I was walking back to the office on Friday lunch time and passed through Trafalgar Square. Wandered past the new sculpture on the “Fourth Plinth”. It’s a thing called “Powerless Structures, Fig 101”.  Well, of course it is.

The sculpture was unveiled on 23 February this year.  It’s cast in bronze and is the work of Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset. The chair of the commissioning committee, Ekow Ershun  – who is a writer I really respect – described it as questioning and challenging the tradition of equestrian sculpture in Trafalgar Square. Well, it’s certainly the first time they’ve had a boy on a rocking horse as far as I know.

Anyway, as I walked past, there was a seagull perched on the top of the boy’s head. That amused me for some reason.  Maybe it punctured some of the hype that can surround these things. Doesn’t matter how much that statue challenges the history of equestrian sculpture, you can’t stop a seagull crapping on its head!

So out with the iPhone.  It was a grey, almost misty day. The boy and his horse – and the bird – stood out against the pewter sky…