Little Britain (and the rest of the planet)
October 23, 2018 12:44 AM   Subscribe

 
It takes the writer about 10 paragraphs before they draw the analogy between the popularity of idealised nostalgic miniature versions of England and the forces driving Brexit. I got there on the first.

Perhaps we would commission somebody to zoom out and depict a miniature, but inter-connected EU.
posted by rongorongo at 2:22 AM on October 23, 2018


Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire (not an imaginary model, but an accurate copy of the town at 1:9 scale, which “enables our American cousins to see Bourton-on-the-Water nine times more quickly”)

729 times, actually.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:46 AM on October 23, 2018 [7 favorites]


It takes the writer about 10 paragraphs

I thought he got there in seven:

with the pace of life accelerating, and the historical integrity of Bekonscot looking increasingly confusing, the people who ran the place decided that the model should go back to its roots. So the modern world was banished, or at least repainted.

The writer, Simon Garfield, has written some fascinating non-fiction over the years.
posted by rory at 3:01 AM on October 23, 2018


729 times, actually.

Actually only 81 times - while the model has three dimensions, towns are usually explored by covering their area, not also their height.
posted by Dysk at 3:06 AM on October 23, 2018 [4 favorites]


The writer, Simon Garfield, has written some fascinating non-fiction over the years.

I'm literally reading Just My Type - his book about fonts - at the moment. It's great. I'd also recommend the very niche, but also awesome, The Wrestling - about the rise and fall British Wrestling in the late 20th century and The Nation's Favourite - about the turmoil at Radio One in 90s
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:17 AM on October 23, 2018


729 times, actually.

Actually only 81 times...

I'm going with 9, as we tend to explore places by walking a linear path, which means you cover 9x the distance in any given time, scale-wise. Also, your field of view is increased by a factor of 9, side-to-side. True that you're also getting additional information in the vertical plane, but I think you'd have to conflate 'explore' with 'perceive' to argue for 81x.

And if you peer into the window of the tiny greasy spoon, you'll see a minute plate of miniscule beans. And hopefully some bacon and sausage.
posted by pipeski at 3:40 AM on October 23, 2018 [4 favorites]


729 vs 81

I love metafilter.
posted by pompomtom at 3:40 AM on October 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


729 times, actually.

You also have to factor in that the real life, full scale, Bourton-on-the-Water, has, on any given day, about 90 bajillion coach-loads of other tourists to maneuver around.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:46 AM on October 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


I'm literally reading Just My Type - his book about fonts - at the moment.

I’m a professional typographer who has been working with type since the 1980s and can pretentiously name-drop well-known people in publishing/design i know or have worked with.

I hate that book. The only reason i’ve read it is because it was given to me as a gift. I’m going to put it in the trash instead of selling it to my favorite used bookstore or donating it to a good local charity bookstore. I don’t want to encourage anyone to read it by having my copy floating around town.

(Not going to pick it apart here, though, or get into a debate about it.)
posted by D.C. at 4:06 AM on October 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


I'm going with 9, as we tend to explore places by walking a linear path

Clearly you don’t adhere to my technique of Abberant Tourism, where, unhindered by Space and Time, one engulfs the totality in a single consciousness-shattering* moment. If you were, the calculation would be 0 or infinity.

* Note: if done correctly, it is not your consciousness that gets shattered.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:08 AM on October 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


> Perhaps we would commission somebody to zoom out and depict a miniature, but inter-connected EU.

Sadly, Mini Europe didn't save us.
posted by Aethelwulf at 4:25 AM on October 23, 2018


729 times, actually.

Actually only 81 times...

I'm going with 9...


Someone should calculate the fractal dimension of Bourton-on-the-Water; that should be the proper exponent.

The US was mentioned only in passing, but if you ever find yourself in Roanoke, VA, you can check out Miniature Graceland!
posted by TedW at 5:59 AM on October 23, 2018


Not going to pick it apart here, though, or get into a debate about it.

Aw. It's on my shelf but I haven't read it yet - I'd be interested to know why it's problematic. Do you have a review somewhere that you could point us to?

I don't know if chemists or science historians hated Mauve, but I enjoyed that as a layperson back in the day.
posted by rory at 6:07 AM on October 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


Why wander the streets when you can go inside Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle — The Original Tiny House? (More images...)
posted by cenoxo at 6:30 AM on October 23, 2018


This is the first thing I saw this morning after reading a related post at Things Magazine which I link to here mostly in the hopes of driving more traffic their way. We've lost so many of my favorite sites the last couple of years that I'm afraid whoever posts there will stop if not listed enough. Plus I know they cross-post from here and someone needs to return the favor.
posted by Conrad-Casserole at 6:50 AM on October 23, 2018


I love Bourton on the Water! I used to go there as a child, and went back this summer with a friend who was duly impressed - particularly at the model village, although it couldn't quite compete with meeting Brum.
posted by Cheerwell Maker at 6:59 AM on October 23, 2018


I need to dig out my tattered copy of The Borrowers Aloft.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:53 AM on October 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


(Other things are going on near the meadow: the keenest visitors have spotted tiny plastic couples having sex, for example.)
In the window of a closed hobby shop in Aachen a decade ago I saw a set of model railroad figurines for sale: all nude or nearly so, arranged in groups of two or three, all gleefully shagging. I do not know any model railroad enthusiasts but I do have at least one friend who would have been delighted with a tiny HO-scale orgy to arrange on her windowsill, perhaps next to the potted African violet. Alas, I had to leave early the next day before the store opened, and the fugitive opportunity was lost.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:13 AM on October 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


Just never build a model village that includes the place where you built the model village. The recursion is brutal.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:34 AM on October 23, 2018 [4 favorites]


Alas, I had to leave early the next day before the store opened, and the fugitive opportunity was lost.

Here you go...
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:38 AM on October 23, 2018


Interestingly enough, the sense of control and timelessness is why miniatures are falling out of favor in a lot of museums, especially anthropology museums. It used to be common practice to depict, say, a Native Alaskan fishing village in miniature. It gave the impression that this was a vision of the "pure" and unchanging fishing village. Of course, that's not how history really works, because of course things change over time. But the viewer would come away with the false impression that the Native Alaskan people, as depicted in the model, were themselves unchanging unless acted on by an external, corrupting force. It reflected and reinforced a pernicious colonial vision of Native people as "primitives."

I mean, I still love making models, and I love visiting model villages and railroads and whatnot. It's just interesting to think about the psychology behind it all.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 12:18 PM on October 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


I was born in Beaconsfield, but left while I was still pretty much a baby to come with my folks to New Zealand. I went back there in the 2000s, visited the model village and found the exact miniature house replicating where I was born. I had a squinty look inside the window and there was a crib complete with a baby... and plane tickets on the table beside it.

True story for certain values of true
posted by Sparx at 10:50 PM on October 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


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