Coin stuffing

Tourists don't always respect the place they're visiting and many of them commit what can only be called acts of vandalism. The Giants Causeway on the north coast of Northern Ireland has been one of the victims.

Visitors are jamming tiny coins into the gaps between the stones, and these coins are discolouring the stones as iron, nickel and copper leach out of them. There's a copycat element as people see others shoving coins between the stones and do the same themselves.

It's hard to see what the motive is for this "coin stuffing". They'll never see the coins again and probably will have forgotten all about them a week later. Tour guides warn visitors not to leave coins, but the problem persists.

Unfortunately tourist vandalism is very common. Graffiti, love locks, stealing cobblestones, carving names on ancient monuments. There's a general lack of respect for the places they're visiting and too much mindless self-indulgence.

It would be a shame if popular tourist sites are routinely closed to the public because vandalism has got out of hand. A spectacular canyon in Iceland, featured in Game of Thrones, is now closed to visitors after a huge influx of tourists has damaged vegetation and trails. Iceland as a whole is now so fashionable it's buckling under the same tourist deluge as many other places.

Where will it all end?

Pic: the Giants Causeway

The urge to destroy

One of the many things that baffle me is the crazy urge to destroy that some people possess. However you look at their actions, they make absolutely no sense except as a brainless desire to annoy and inconvenience other people.

Right now there's a massive wildfire in the Mourne Mountains, 30 miles south of Belfast. There have been many wildfires there over the last few years, some of them clearly started by arsonists. Why deliberately destroy many acres of beautiful scenery and innocent wildlife?

A 24 year old man has been arrested in Surrey after dozens of mature trees were randomly chopped down. Again, there have been other similar tree-felling incidents over the years, and never any plausible explanation. Needless to say, the locals are always incensed by such vandalism.

Memorials, monuments and gravestones are regularly defaced, broken and covered with graffiti. Plastic rubbish, which could harm or kill marine creatures, is left on beaches. Obstacles placed on railway lines could cause crashes and derailments. Equipment in children's playgrounds is wrecked beyond repair.

Goodness knows what the motivation is. Is it some personal grudge or grievance? Is it the urge to disrupt other people's seemingly happier lives? Is it the need to impress some bunch of friends they hang out with? Is it to give them a sense of power? It's a mystery.

It's impossible to understand why some people want to destroy something valuable and life-enhancing rather than to nurture it. Unfortunately it can be the work of a moment to destroy something, while nurturing can take a lot more effort and dedication.

Art nouveau

When is art not art? A tricky question. Edinburgh sculptor Kevin Harman thought that heaving a metal pole through an art gallery window was an artistic tour de force. The director of the gallery didn't agree - she took him to court for breaching the peace.

Kevin's sponsor Richard Demarco was outraged. "There has obviously been a profound level of misunderstanding of the raison d'être of Kevin's work. His whole ethos is about making things which are negative into things that are positive."

Many others, including those with a wide knowledge of art such as myself, might say the misunderstanding is Kevin's. He has failed to grasp that smashing a window is not a work of art, it's merely a safety hazard to passing pedestrians.

Of course a sign saying "Ce n'est pas une fenêtre brisée" might have added an artistic dimension*. But presumably that was too passé for our Kev.

Kate Gray, Director of the Collective Gallery, certainly failed to see her shattered window as a ground-breaking oeuvre d'art. She thought petty crime was a more accurate description.

Admittedly, whether something is a work of art or not is often a matter of opinion rather than a self-evident fact. Kevin has his admirers who would stoutly defend his moment de folie as a pièce de résistance.

Try as I may, I can't see it as anything but une dêbacle monumentale.

* René Magritte, anyone? And we can all throw in a bit of pretentious French....

Pic: not the actual window but a similar "work of art". For the real thing, go to the link.
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Can you believe it? Five Eurostar trains (yes, five) broke down in the Channel Tunnel and 2000 passengers were stranded overnight. The official explanation? The trains couldn't handle the change from cold air outside the tunnel to warm air inside. You couldn't make it up.

Update, Saturday evening: A sixth Eurostar train has broken down in Kent, and the train towing it has also broken down.