unexpected statue

hello there

every year for the last few years i have, i think, managed to get at least one (1) post on here concerning a football (or if you will soccer, look you see) related statue. it would seem, alas, that this year no such thing shall happen. no more do i travel all that extensively for verk concerns. likely i could if i wished, but my rather well documented medical exploits have me of a mind to remain close to home. just in case, as it were, or as you would. or might. 

merrily, though, my travels took me more or less directly to a statue of significance. no, it is not a football related one as such (or per se), but still, quite an interesting one. 

gone done my best in the above to use this (relatively) new "8 bit" camera thing to give it a newspaper feel, for as i recall this is where the person in the statue first appeared. should you have no idea as to who(m), exactly, that is, well, i am not too surprised as it is doubtful he is all that well known across the present generation. that, then, is newspaper cartoon (and briefly TV show) character Andy Capp. 

someone somewhere will have written a much more better history (or what have you) of the Andy Capp character than i could offer. i would encourage you to look it up if interested, but in brief he was a kind of "stereotype" northerner, as in unemployed, frequently in the pub, for a while constantly smoking and as keen on betting on horses as he was fighting. very. he was of (or from) Hartlepool, as was his creator, the late Reg Smythe. 

indeed i was, for verk concerns (that i would rather not discuss), in Hartlepool. rather likely that Andy Capp is the second most famous thing from the place, for it is rather tough to top the story of how the residents of this coastal town once put on trial and hung a monkey on suspicion of it being a French spy. easy mistake to make. not sure how, exactly. well known Andy Capp is around the rest of the world. likely his "fame" spread via various "ex-pats" communities. 

my understanding was that it, Andy Capp, was always "controversial", as it not so much personified various ideas (or stereotypes) of us "northerners" (proper ones, not that gentrified Manchester lot) as it did define them for some. oh, undoubtedly them southern shandy drinking softies laughed heartedly at how we peasants must be. changes were made to the character over the years - at some point the cigarette which perpetually hung from his mouth vanished, the "light hearted" takes on domestic abuse, perpetrated by both Andy and his wife Flo, were removed, as was his fighting. for whatever reason alcohol has always been seen as a perfectly fine thing, so the pint pot remains always. rather likely these changes would, in this day and age, be called that "woke" thing (whatever it actually is), but the alterations were made long before that word got thrown about so freely. 

from what i recall they had a go (or attempt) at making a TV series of the character, starring no less than James Bolam in the lead role. he was the one in The Likely Lads which was not Rodney Bewes. i don't rightly remember much of it, except that it was not particularly good. stretching a 1 - 4 panel newspaper comic strip into a tv show would strike me as a challenge. 

apologies if these pictures have not been the best (the ones i use here seldom are). it's just that the statue, as you can vaguely make out in the first picture, is right near some people's homes. really felt a bit awkward and intrusive taking the ones i did. 

well, if you are ever in the Headlands area of Hartlepool (which they brand on all signs as "Historic Headlands", presumably so as not to confuse it with the "Future Headlands"), you could do a lot worse than take a stroll to see it for yourself. 

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!