Et In Arcadia Bingo

The name Ozymandias has been much on my lips of late, although I trust mine are not as wrinkled as his. Shelley's short poem has always been a touchstone - literally - for lovers of ruins; those of us who would have few interesting vacation destinations were it not for the tyrants of yore and guidebook tours of their doomed citadels.
It always amuses me that if Ozymandias had been a real ruler, then tourists today would no doubt purchase cheap, mass-produced scale models of his "shattered visage" as souvenirs of their tour bus trips to whatever antique land he had held dominion over.
Everything will become disposable kitsch sooner or later, even the fire alarms that tell us our own house is burning down.

Comments

[Peter Horne]

I met an antique traveller once. Unfortunately it was a Morris Traveller. The driver asked for directions to Marske-by-Anarchy. I think he was pulling my chain.