It has become abundantly clear to me since I began my research into these things, that the human race has now lost its ability to produce anything that can genuinely be described as beautiful. Modern art for example is the most brutal example of our skewing off on a tangent from natural aesthetics. Contemporary architecture too, while in most cases rather impressive from an engineering point of view, is for the most part, enough to launch ones dinner on a violent reciprocal course from stomach to mouth after much choking and gagging.
By definition, anything natural is beautiful. Our attempts to imitate nature have gradually gotten worse and worse over the last few thousand years, culminating in the kind of architectural horse shit you see rising up in most cities over the previous few decades. The following lists clearly show this gradual decline in good taste.
The original idea here was to produce three lists of seven wonders: Natural wonders and man-made wonders; both ancient and modern. It became clear though that, “modern wonders” was a contradiction in terms, and the only wonder being how Mother Nature has allowed us to survive as a species after watching us systematically rape the shit out of her natural world.
One explanation for such grotesque violations being permitted may come in the form of what most men will understand as the “pinter-scale.” A chap out on the piss will judge women on a scale of pints, which is to say, how many pints of lager would one need to drink before one would find a particular young miss attractive enough to shag.
A ten-pinter for example, would in the cold light of day, have a face like a bag of hammers. A four-pinter on the other hand would be quite attractive. As these beer-goggles kick in around the four-pint mark, anything below a four-pinter would be a genuinely attractive creature and be absolutely shaggable without any alcohol.
A similar system may be effect with Mother Nature. Perhaps she likes a drink and is by now so pissed that she finds the Spaghetti Junction north of Birmingham quite attractive and would quite happily allow St Basil’s Cathedral to hump her three spouts ragged in an alleyway.
Whatever the reason, I’ll think you’ll agree that the following lists clearly illustrate that contemporary engineers and architects, to coin a phrase, have been so preoccupied with whether they could, they haven’t stopped to think about whether they should.
So now then, if you're sitting comfortably, let's begin.
THE SEVEN NATURAL WONDERS
The Andes mountains; The Great Barrier Reef, The Sahara Desert, Victoria Falls, The Grand Prismatic Spring, The Grand Canyon, The Northern Lights
The Andes mountains; The Great Barrier Reef, The Sahara Desert, Victoria Falls, The Grand Prismatic Spring, The Grand Canyon, The Northern Lights
I don’t think you can argue with anything on this list. It’s pretty standard stuff. I’ve generally gone for things that make me feel small and insignificant. I chose the Great Barrier Reef because that irritating Aussie twat Steve Irwin perished there. Oh, and I chose the Andes because those Argentine rugby players crashed their plane there and had to eat each other.
THE SEVEN MAN-MADE WONDERS: ANCIENT
The Acropolis, Stone Henge, The Coliseum, Bran Castle, The Great Wall of China, The Terracotta Army, The Leaning Tower of Pisa
The Acropolis, Stone Henge, The Coliseum, Bran Castle, The Great Wall of China, The Terracotta Army, The Leaning Tower of Pisa
Now these selections are very impressive from an engineering point of view, but aesthetically too, possibly because they’re made from natural materials rather than plastics and synthesised nonsense and therefore tend to blend into their immediate environment, apart from maybe Bran Castle. I chose that because people tend to think Vlad the Impaler, a.ka. Dracula, used to live there. Apparently he didn’t, but he may have spent some time in its dungeon. Also you can buy it. It’s up for sale and who wouldn’t want to live there?
Again, I don’t think you can argue with too many of my choices. I chose the Great Wall of China and the Terracotta Army as most would, for their splendour but also because the reasons for their construction are so absurd they actually add to their magnificence.
The Great Wall of China was designed as some sort of fortification, but it runs along the ridge of a mountain range. Surely, any army capable of climbing a mountain with full armour and weaponry, would not then find the additional 20ft or so of this wall too hard to negotiate. Essentially, what you have here is 4,000 miles of unnecessary walling. It’s like putting an umbrella on top of your house to keep the rain out. Silly Chinky Chonks.
Continuing with the theme of redundant fortifications, a couple of hundred years before the birth of the little baby Jesus, the Terracotta Army were sculpted on the orders of some crazy Emperor dude who thought he could be buried with them and thus when he arrived in the afterlife he could use these soldiers to conquer his new world.
I’ve often felt the Chinese were in fact aliens; dangerous and violent aliens too. I don’t doubt the Terracotta Army were indeed sculpted for the purpose stated in the legend, but I also feel they were built to serve as a tangible reminder to all future generations of Chinky Chonks, that their purpose in life is for war and it is no coincidence that since they were uncovered in 1974, Chinese take-aways have become so pervasive in the western world and it is from these I fear the mother of all uprisings will emerge. Eeek!
