The planned 'Airport' blog is postponed until tomorrow!
Even AI Didn't Know!
The Cardiff tolley bus blind showed ...... "14 Pier Head & Monument" but fbb struggled with finding "Monument" anywhere in Cardiff. As the painting above was diagnosed as a bus returning to the city centre, it was reasonable to conclude that the destination blind served for both out and back running.
For a laugh, fbb (with No 3 son's help) asked Gemini ...
... a personable young gell with a mid-Atlantic accent. It was apparent that she didn't really know, despite offering plausible but inaccurate or incomplete replies to our questions.
Is Gemini related to Alexa - they both have similar speaking styles?
Rather naughtily, fbb had already found the answer using his Biological Research And Interrogation Notation software late last night. He did have a bit of help from his Tablet ...
... but needed his personal software to make sense of it. Even the sainted and supposedly omniscient Wikipedia could not satisfy the old codger's search for monumental knowledge!
He had also tried asking his blog reading chum, Andrew, who lives in Cardiff - but he had no idea.
The key to unlocking the Monument mystery was this postcard ...
... also available in 'colourised' form.
Note the trolley bus 'overhead'.
The caption on the monochrome picture confirmed this to be 'The Monument'. The card was on a web site posting, bewailing the disappearing heritage of the city. The author reported that "almost everything in the picture was now lost". Said author did confirm that the roundabout was 'at the bottom of St Mary Street'.
There was an even older shot of the same location with a passing tram!
But no roundabout.
There is, however, still a roundabout at the bottom of St Mary Street ...
... but its monument is very different.
It is an arty but significant water feature!
Further late night searches revealed that the 'Monument' had been moved to Callaghan Square ...
... which was right next to the St Mary Street roundabout but, alas, now lacking trolley bus overhead.
It transpires that Callaghan Square used to be called Bute Square ...
... and we have met the location before. There is the Bute Street bridge that featured yesterday also that 'iconic' tiled pub.
Somewhere in his tortuous research, fbb had gleaned that the 'Monument' was a statue of a prominent local businessman ....
... namely the Second Marquis Of Bute. (There is a clue to all this in the various Cardiff names) Quite what happened to the first narquis is unclear.
John Crichton-Stuart (1793 to 1848) was a member of the House of Lords and controlled the votes of several members of the House of Commons, He was a political and religious conservative, a follower of the Duke of Wellington, but rarely took part in national debates unless his own commercial interests were involved. Early on, Bute realised the vast wealth that lay in the South Wales coalfields and set about commercially exploiting them through local ironmasters and colliers.
He constructed the Cardiff Docks, a major project which, despite running heavily over budget, enabled further exports of iron and coal and magnified the value of his lands in Glamorganshire. When violence broke out in the Merthyr Rising of 1831, Bute led the government response from Cardiff Castle, dispatching military forces, deploying spies and keeping Whitehall informed throughout. The contemporary press praised the marquis as "the creator of modern Cardiff", and on his death he left vast wealth to his son.
Maybe today's 'politically correct' promoters might classify Marquis John as the Dictator of Cardiff?
But, joy of omnibological joys, the Monument Mystery is now resolved.
As an aside, chum Andrew suggests an alternative equivalent to the former electric powered 14.
Service 6 is, like the old 14, a short route from city to Cardiff Bay (Pier Head as was).
Is route, however is via a relatively new Lloyd George Avenue, running parallel to the 14's Bute Street. The 6 also starts from the recently re-opened Interchange a k a Bus Station.
Famous for branded buses ...
... in beautiful blue ...
... it currently runs every 30 min ...
... boringly with vehicles in orange fleet livery.
But, like the former 14,
these vehicles are electric. Power, however, now comes from batteries rather than overhead wires!
And bemused people, with a touch of sympathetic concern, ask fbb what is so interesting about public transport.
Tomorrow we return to ...
Next Airport blog : Weds 22nd April
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