One of the first monuments I encountered in Dublin was the General Post Office, on the very obvious O'Connell street. The front reminded me so much of Pterry's description in GP, as did obviously the name GPO, that I went inside. And there were the marble counters, the floors, the balconies, and the chandeliers ! Now I'm pretty sure that there must be other post offices that look or looked like this but this really made me stop and gawp, so I thought I would share it with you guys. General Post Office, O'Connell Street, Dublin (Francis Johnston) [Archeire, Irish Architecture Online] Have you ever encountered a physical place that feels Discworldish to you ? (The white horses in the Cotswolds are another obvious one for me...)
That was one of the first things that popped into my head when I first read Going Postal , Kat I always stare at the bullet holes when I'm going past it though. I don't know why, but they've always grabbed my attention. Whenever I see Stonehenge on the TV, I always think of the flying stone in The Light Fantastic.
Bullet holes tend to do that, I think. There are quite a lot on buildings spread in Berlin, including the Reichstag I believe. What made those in your Post Office? And the Post office itself: The inside is a 100% :smile: as I imagined the AM one, the outside is almost too big and... and... pillary, but fits, too. Hm. Let me see... As you live in sceneries closer related to those Pratchett himself lives to, I'd say you are more likely to know Discworldish places... But I always thought that this one fitted well somewhere (my family lives there, and as a student, I used to work in the place). I always liked that it was relatively fancy-less. Not Schwanstein at all (and 800 years older, anyway, at least a few bits of it). It was, originally, built for practical purposes as well as for representation, not only for boasting. The torture chambers in the cellar are round and still have the set up for a mill stone / a little mill in the center. They still have a few actual canon balls sticking in the side of one of the towers, too.
During the 1916 Easter Rising the GPO was used as the headquarters of the leaders of the rebellion (failed that time). It was pretty badly damaged during the lengthy assault on it by artilelry shells, gun fire and the fact that an Oil Works across the street caught fire and sparks from that started setting fire to the roof. It eventually burned to a shell. The whole thing started on Easter Monday, and by 9am Saturday morning the whole thing was over and the leaders had surrendered from their makeshift HQ at the back of a fishmongers shop. They were all court-martialed and fifteen of them were executed by firing squad, effecitvly making martyrs out of all of them. Which of course, gave the freedom fighters an extra reason to fight.
Wow, you know I had never even noticed any holes, I was too busy gawping at the chandeliers ! But I'm glad I'm not completely mad, at least in that respect. The other thing I seem to notice here is the sunlight, it has the lazy golden qualities up north that is just doesn't have further south, probably due to a refraction angle in the atmospheric dust or something like that. Although magic does sound a lot nicer, and when you see the sun rise here you could almost believe it... (actually, if you see the sun at all you'll begin believing in magic)
