Folly

Folly

Today we meet the English word“ folly”, and we visit a strange old building and an art exhibition.

Let’s start with the word“ folly”. I guess you know what“ foolish” means. If someone is foolish, he or she does stupid or unwise things. We can call such a person a“ fool”. And a“ folly” is, simply, something which is foolish– something which is stupid, or unwise, or not sensible. We can say, for example, that it is folly to spend all your money at a casino, or that it is folly to drive your car on the wrong side of the road.

In the18 th century, it was fashionable for wealthy landowners to decorate their estates with beautiful but completely unnecessary buildings. For example, a landowner might build something that looks like a ruined Greek temple, half hidden in the trees. Or he might build a tall tower on the top of a hill. These buildings had no useful purpose. They were simply to decorate the landscape. We call them“ Follies”.

We have a folly here in Birmingham. It is called Perrott’s Folly. It is a tower nearly30 meters tall. There are six rooms, one above another, and a spiral staircase. A man called John Perrott built the tower, in the middle of the18 th century. At that time, there was open country all around. Birmingham was still a village, a kilometre or two away. Today it is quite different. There are streets and cars, houses and factories and offices, where there were once fields and woods.

Close by, there is a second tower, built in the19 th century by Birmingham Waterworks. I guess you have heard of the author J R R Tolkien, who wrote the Lord of the Rings books. When he was a child, Tolkien walked past the two towers– Perrott’s Folly and the waterworks tower– every day on his way to school. Tolkien fans say that the two towers were the inspiration for the two dark, evil towers which play an important part in Lord of the Rings.

Today Perrott’s Folly is in poor condition. One of the floors is missing and the paint is flaking off the walls. There are old pipes and a boiler from a long- forgotten heating system, perhaps from the time when Birmingham University used the tower as a weather station. It is not an obvious place to hold an art exhibition.

But last week I was able to visit Perrott’s Folly to see some art works by the modern German artist Jürgen Partenheimer. Carefully we climbed the spiral staircase. In each of the rooms, Jürgen Partenheimer had placed a single art work. When you look at his art works, they seem to remind you of something you once saw but which is now lost deep in your memory. And while we were looking at the art works, there was music playing- music written specially for this exhibition by the Irish composer Kevin Volans. The music too seems to remind you of something that you once heard but have now forgotten. Very strange. Here is a little bit to keep you company until the next podcast.