The ongoing march of the fibreglass cows

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I can't be the only person who's noticed the sudden appearance of some brightly coloured fibreglass cows in central London? They started off, as far as I'm aware, around Berkley Square about a month or so ago, and more and more of them are appearing - they're slowly spreading East towards Trafalgar Square. The last one I saw was the strangest of all - to all intents and purposes a Harry Potter cow, on a broomstick, with a black gown and glasses, 'hovering' above the grass in Leicester Square?

What are they for? Who is putting them there? And are they going to take over the WORLD?!

― Matt DC, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

they used to be in Zurich and they've come to London via some other places. there are 2 in Hammersmith Station - they give me the GLEE! i think it's a travelling art exhibition or something like that.

― katie, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

They are going to be auctioned later in the year, for charity I think. Metro has a cow of the week every week, this week it's Daisy Beckham (do you see?) in full England kit. There is a website apparently at www.cowparadelondon.com.

― Emma, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1000000/1000004.stm

and

http://www.cowparade.net/

― katie, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Was there one outside the Criterion Theatre? I had a terrible hangover the day I saw it and just dismissed it as a part of the awful weirdness of my hungover world.

― Anna, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

there's a nice one along embankment with an A-Z map all over it. the couple in hammersmith tube station are rubbish

― Alan T, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Cows are so LAST year, darlings. NY had them all over the place and I hatched imaginary plots to destroy them all in a unique way befitting their particular decoration. the "Stock Market Cow" with line graph on the side - chuck it out a 20th story window, obviously. The "tulip cow" - crush it, smoke it, pay for sex with it. the "Bollywood" cow - drive it deef with insane wailing so it gets hit by cars it can't hear

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

we had loads of moose in toronto a while ago. i went to england for the summer, came back, and all of a sudden the city was CRAWLING with fibreglass moose of all colours. (even a FUNKY PINK AND BLOO one!) i think they auctioned them off though, because i haven't seen any around for ages.

― sandy, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Sort of like the black metal horses along the side of the railway line between Wolverhampton and Birmingham.

― Anna, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Anna, yes, excapt, fibreglass, colourful and cows.

Sorry.

― Tim, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Ah perhaps the pedant should check his spelling and grammar to avoid looking like the Big Fool?

― Tim, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Well there is that

― Anna, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

in D.C. they have fiberglass DONKEYS and ELEPHANTS oh HO they are clever ones (these are thee symbolZ0r of Democrats and Repubs respectively for those tuning in overseas). best one was a donkey enveloped in a wireframe of an elephant. 2 poss. interps based on whther wireframe REVEALS or OBSCURES: there is a donkey hidden inside every elephant, waiting to get out, OR --> donkeys are slowly but surely in a state of becoming elephants

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The democrats symbol is a DONKEY?! You're shitting me, right?

― Matt DC, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

No, not at all. It's been a donkey since sometime in the nineteenth century, I believe.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

originated by political cartoonist Thomas Nast (from whom we get the word "nasty") - he wuz staunch Repub so in cartoons portrayed his party with a symbol of strength, memory, etc and his rivals as stubborn weaklings

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

NB Tracer cows are actually so two years ago, if you live in Chicago. (Poss. three; my memory might be off.) Last year was ostensibly ping-pong (although I never came across any) and of course To Kill a Mockingbird, further evidence that everyone is copying Chicago, even when we do stupid things. (If only NYC had copied the Chicago cab-light system instead of vice versa.)

― nabisco, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Every year for the past five years or so at the Big E, a giant North East Fair they have a very popular attraction know as the Butter Cow. It's carved out of 500 or so pounds of butter thats kept chilled so the cow doesn't melt.

― brg30, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Shortly after being told about the Butter Cow by a friend who'd just seen it, I caught an episode of The West Wing in which it featured heavily. I believe C.J. was going to great lengths to defend the Butter Cow concept to Leo, and I must say I was completely on her side.

― nabisco, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Is this analagous to Glasgow's chewing-gum hearts mystery?

― Ally C, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

the first I heard of the cows, they were in Austria. They came to Chicago a few summers back - the most sucessful art project the city has ever hosted. I would like to make a video where I am screaming and attacking (preferably with nunchakus) fiberglass cows around the world. A sort of carthartic project.

― Timothy, Saturday, 20 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

chewing gum hearts = jandek!

where are they all? top of byres road/grt. western rd. interchange crosswayweavebit. on the hill leading up to the glas. uni. library. (on argyll st.?)

Ally?

― ^david_h(owie), Saturday, 20 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Tracer beat me to the punch re the fiberglass cows in NYC. And it was two years ago, not one year ago. Just about one of the dumbest things I'd ever seen, and was glad when they were gone.

Anyone else remember what David Lynch did to his fiberglass cow? What he did to his cow would have made him into an instant hero of mine, if already wasn't one for his films.

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Sunday, 21 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

one month passes...

chewing gum heart, photo here (like you really needed one):

http://www.duncancumming.co.uk/photos.cfm?photo=1263

from George Square in Glasgow. What's it all about?

― duncan, Friday, 20 September 2002 10:40 (twenty-three years ago)

they're just ripping off the bears of berlin

― gareth (gareth), Friday, 20 September 2002 10:41 (twenty-three years ago)

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