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| A giant fish through the roof! |
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The Shark became the most famous resident of Headington
when it landed in the roof of 2 New High Street
on 9 August 1986. (Read
more)
This ordinary home (built as a semi-detached house
in about 1860 but now attached by a link to a second
house to the north) suddenly became the centre of
world attention, and the headless shark still excites
interest today.
Bill Heine commissioned the shark and still owns
the house. An American who studied law at Balliol
College, he was running two Oxford cinemas at the
time, but since 1988 he has been better known as
a Radio Oxford presenter. When pressed by journalists
to provide a rationale for the shark, he suggested
the following:
" The shark was to express someone feeling
totally impotent and ripping a hole in their roof
out of a sense of impotence and anger and desperation....
It is saying something about CND, nuclear power,
Chernobyl and Nagasaki. "
The headless sculpture, with the label "Untitled
1986" fixed to the gate to the house, was erected
on the 41st anniversary of the dropping of the atomic
bomb on Nagasaki. Created by the sculptor John Buckley,
it is made of fibreglass, weighs four hundredweight,
and is 25 feet long... |
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