It started with the pesticles statue, and ever since Hammersmith has been getting above itself and trying to become modern, attractive and artistic (you'll never be Hoxton Hammersmith, so put your watering can hats away). Transforming Hammersmith from a grotty suburb into an urban paradise is probably a waste of time. In 1999 I had a very clear vision of the centre of Hammersmith in flames, particularly around the area where that office block has a digital display showing the time and temperature. Some might say my vision was fuelled by my then obsession that the predictions of Nostradamus were about to come true (in 1999 and seven months and so on... see my play "It's Not The End of the World" in the downloads section), but I think that vision will definitely come to pass...at some point between now and the end of time.
Anyway the regeneration continued, probably because no-one tried to pull down the pesticle statue giving the town planners the confidence to move on to greater atrocities of improvement.
The square outside the Lyric (and the theatre itself) was the next thing to change. It's been opened up into a big paved space with a pleasant fountain feature hidden away in some of the slabs. Basically there are maybe 8 fountains at street level which intermittently shoot water up into the air to the delight of all pedestrians - apart from possibly any unaware members of the public who happen to be walking over the fountains at the time. It's a feature which could only have been dreamt up by the brilliant comic mind of Dom Joly.
In the summer these fountains are rather wonderful. They sparkle in the sunlight and kids love watching the cheeky antics of the water and playing chicken with it (running over the spouts when they are not shooting water upwards- the danger being that the flow could commence at any time) or even deliberately just running into the tiny geysers and getting thoroughly soaked. It's art as it should be, attractive, interactive and not including any men proudly displaying their weird fused genitalia. It rarely fails to cheer me up.
In the winter however it's a bit of a different prospect. An accidental soaking from one of these jets could leave you in the unpleasant postion of having to walk through a freezing cold Hammersmith drenched to the bone and a foolish child who thinks it would be fun to frollic amongst the gushing torrents will end up crying and uncomfortable and might die from hypothermia. This doesn't stop the council. mad with power from having got away with the pesticle thing, they allow the fountains to continue operating, lighting them with coloured lights in the early evening darkness. It's still pretty enjoyable to look at, but what seems refreshing and inviting in the summer seems harsh and evil in the winter. Perhaps this was the artist's (or plumber's) intention. This is good art. It interacts with its environment and is a different thing at different times. I really like it.
On my way to the gym all these thoughts were going through my head (especially the one about Hammersmith exploding into flame - I didn't live round here in 1999, but now I come here most days and likely to be caught up in the conflagration. I guess that maybe I will have to witness it, to explain why I have had this vision of a terrible future).
On the way home it was getting dark and I went by the fountains again, to see that even in the cold of the winter the Hammersmithians have found a way to interact with the artistic experience. Someone had taken a very big traffic cone and placed it directly over one of the jets. so now every time the fountain surged into life, water would shoot out of the hole in the top of the cone in a comic fashion, a bit like watery icing shooting out of whatever those things you ice cakes with are called. This would be a better simile if I could think what they were called. Cake-icers? Someone will tell me. I know I am being stupid. It's early.
The juxtaposition of two things that are not meant to ever meet made this a very amusing sight. It was wittier than the usual prank of putting a traffic one on the head (or pesticle) of a statue, because you were given the extra value of the unexpected visual image. It was more like a traffic cone doing a wee. That's a better and funnier simile altogether.
And so the fountains entertained me in yet another way, showing themselves to be true art with something for everyone from the stupidest Dom Joly to the cleverest man in the world - me.
