During the steaming hot days of August, when I staggered out of the Central Library after hours slaving over a hot computer, I would collapse onto a bench in the Town Hall Square in front of the fountain. No matter how sultry the weather, the fountain always brought some relief. The slightest gust of breeze would blow some drops of water over me, and the air always seems fresher near a fountain. Negative ions, or so we are told.
The fountain is the jewel in Leicester's crown. A copy of one originally made for Barçelona, it allows you to pretend you are in Cataluña, as a flight of fancy. While I was sitting there with a friend, she closed her eyes, and said we should pretend to be at the seaside. Zephyrs were blowing the spray over us, but unfortunately the pigeons didn't co-operate by making the appropriate noises.
More and more often these days, the fountain is shut down, with repairmen hovering around it. In the first two weeks of September, the water has been shut off completely. On a recent visit, I went over to see if something was wrong. There were no real clues as to why it wasn't spouting away, but I was shocked to see the extent of the corrosion on it. Some of the toes of the griffins have been almost eaten away. Orange streaks and rust pits are everywhere. It isn't really made of bronze, as I had naively imagined. It must be cast iron or steel, with a bronze-coloured coating, which is deteriorating rapidly. Urgent action is required, if irreversible decline is to be arrested.
There are some genuine bronze statues in the square. The memorial to the Boer War at one corner of the garden is made of real cast bronze, and shows no sign of deterioration. It is in three parts, each depicting beautiful women in erotic postures, arching their backs and displaying bare breasts with erect nipples. One of them is crouching on her knees, entirely nude with one bare buttock showing, the other covered by her companion's dangling clothing, as though by accident. She is perilously close to displaying it all. Oddly, these women are carrying daggers in semi-concealed positions. I'm not sure what it's all supposed to mean. Perhaps it is a cryptic message from the artist, about the nature of war. The ladies seem very friendly, but if you get too close, they slip you a length, rather than the other way round. A bit like the Sirens of Greek mythology. A kind of metaphor for the allure of war, something which is all too often denied rather than admitted.
The square acts as an urban refuge for all sorts of people. Young lovers occupy a bench, while the next one is colonised by down-and-outs. The other day, I saw a man lying asleep on one of the benches, while on the other side of the fountain a woman was reading a book, and in-between small children were chasing pigeons. A flock of dozens of the birds whizzed over the top of my head at terrific speed, and very low altitude. Clearly they believe that a miss is as good as a mile. This kind of thing seems to be happening more often recently, the birds behaviour is changing in an odd way. Quite recently, I saw one of them try to perch on a man's shoulder, in the manner of Long John Silver's parrot. He had some difficulty shaking it off, and was naturally taken aback. We agreed we had never seen this before. It's as though the pigeons had started taking amphetamines.
The grass in the square is still popular with people sitting or lying down on a hot day, but this summer it has shown signs of deterioration. It has been scrubby and parched, with bare earth showing in many places. It is obvious that it was cut too short. In these days of global warming, drought is to be expected, and cutting grass short is no longer a good idea. It needs to be left long enough to withstand the combination of burning sun and human feet. This problem is also commonplace in the city's parks. We need to adapt, or our public grassland will suffer.
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