Bluebottle's Bedevilled Blog
Created | Updated Jul 29, 2018
In which Bluebottle suffers an art attack.I work in a university that has a lot of Art courses. Every year the students have an art show of the final year work, and invariably the works of art I like most, breath-taking landscapes that look like you can step into and intricately-detailed drawings, are the ones that are given low marks while the ones I take a strong revulsion to are given quite high marks. Every year some of the students' work is purchased by the university and used to decorate the corridors. Including the corridor where my office is located.
This is the photo of the sculpture outside my office. It is placed so that I see it clearly when I arrive at the office in the morning, and when I leave the office in the evening. As you can see, it has large eyes that seem to follow you so that it is staring right at you no matter where you are. When I go to nammet and when I return it is there. Each time I leave the room to go to the toilet, or to the kitchen to get a cup of tea, or go to a meeting, or do anything at all that involves opening my office door, it is there. Always there. With its huge eyes watching.
I loathe the freaky fœtus thing, which I don't think is unreasonable under the circumstances. But I haven't found anyone willing to swap it for the artwork outside their office. I wrote a poem about it, which I've sent in to the staff newsletter to hopefully highlight the issue, however unlike h2g2 the staff newsletter tends not to publish what I send them, so I've decided to share it with you.
Outside the office it lurks
Waiting and watching, seeing all.
It knows when you come to work
When you go to lunch
When you leave to go home.
Silent, it overhears all gossip
Overlooked, no-one suspects
That it knows everything about you.
Its eyes eternally scrutinising you
Searching for signs of weakness.
Wide-eyed, observing while unobserved
It follows your approach without moving a muscle.
From where did this Satan Spawn come?
A crazed scientist breaking unnatural laws
Concentrating only on getting Solent RDAP1 powers
No thought on the cost or the consequences?
An unholy union betwixt caterpillar and root vegetable?
Is it a clone of the Vice Chancellor’s pre-pupal stage?
Before he emerged outwardly resembling a man
But with the mind of a moth attracted by flames
Determined to burn down all he surveys.
Part slug, part turnip - malformed, malevolent, evil.
Always staring and scheming.
And plotting.
But in the dark
Ah! The dark!
But in the dark
It moves.
If YOU have been affected by the issues raised in this poem, please, please, please write to Solent University requesting that the Turnip Fœtus be removed from outside Bluebottle's office.
