It's been a little while since I ticked off something off my list with work being busy and other commitment's but as I had 72 hours off from the normal world I thought I would check off a couple, this being the first one that I did.
Now I've gone into my love of HG Wells classic story of War of the Worlds before, it's one of the things I keep coming back to over the years in all it's different media forms, I've also gone on record as saying the musical version is my favourite, however this is a close second now!
The task itself isn't a big or difficult one, in fact I would probably say that it's possibly the easiest on the list. I'd first read about the statue during the commissioning phase of it, it's there to celebrate 100 years since Wells wrote his masterpiece and I'd always wanted to go to pay my respects to the author.
It's situated in the small town of Woking, a short 20 minute train ride from Waterloo station, well it was meant to be that long, unfortunately due to some issues getting through Wimbledon it turned into a 45 slog, damn those darn wombles! It's a place I'd only visited once before when Boston United played out a 1 -1 draw with the local team in a pretty boring conference game back in 2000, Why did they chose Woking? Well the story is set in the local area and the famous Horsell Common is based on a place in the town. about a mile away from this location. This statue is based in the town centre, conveniently for me about a five minute walk from the train station. A short stroll on a glorious day and unlike the Bottom Bench, this one was so easy to find I didn't have to resort to trusty google maps!
The Martian as it has been dubbed was designed and installed by Michael Condron and consists of three main parts, the seven metre high stainless steel tripod which is the focal point of the alien invasion force. The alien landing pod which is on the same street and the slabs which show the bacteria which eventually killed the invading forces. It encompasses the main points of the story with three pieces of art, all of which are expertly crafted and the small details like the tentacles facing away from the famed common to show that they are advancing, the pieces deserve more recognition! I post some photos on social media and someone who has lived in the town for years had no idea what it was doing there, they just thought it was a random statue!
As I said earlier in this post, this was a very nice and simple one to do but it meant a lot to me. Through times of great struggle in my life I've found myself putting on this album and it soothes me, it clears my mind, helps me focus and by the end of it normally I'm back to myself. When I become supreme leader of the entire universe (hey a guy's got to have dreams right?) Then I'll definitely be getting one of these amazing pieces of art installed into my abode!
So challenge 11 of 100 done, and onto the next (which actually came approximately an hour later!)
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