While many people know about Barry Humphries's creation, Dame Edna, his passion for Victorian architecture is less often mentioned. However, in Australia, Humphries, mirroring John Betjeman in England, used his fame to campaign for lovely old buildings under threat. Whereas Betjeman was defeated on the Euston Arch, Humphries was successful in saving Sydney's Queen Victoria Building. Sadly, Betjeman was the better poet. Not that that stopped Humphries. Here is his Ode to the QVB:
Ode to the Queen Victoria Building, Sydney (which was threatened by demolition in 1971)
Your domes dream of Constantinople.
Facade picturesque;
Stained glass that once glowed like an opal,
Sydney Romanesque.
They built you way back in the Boom Time,
The Opulent Era;
But now in the seventies' Doom Time
The Wrecker steals nearer.
The noose of Progress slowly throttles
The old and the brave;
New towers rise like giant jumbo bottles
Of cheap aftershave.
How we hate all that sandstone as golden
As obsolete guineas;
With nowhere to stable our Holden
Or tether our Minis.
A casino, car park or urinal
Would grace such a site,
The end could be painless and final,
The deed done by night.
Reactionary ratbags won't budge us
Nor sentiment sway;
But how will Posterity judge us
Ten years from today?
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