Fallen Idols

The sculptor Antony Gormley, whose woke-appeasing solution to the Cecil Rhodes statue wars met with a predictable snowflake silence from the cheerleaders of Empire, has been speculating on the likely longevity of some other graven images. Sixteen years ago, somewhere in the north, Gormley put up a hundred cast-iron statues modelled on himself; originally intended to stand for sixteen months, the installation became a permanent tourist attraction despite Gormley's lack of patriotic credentials as either a racist or a thief. Having rescued ten statues whose supports had been subverted by the ever-treacherous Irish Sea, Gormley admitted that they would all "turn slowly into Giacomettis," losing their substance and becoming ever more Euro-wog during the thousand-year régime of Global Britain; and doubtless it serves him right.