Henry VIII's opulent wine fountain returns to Hampton Court Palace

April 30, 2010 3:46 AM

Modern Britain
posted by lungtaworld (14 comments total)

Odd non-sequitur of a comment from that curator - people think of Henry as a tyrant, but he blew all our money on fanciful prestige projects advancing his claims to family lands in a different country? Can't see how the latter refutes the former.
posted by Abiezer at 3:51 AM on April 30, 2010 [2 favorites]

Can't wait until someone tries to put soap in it.
posted by subbes at 3:56 AM on April 30, 2010

...a vast wine fountain around which Royal hangers-on can be seen drinking, fighting, vomiting and sleeping it off.

Plus ça change.
posted by randomination at 5:52 AM on April 30, 2010

To fully conform to Modern Britain, though, you'd have to fill it with White Lightning and Red Bull.
posted by stelas at 6:15 AM on April 30, 2010 [3 favorites]

Damn right. Although living in the West Country, we often pipe cider through ours.
posted by dowcrag at 6:26 AM on April 30, 2010

If he had just been content with a plastic cup, maybe he wouldn't have had to steal all the monks' land.
posted by jb at 7:18 AM on April 30, 2010

He might have cut peoples heads off, but he liked a laugh too!
posted by Artw at 7:26 AM on April 30, 2010

Yes, Abiezer, I was also struck by that strange non-sequitur. It's a bit like saying:

"People think of Turkmenbashi as a tyrant, but he had an ice palace built in the middle of the desert."

"People think of Kim Jong Il as a tyrant, but he is the world's largest buyer of Hennessy cognac."

"People think of Mobutu Sese Seko as a tyrant, but he used to charter a Concorde for his journeys to France."

"People think of Bokassa as a tyrant, but he had a 2 million dollar crown made for his coronation."
posted by Skeptic at 7:51 AM on April 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

He might have cut peoples heads off, but he liked a laugh too!

Yak! Yak! Yak!
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:11 AM on April 30, 2010

I'll take two, please.
posted by Hoenikker at 10:47 AM on April 30, 2010

the wine will now cost £3.50 a glass.


-that pretty much goes against the whole spirit of the thing.
posted by bonobothegreat at 11:28 AM on April 30, 2010

copper and lead pipes do not, apparently, meet health and safety laws

So my idea for a beer-piped-into-every-home utility, with monthly metered bills, won't work?
posted by lathrop at 1:26 PM on April 30, 2010

So my idea for a beer-piped-into-every-home utility, with monthly metered bills, won't work?

Well I'm no plumber, but I think it's mainly plastic pipes now so you should be alight.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:03 PM on April 30, 2010

It's not new to the modern age. Every October in Marino (one of the Castelli towns near Rome, Italy) there is a wine and grape festival where four or five of the town's fountains are switched to flow with wine: Sagra dell'uva. italian wiki

It's a great day out. They solve the problem of people diving into the fountains by cordoning them off with barriers while volunteers catch all the wine in flagons and filling cups to hand out.
posted by NailsTheCat at 7:20 AM on May 1, 2010