Trafalgar Green

It’s not often that I’m excited by anything on television that doesn’t have a ‘ten minute free view’ caption. But when I saw on the local news that they had turfed Trafalgar Square, my interest was piqued.

So one lunchtime I wandered up there. On telly it looked amazing, like one of those post-apocalyptic science fiction illustrations of a deserted London being taken back by nature. All that was missing were the creepers climbing Nelson’s Column and two types in haz-mat suits saying ‘This used to be a great city…called ‘Lon-don’’.

The reality was a tad disappointing. The entire square had not been turfed (fair enough, it’s vast) and while they had turfed a LOT, about half a footie pitch’s worth - it was just lost in the rest of the square and under the mass of pic-nicers on it. If they wanted to make a truly English park, they should have stuck up a load of ‘keep off the grass’ signs.

The turf was only there for a couple of days and the effect was very jolly. I can see way they only had it there a couple of days though, any more than that and it would have turned to mud, or worse, pikies would have moved onto it and littered the place with caravans, burned out cars and grazing ponies.