A roof over our head
March 17, 2011 7:46 AM Subscribe
The Unst Bus Shelter website has been updated, and remains as charming as ever, 10 years on. It has been occasionally mentioned on the Blue, but the new version of the site shows that it just keeps on getting better. The shelter has even been praised by UK film critic, Mark Kermode who visited it when it doubled as a two person cinema. It has also hosted the crown jewels, beer drinking hamsters and music festivals.
Still the greatest bus shelter in the northern hemisphere, and a potent reminder of the glorious history of British engineering. For the Victorians, this bus shelter was the "jewel in the crown" of the British Empire. Today, we can only weep to remember just what a superpower Britain was when she constructed this marvelous wonder. Surely if a Herodotus or a Philon walked with us today, they would be struck dumb by the splendor of her construction, the subtlety of her composition and the magnificence of her palatial interior – and would consider the Temple of Artemis, in comparison, a paltry thing. Some say that Nicolae Ceauşescu wept when he constructed his "Great House of the People" in Bucharest, knowing that it would never rival this divinely-inspired monument. Hitler was said to have confided to his generals that he would trade all of Czechoslovakia to spent one day at the Unst Bus Shelter. God, who reportedly made the Universe, gave himself a giant wedgie when this work was erected, knowing that mankind has fashioned a more perfect thing than he ever could. Birds that fly over this incredible bus shelter explode with joy at its sight, and a rain of their feathers falls continually about it. The Earth's magnetic field, in order to come closer to this transcendental shelter, bends inward at the Shetland Islands and charged particles display a continual aurora above Unst. Michael Buble wrote an entire album based on the Unst Bus Shelter, which stayed at number one in the US and UK charts for 4,953 years. Some say that those who have measured the shelter can only express its dimensions in infinite-dimensional space, and that to see the shelter is to achieve an intuitive understanding of the continuum hypothesis. The Unst Bus Shelter radiates life-giving “qi” energy at a phenomenal rate, and those who sleep within it experience accurate dreams about the future. The Unst Bus Shelter housed the entire population of London during the great fire of 1666, for which succor all cockneys worship the shelter as an incarnation of the universal mother-goddess. Queens Park Rangers FC moved into the shelter when Loftus Road stadium was being redeveloped, and won ninety-seven European cup finals when playing there, all within the same year. Some say it exists outside of time altogether, and that to step within the bus shelter reveals the absurdity of all human pretension as to the concept of “space”, proving Kant wrong about everything.
On the other hand, the Unst bus service is terrible.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 8:20 AM on March 17, 2011 [8 favorites]
On the other hand, the Unst bus service is terrible.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 8:20 AM on March 17, 2011 [8 favorites]
The sun may have set on the British Empire's dominance in certain fields of endeavor, like football, cricket, and naval warfare, but I truly think that Great Britain will always be world-beaters when it comes to quirky eccentricity. God Save the Anorak.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:30 AM on March 17, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Rock Steady at 8:30 AM on March 17, 2011 [1 favorite]
Undoubtedly the biggest thing to happen to the Bus Shelter in its short history is the international infamy brought with its inclusion in the ‘Axis of Evil’.
The Unst Bus Shelter actively creates and stockpiles WMDs, forsaking the trust vested in it by its own government.
Brilliant.
posted by three blind mice at 8:30 AM on March 17, 2011
I thought this was very cute, until I got to the page that tells us the original founder of the project apparently walked out to sea.
posted by Xoder at 8:54 AM on March 17, 2011
posted by Xoder at 8:54 AM on March 17, 2011
Yes, I just read that, eagerly waiting for the punchline, then slowing as I realised that there probably wasn't going to be one.
Quite a contrast with the rest of the site.
posted by fizban at 9:08 AM on March 17, 2011
Quite a contrast with the rest of the site.
posted by fizban at 9:08 AM on March 17, 2011
This is screaming out to be turned into a heartwarming British film comedy with a bittersweet ending.
posted by Summer at 9:12 AM on March 17, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Summer at 9:12 AM on March 17, 2011 [1 favorite]
Needs more naked people for that.
posted by brundlefly at 9:14 AM on March 17, 2011
posted by brundlefly at 9:14 AM on March 17, 2011
That page does not tell us the founder of the project apparently walked out to sea, the page says 'it is still not known what happened to him on that morning'. Let's not speculate.
posted by IanMorr at 10:11 AM on March 17, 2011
posted by IanMorr at 10:11 AM on March 17, 2011
You're absolutely right, IanMorr. Should have said, "Died under mysterious circumstances and ended up having his femur picked up by some fishermen."
posted by Xoder at 11:04 AM on March 17, 2011
posted by Xoder at 11:04 AM on March 17, 2011
He was a good man - see Guardian obituary.
posted by quarsan at 11:09 AM on March 17, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by quarsan at 11:09 AM on March 17, 2011 [1 favorite]
Top man.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 11:21 AM on March 17, 2011
posted by the quidnunc kid at 11:21 AM on March 17, 2011
This must be what that song is about. You know that song, you hear it on public transport all the time. It goes: Unst unst unst unst...
posted by pompomtom at 6:03 PM on March 17, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by pompomtom at 6:03 PM on March 17, 2011 [1 favorite]
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posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:16 AM on March 17, 2011