THE SEVEN MAN-MADE “WONDERS”: MODERN
Spaghetti Junction, White Hart Lane, Rio De Janeiro Favelas, St Basils Cathedral, Mount Rushmore, The International Space Station, Las Vegas Strip
Spaghetti Junction, White Hart Lane, Rio De Janeiro Favelas, St Basils Cathedral, Mount Rushmore, The International Space Station, Las Vegas Strip
So, within this list the decline from absolute beauty to absolute puke is completed. What we have here are seven of the most unforgivable violations of good taste and decency on Earth. These things are the architectural equivalent of an encounter with a freak when you’re out shopping. You know; people with limps and fat boils on their faces or gammy hands and crazy disfigurements. You don’t want to look, but a combination of voyeurism and schadenfreude forces you to.
As stadiums go, White Hart Lane is no different to any other and as an offence to the eyesight, fairly innocuous. However, it becomes one of the most revolting sights on Earth when full to capacity. Any structure attracting 35,000 mongaloid humans on a bi-weekly basis should be condemned and collapsed, preferably with the “people” still in it.
St Basil’s Cathedral was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible and on it’s completion, legend has it, he poked out the eyes of architect, Postnik Yakovlev, so he could not produce a more magnificent structure for someone else. Personally, I feel it would have been almost impossible for him to produce something less pleasing to his sockets than this monstrosity, so Ivan ought to have killed him rather than just blinded him. If there’s ever to be a Disneyland Moscow, good luck finding it amongst this kind of architecture, that’s what I always say.
Now then, I know technically speaking, the International Space Station shouldn’t really qualify for this list, but since man built it I’m counting it. I’m including it because of how pointless and gay it is. Space may very well be the final frontier, but before we try and crash through it in true bull-in-a-china-shop human fashion, should we not breach Earth’s frontiers first?
We know nothing about the oceans. Can we not use our Science boffins to research what the hell is lurking three miles down in the Pacific? That should keep them all occupied for yonks. Who cares about stars and possible planets that are so far away the mathematics become irrelevant. What about the oceans man? I’d much rather live under water than in space. Watching the little fishes swimming by the window would be lovely. Space nonsense is a tragic waste of genius and I blame George Lucas.
Mount Rushmore I think, is an impressive monument. However, it lets itself down in that its sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, decided to carve a bunch of Presidents faces into the mountain instead of, I don’t know, some good people. If he’d have stuck a bunch of philosophers up there or sommat instead of politicians, then it really would be impressive.
It’s only redeeming feature, is that Thomas Jefferson looks an awful lot like Ray Parlour. Just cause those Presidents represent the birth of the USA doesn’t mean they deserve such a spectacular monument. In two hundred years do we want a monument sporting the fearsome boat races of Thatcher, Blair, Major and Gordon Brown?
It’s only redeeming feature, is that Thomas Jefferson looks an awful lot like Ray Parlour. Just cause those Presidents represent the birth of the USA doesn’t mean they deserve such a spectacular monument. In two hundred years do we want a monument sporting the fearsome boat races of Thatcher, Blair, Major and Gordon Brown?
The final entry on my list are the Rio De Janeiro Favelas. What in the name of all that is good and holy are we doing allowing people to live like this?? This is the kind of thing that has made me lose my faith in humanity. It’s this sort of complete indifference to poverty and suffering that makes me leave all my lights on at night and pump my car full of the worst kinds of petrol and fart as much as possible to hasten the process of global warming that will finally see the end of us as a species.
We were good people once. The Acropolis represents education, humanity, thinking, respect, beards, flip-flops, walking about in sheets, the good stuff. Somewhere in history though we lost our way and ended up on the M6 section of the Spaghetti Junction. These days all those laudable qualities are in a worse state than the Acropolis. We've been very very naughty, seduced by money and material possessions. Not all of us have been lost however.
There are times I have felt like the child born of those two fathers, but be that as it may, those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know and to try with what's left of our lives to find a goodness and meaning to this life (I stole that bit from Platoon).
I have already began the construction of the Playboy Bunnies Army, which I shall take with me in case my new life is filled with ten-pinters. They will be uncovered in many thousands of years and added to a new list of wonders by whatever species has replaced us and will serve as a reminder to them, that their purpose in life should not be for war, but to experience the kinds of emotions only felt when fully oiled up, playing twister with equally oiled up TV weather girls.
The End.
1 comments:
I like the natural ones. Pretty.
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