A mound of historic rubble

HISTORIC buildings deserve to be looked after, cared for and displayed as prominently as possible for the public to enjoy.

So imagine my interest when a pensioner I know said that one lot of historic buildings in Weymouth had been put on show for the public… by being dumped in the harbour!

We’d been chatting together opposite the council offices on North Quay when he pointed into the harbour at a huge mound of seaweed-covered rocks, boulders and blocks.

Apparently that debris used to be part of ramshackle old houses, some of which may have dated back to Tudor times.

Conservation in about 1970 wasn’t what it is now and the problem of the old houses was solved by simply demolishing them, some of the debris being dumped in the harbour while more lorry loads found their way under various other developments in town.

As the pensioner said: “Back then it was just getting rid of some run down houses nobody seemed to want, but do it now and there’d be public outcry at destroying important history.”

At least the council offices, which were built on the old houses’ site, won’t be missed when their time comes to face demolition because the whole structure has less architectural and historic charm than the mound of harbour rubble it replaced!

To do or die on Weymouth’s roads

A NEW open air art exhibition in Weymouth - Brain Dead: A Way of Life - is attempting to answer the mystical question of whether some pedestrians have a pulse.

The exhibition pulls no punches and approaches this challenging task by using real pedestrians in real situations where motorists are invited to choose whether they live or die.

It is quite a startling art form because the first I knew of it was when I practically met it head on while driving slowly round a corner in the town centre.

In front of me was a group of about five or six men and women holding a conversation in the middle of the road.

I crawled towards them, expecting to be noticed and see them step out of the way but not a bit of it.

The worst of them, a woman, failed to blink an eye even when I got so close she could have sat on my bonnet. What’s more, her friends just carried on chatting.

Thinking I was in some surreal dream, I briefly waited for them to come to their senses but was eventually forced to drive slowly round them, up a low pavement and down on the far side beyond them.

Still they didn’t move and, incredibly all conversation seemed to have stopped as well and they were just stood there, looking vacantly about.

So, to help my fellow art lovers in case they are unlucky enough to go to the same exhibition, I hereby post its first review with the suggested answer that, No – some pedestrians don’t have a pulse although they could perhaps win the Turner Prize as an exhibit!

Just so you know . . .

YOU saw Christmas floats in Weymouth Carnival and you can now see several examples of Christmas goods in the shops.

Already I am being sent holiday offers for as far ahead as autumn 2011 and to cap it all I’ve now been sent various press forms to do with the Olympic Games which are still nearly two years away.

Organisations seem to look so far ahead that I thought I’d join the bandwagon by alerting you all to the completion ceremony for the new Weymouth Pavilion complex in 2073.

The structure will be made by nailing together recycled beach huts.

It is already being hailed as a potential cost cutting and architectural triumph to rival the five roundabouts at Boothill, Westham and King Street which - I’m sure you know - are due to open in 2038 when they will replace our old computerised traffic lights.

Both developments are bound to attract more tourists to a town already famous as the home of the National Queue Museum which, I’m sure you remember, opened so successfully back in the summer of 2010.

A cheeky tattoo!

YOU can hear all sorts of conversations in the street but rarely do you have to listen to chat about the merits of a buttock tattoo.

What’s more, this was for a woman who already had a few tattoos swirling along her arms and down her calves.

Let’s face it you can’t exactly, ermm, face a tattoo on your buttock to see it, so I suppose there had to be an element of discussion to ensure she got the one she wanted.

She was quite open about it as she enjoyed a drink at a town centre street table and debate flowed freely through a Red Indian portrait to a fairy as her friends tossed in their suggestions.

The would-be canvas couldn’t make her mind up and opted to make a final decision when she got under the needle.

Let’s hope she gets a decent standard of work unlike one tattoo I saw recently which had a Hell’s Angel skull and crossbones motorcycle and underneath it the spelling gaff: Reading Chaptor!

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