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A note for visitors coming via Chris Zeigler's grumpy comments in <a href="http://www.cracked.com/article_19490_the-9-most-baffling-monuments-to-great-people.html" rel="nofollow"> The 9 Most Baffling Monuments to Great People</a>.

I'm unsure why Londoners - or anyone else - would find Oscar "baffling". After all, sculptor Maggi Hambling gives us a few small clues. Like the quotation from one of his plays - in very large letters. Plus his name and dates.

To be fair to Chris, it seems he spent a few moments sitting on the sculpture/bench for a chat with Oscar. Only to be scared in case: "that thing would begin with it beckoning our souls down into whatever pit of hell it slithered up from ..."

So I guess Chris must have visited on a really bad day. When we stroll across Trafalgar Square and past St Martin's Church to pay our respects, Oscar always seems smiling and relaxed — especially for someone who's been dead over a century. And though Maggi Hambling's metal tendrils suggest some worm activity, and his hair is slightly dishevelled, will Chris Zeigler look any better in the next century?

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Photo 23 March 2008. Londoners seem to have taken to Maggi Hambling's sculpture which wittily commemorates Oscar Wilde.

The quotation is from Wilde's play Lady Windermere’s Fan:

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”. 

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§ Read or download <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/790" rel="nofollow">Lady Windermere's Fan</a> from Project Gutenberg Website.