The Sultan's Elephant - 7th May

At about 11.30, I wandered past Buckingham Palace, where the changing of the guard was drawing a big crowd as usual. But at the other end of The Mall, another show was drawing a much bigger crowd. A 42 tonne, 12 metre high elephant was wandering around town, with 12 people operating it, moving eyes and ears, and a trunk that sprayed water at the crowd. Also, sauntering through St James' Park was a 5m high puppet of a little girl. At one point she took a nap in a deck chair. Later she licked a lollipop. The elephant, meanwhile, wandered up to Piccadilly, where it sat down for most of the afternoon, while the Sultan had lunch. It then came back to Horse Guard's Parade at about 3.30, via Piccadilly Circus and Haymarket, where it met the little girl, and bid her farewell. At 5.30, they walked round the parade ground, and the little girl climbed up into her time machine, and disappeared.

The whole thing was on a colossal scale, all very simple, but very compelling. I'd expected to stay for an hour or two at most, but in the end I didn't leave until the show was over. The atmosphere into he crowd was one of childlike wonder, from children and adults alike. In fact, even a small brown dog was pretty impressed by the whole thing when its owner held it up to see the elephant. It did give the impression it wanted to fight the elephant though (which would have been something to see).

A request for Ken: More of this sort of thing please!

Photos here.