer! I’m a bit rubbish at these technical tasks you see.

So, my humble apologies to Rufus Fan for taking so long to publish her photo. The effects of a few glasses of wine and an obvious desire to hug the Robin Hood statue at Nottingham castle is clear for all to see!



Unlike the photos from my phone! This one allegedly features friend Espen stood by a statue in Waterloo train station in London.



While this one features Ems and Sean stood by a lovely golden Buddha statue in Hyde Park, London. It wasn’t foggy, honest!

I think I have finally worked out how to get phone pictures onto the computer now, so if you are out and about but do not have your camera with you, then take a snap on your phone and send it to me and I’ll publish it. They’re bound to come out better than my efforts!

Follow The Bear...

Sorry about the lack of posts in the last couple of days, a few technical difficulties here at statue towers. Anyway, tonight we make a welcome return to folks stood by big bears! Huge thanks to Donna, a.k.a. Primodonna, for sending this snap in. Taking a look at your blog, it seems that you are counting down the days towards retirement – we here at Stand By Your Statue wish you all the best for the momentous occasion, and hope that it gives you plenty more time to locate some more statues to stand by!

This huge wooden bear resides at Heavenly Village in California, on the south shore of Lake Tahoe. It is a ski resort during the winter but looks like a beautiful place during the summer months too.

Mysterious Man in Manchester...

Whilst running off to the Old Trafford cricket ground this summer, we stumbled upon this fine looking statue in a picturesque square in Manchester city centre. Housemate John and SwissToni strike the pose.

Erm, I think he was a chap called Corben, but that’s about all I can tell you I’m afraid, as Uncle Google hasn’t been able to uncover anything. Sorry about that. What I can tell you is that it was chucking it down with rain, lending proof to the theory that it always rains in Manchester. We never did see much cricket that day, but England won the Ashes so it was all good.

Stood By Stonehenge...

Tonight we take a slight detour from the usual statue shenanigans in the name of a big bunch of rocks. Yep it’s one of the more famous landmarks here in the UK......Stonehenge. Many thanks to friend Jamie for sending in his mystical interpretation of the monument. It rocks! (Forgive the lame gag - It’s a Monday)…

When it comes to describing said monument, I can’t really do better than the legendary band Spinal Tap, who also rock:

Stonehenge, where the demons dwell;
Where the banshees live and they do live well;
Stonehenge, Where a man is a man and the children
Dance to the pipes of Pan;
Stonehenge—
Tis a magic place
Where the moon doth rise
With a dragon's face...
Stonehenge!

(As performed in the motion picture ‘This Is Spinal Tap’ – which does for rock and roll what the Sound Of Music did for hills).

Copying in Capital Cities...

This statue was located in a bitterly cold Toronto. I didn’t really master the hand positioning when imitating the statue, but I like to think that I perfected the hairstyle pretty well. Once again, I do not know who the person is I’m afraid, although it certainly wasn’t the best statue we found of a balding man in that particular city…

Talking of which, I was chatting away with the Ultimate Olympian during a cigarette break at work a couple of days ago about the aims of this particular website. Hmmmmm. Originally I was intending just to keep it going for a year, but thanks to all you lovely people who have sent photos to me, it seems that I’m going to be doing this for quite a while longer yet! (Apologies to those who are still waiting to be published, by the way). Anyways, one suggestion was that we should attempt to get a photo of someone Stood By Their Statue in every capital city on this fine planet. Sounds like a perfectly reasonable plan to me!

So, ladies and gentleman, I am happy, nay, delirious, to report that we have Canada covered! Other capital cities that have been published so far include: Paris, Madrid, Havana & Copenhagen (in one post!), Amsterdam, Athens, Bangkok, Berlin, Prague, Capetown*, Dublin, Moscow, London, Seoul and Reykjavik.

That gives us a grand total of 16 capital cities covered so far. Wahey! Way to go folks. According to this site, there are 193 countries in the world, hence 193 capital cities, leaving us with just 177 more to go! No problem! So, if you are reading this from a capital city somewhere, then get out there and Stand by Your Statue and send the evidence in. Together we can achieve this I am certain…

Of course, this aim of the site should be added to two previous Stand By Your Statue missions, namely to add to our Ronald McDonald collection and to locate another 144 registered Big Things in Australia. Its good to have aims and plans in life eh?!

* Although technically listed as having three capital cities on the site, one is good enough for me.

Trinidad and Tucs...

Another slightly random posting from the Americas this evening. Here I am with housemate John standing by a glamorous lady in a square in the town of Trinidad, on the southern coast of Cuba, around five years ago. Justin is in the middle, but he refused to imitate, instead concentrating on eating his packet of Tuc biscuits. Fair enough I suppose.

Trinidad is another unspoilt beautiful little colonial town, with some great beaches to the south and some rainforest to trek around to the north. It’s a lovely place. Great rum too. This statue is located in the Central Plaza in the centre of town, but once again my research skills have failed to uncover as to who the statue is. Answers on a postcard please…

Visions From The Vaults...

Hiya. Sorry not to have posted as much recently. I have been hunting around the loft as lying around in the Stand By Your Statue vaults are a fair few older piccies, which really do need to be published sometime, so I’m going to try and focus on these this week…

This statue of a small thin man wearing a cowboy hat is located in the Iguaçu Falls national park, located near the town of Foz Do Iguaçu in the bottom left hand corner of Brazil near Argentina. The park is home to the mighty Iguaçu Falls, which consists of 275 waterfalls spread over 3km with some over 80 metres high, making them wider than Niagara falls, higher than Victoria falls, and, quite simply, more stunning than both of them put together!

I’ve been digging around the interweb to try and find some examples of the stunning beauty that is Iguaçu, but can’t find huge amounts so I have hastily posted a few of my photos from the trip here. The other man in the photos is Bob. It really is one of the most beautiful places in the world that I’ve had the privilege to visit. Did I say it was stunning?!

As to who the man in the hat is I can’t tell you unfortunately. I’d like to say that he’s a famous park ranger, but that would be a total guess and would most likely be completely wrong. My apologies also to anyone who is temporarily blinded by the man dressed in bright white stood alongside his statue!

Impersonations in Paris...

Many thanks to Chrissy Contino, from the sunshine state of California, for sending in tonight’s pics. Inspired in to a bit of statue imitation while on a recent trip to Paris, above we see Chrissy taking a lie down, while below her boyfriend, erm, stands awkwardly with his foot in the air. Brilliant!

Unfortunately, I’m not too sure where these photos were taken, but I’d hazard a guess that these are a couple of famous sculptures from the Louvre museum. That is a complete guess mind.

Taking The Michael...

It gives me much joy to share a second statue from Dublin, Ireland, this evening, again featuring a prominent politician from times gone by. Following the statue of Robert Emmet published in May; tonight it’s the turn of Michael Collins. But first of all I must big up friend Luke, a.k.a. the Noonster, seen here doing the Michael Collins.

As usual the fine resource that is Wilkpedia gives a far better description of Michael Collins than I could ever manage. But, in short, I shall give you my interpretation: Stir together 60ml of poteen, 20ml of lemon juice, ice cubes and sugar, in a tall glass until the sugar is dissolved. Top up with soda water, garnish with a cocktail stick, cherries and twisted orange and lemon slices. This gives you a perfect Michael Collins, a slightly lesser well-known member of the Collins cocktail family, when compared with the more famous Tom Collins ;-)

As they say in Dublin, slainte*!


* meaning cheers!