One man decided a dive-bombing shark in a suburban roof was just the anti-war message needed to expose all our vulnerability (not least as it coincided with the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki). Fast forward 25 years, August 2011, and what have we learnt (apart from history really does repeat itself)? Here is a fishy tale about Oxford’s most famous modern landmark that will have you in stit
ches. Part Pythonesque, part political thriller, this is the inside (literally) story of how the 25ft shark landed in a suburban Oxford street and caused a battle royale with the local council. For 6 years the shark was reeled in and cast off until a Public Inquiry was called. . . With a cast of characters that includes Bernard Levin, Philip Pullman, Lord Palumbo, Mohamed Al-Fayed, Sir Hugh Casson, Sir Hugo Young not to mention Bill Heine the predatory perpetrator and John Buckley the secretive sculptor, this is a quintessentially English tale about a universal icon and its survival on the Oxford skyline, dreamt up long before sharks stuffed with formaldehyde became all the rage. Packed with contemporary illustrations, newspaper cartoons and never-before-seen photographs, The Hunting of the Shark is a cross between a Python sketch, a political cri de coeur, an arts review, and a mind-boggling journey into local planning laws.
