Cavalorn's Journal

Horsham
Horsham is a Sussex market town which is literally just up the road from us. In school I was told that it got its name because it was so muddy that horses would sink up to their hams. Thus, Horse-Ham. Fascinating, I know.

Horsham is not actually as dull as all that. For one thing, it has for some unguessable fucking reason been made the site of the G20 Summit today, meaning that I am currently a short bus ride away from several nations' worth of mindless jerks who will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. [1] This is what happens when you leave the Ringu video playing at the fucking bus stop, folks. Nothing good.

Horsham also has a local Dragon. Cor. A real Olde English Dragon, of the maiden eating, village burning TROGDOOOOOOR variety... or at least that's how it is commemorated in the really very impressive Horsham Sundial, which shows the beastie snarling through thick woodland. The fact that the terrible Horsham Dragon was discovered to have been a small and rather ordinary snake a few people happened to see one day in no way diminishes its charm.

But the most notable thing about Horsham, at least as far as your humble narrator is concerned, is the enormous cybernetic minge in the town centre. I am not joking. I only wish I was.

On first sighting this thing I was not sure wtf it was supposed to be. A monument to a heroic local Brussels sprout that saved the town from ravaging Frenchmen? Something to do with tennis? A signalling device to hail across the stellar gulfs to the Lemon Men of Tartarus 6?

No. It is, in fact, a fountain. (Or it would be, if it worked, which presently it doesn't.) Intended to commemorate the life of Horsham-born poet Shelley (who you may remember from a previous post) it is designed to rise slowly on its pedestal, and then sink slowly in a great 'gush of maternal waters', or so the plaque beneath it claims.

It symbolises Birth and Creativity and Water and The Female and... frankly it's a great big cybertwat. Again, I am not making this up. That is what it is supposed to be.

When the locals discovered what they were getting as their town's new centrepiece, there was considerable resistance.

Apparently it's quite spectacular when it's working. The trouble is that it hasn't really worked properly since its installation. When I saw it in winter, it was dry and had a half-arsed feel to it. I much preferred the sundial.

[1] (c) Douglas Adams, 1978

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