I’ve visited central London a bunch of times over the past few years and I’ve noticed many of the structures around the city seem to serve no useful purpose other than to commemorate events or individuals. Maybe it’s because they are either unsuitable for commercial / residential use or they’re not properly zoned for utility infrastructure / pubic transportation. Take this thing for example: I have no idea what it is or what it is for. All of the people standing around it said they were waiting for friends or relatives. So from what I can tell it’s some kind of navigation marker for pedestrians.

Pedestrians under the age of five apparently.

The purposes of some of the other structures are more obvious. This statue celebrates the “victory” of Nelson over the French-Spanish-Portuguese-Italian Armada (Spanish for “water army”) at Trafalgar. It’s unclear to me why this is even here.

Did he win because he was better or because his opponents couldn’t effectively communicate with each other?

It said on the plaque that he got shot in the face, standing in full view, with no cover, on the deck of a warship, within range of the enemy, in the middle of a huge naval battle. I know he was a brilliant tactician and all that, but come on, how exactly does this count as a win? In chess, if your king dies, you lose the game. Any contest I’m in that concludes with my funeral is, by definition, a loss.

So what can one take away from all this? Well for me, if, after emerging victorious from some competition, I’m not alive long enough to enjoy the post-event celebratory sex, you can just give the ribbon to one of my opponents, I don’t care which one. It’ll make him feel incredibly uncomfortable (seeing as I just died and all) and he probably won’t accept it, but please do try.