the homer abbas giant

local pagans are getting their knickers in a twist over the latest publicity stunt for the new simpsons movie. according to the picture, homer has been temporarily immortalised alongside the ancient cerne abbas giant. the full story is here, and most of the other current reports seem to be using the same press association source. the paint will disappear as soon as it rains, and is biodegradeable.

i have to say i am rather amused. while on the one hand the report notes that the chalk outline is rechalked every 25 years, and the grass is regularly trimmed, it was not always so. in my teens i had a summer of thomas hardy obsessive compulsive disorder and when on holiday in dorset insisted my hosts take me to every place that really existed that hardy mentioned about in his wessex. this included the church where i took a rubbing of tess durbeyfield's gravestone, a farmhouse that had the most delicious scrumpy cider and i don't remember the connection, as well as a sighting of the giant. in hardy's time, or was it the time about which he wrote, anyway the point is that the victorians used to let the grass grow over the giant because he was so rudely rampant. also, there is a river piddle that runs through part of dorset, but that name was considered quite impolite and so one gets villages called affpuddle and tolpuddle instead.