To appreciate the full stupidity of this you may need a magnifying glass, but let me explain.
As you can see it shows a bridge. Clifton Bridge in Bristol, to be exact – perhaps the most beautiful bridge in England.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel the great engineer who designed it said it was his darling.
The poster – which I consider well designed but far too wordy – is paid for by First Great Western, the infinitely grasping and incompetent descendant of the Great Western Railway, created by Brunel 170 years ago.
The message suggests you should take the train to Bristol to see the bridge. To be precise, it says “After a tough week I take the train to Bristol. After that it’s all water under the bridge.”
Then there is a lot of rubbish about being a Great Westerner. As anybody who has – as I do – to travel regularly from London to Bristol standing with other victims like cattle in the least punctual line in Britain this adds idiocy to injury.
Apart from that, why is this stupid?
Because the poster is in Bristol itself, about 300 metres away from Temple Meads Station, also designed by Brunel.
Why is it smart-arse? Because beneath the bridge is the River Avon, and the writer of the poster couldn’t resist the line “It’s all water under the bridge”.
A bad joke is not a selling idea, and a poster inviting you to go to a place where you are already is idiotic.
Where’s the ad? Don’t tell me….in Bristol, I bet.
R Right first time. Read the story
Isambard Kingdom Brunel the great engineer who designed it said it was his darling.
Was Brunel still alive when Clifton suspension bridge was completed?
An attempt to build Brunel’s design in 1831 was stopped by the Bristol Riots, which severely dented commercial confidence in Bristol. Work was not started again until 1836, and by 1843, the towers had been built in unfinished stone, but funds were exhausted. In 1851, the ironwork was sold and used to build the Brunel-designed Royal Albert Bridge on the railway between Plymouth and Saltash.
Brunel died in 1859, without seeing the completion of the bridge. Brunel’s colleagues in the Institution of Civil Engineers felt that completion of the Bridge would be a fitting memorial, and started to raise new funds. In 1860, Brunel’s Hungerford suspension bridge, over the Thames in London, was demolished to make way for a new railway bridge* to Charing Cross railway station, and its chains were purchased for use at Clifton. A slightly revised design was made by William Henry Barlow and Sir John Hawkshaw; it has a wider, higher and sturdier deck than Brunel intended, triple chains instead of double, and the towers were left as rough stone rather than being finished in Egyptian style. Work on the bridge was restarted in 1862, and was complete by 1864 – 111 years after a bridge at the site was first planned.
* In London, the first Hungerford Bridge, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, opened in 1845 as a suspension footbridge. It was named after the then Hungerford Market, because it went from the South Bank to Hungerford Market on the north side of the Thames. After the new railway bridge was built, a new footbridge was built alongside that new railway bridge.
That was really interesting and relevant, especially the thing about Hungerford. Let me get some triple chains, you stay right there.
Don’t excite the innocent, Eleanor.
I thought that the advert more than hinted this this bridge was the route the train took into Bristol. I spent a couple of years working in the city and a few nights in a hotel bar overlooking the gorge. Maybe I did have a few drinks in that time, but I only remember cars, bikes and pedestrians crossing the bridge.
It isn’t.
No trains on this bridge. One of the most notable thing I remember is that the sign advertising the number for the Samaritans is only at one end…
I wonder how many people lost their lives as a result of that little omission.
There another phenomenon you’ve missed out. This new business of posters with writing on so small you can’t read it. What does it say in the pink badge? If you can read this you’ve driven into the billboard? And who would want to describe themselves as a Great Westerner? Apart from Iggy Pop, maybe.
Nice one.
Why is it First Great Western? Brunel’s Great Western was first. I would have thought second rate Great Western would be more accurate.
Couldn’t agree more.