24
Jul 09
Leave Big And Majestic To The Yanks
And so its BRITAIN’S GRAND CANYON WATCH, with a new contender throwing his deep and awesome hat into the ring. Because London already has a Grand Canyone of course, which I always assumed would double nicely as BRITAIN’S GRAND CANYON. But no, apparently Deptford (and its curiously bloody sewage) has a rival in County Durham – the only English county so insecure it needs the word COUNTY in its name.
Marvel at the terrifying landscaping power of WATER, the damp destroyed. Thrill at the way it has gouged MUD (that notoriously stubborn substance) out of the local landscape. And boggle at the way the locals in the piece really think they can compare a ten foot deep trench to
a) a deep ravine
b) Niagara Falls
c) the Grand Canyon.
See for yourselves. Prepare to be underwhelmed. Unless you are a geography teacher, in which case, here’s a lesson plan for you. Indeed if you are a Maths techer you could compare the amount of space int he Grand Canyon to the amount of space in this considerably less grand canyon. English teachers, why not use it for a lesson about hyperbole. The list goes on…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8166533.stm
(Thanks to Rob for the Deptford Canyon poster)
Is that a discarded wash basin in the lower-left corner?
What horrifying toxic dump is this, in which swans have mutated to grow larger than whatever it is you people call shopping carts? (Wikipedia suggests trolley?)
Indeed, we call them trolleys.
Monster swans in Deptford Creek would be no surprise – on the ‘what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger’* theory. The water of the Creek has Lake Springfield-levels of bad stuff in it.
*Or fatter, if you’re Spanish-speaking (“Lo que no mata, engorda”)
but only the Queen is allowed to kill monster swans
I’ve actually been down in the creek at low tide; I was visiting a sailing barge I was thinking about buying. It’s truly odd, especially with the various things looming overhead like the DLR viaduct and the lifting bridge and old navy provisions warehouses.
That particular spot was reached through a warehouse yard that looked like something out of The Long Good Friday, through a gate in a spiked steel fence, and along a six-inch wide concrete dock wall to the gang plank (and it was a plank). The seller kept the boat there and claimed to live in Sloane Square.
An interesting moment of London.
i see yr monster swan and i raise you THREE SKINNED BEARS