Virtue in Excess

By refreshing contrast to the raucous rah-rah that inevitably greets each anniversary of Britain's various victories over beastly foreigners, the bicentennial of Her Majesty's Government's massacre of its own citizens at St Peter's Field has been missed altogether. Manchester city council has spent a million pounds on a pile of tiddlywinks to commemorate the festival of law and order, but has sneaked it into the pubic eye three days early and without a formal opening ceremony. The monument's design has brought complaints from disabled people who will be unable to march themselves to the top of the pile and then march down again, wherein apparently all the purpose and joy of the thing resides. "The council has acknowledged that the innovative and imaginative interpretation of the design brief," proclaimed the council's executive member for culture, "with a greater emphasis on interaction than originally envisaged for a public artwork, meant that not enough consideration was initially given to accessible design issues." There is nothing like an emphasis on interaction for distracting one from the needs of fellow citizens. Fortunately, councillors are already working to purge themselves from their damaging overabundance of imaginative innovativity.