Smile please, its Stirling's world first

by Nicola Shepherd

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A GIANT photograph is causing a storm in the Scottish town of Stirling. The council has decided to liven up an ugly, prefabricated concrete wall, above a busy road junction, with a photograph measuring 850 square metres.

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Mortoring organisations, the AA and RAC have lambasted the proposal, saying it will cause traffic chaos, and possibly fatal accidents, as drivers are distracted by the size and content of the photograph. One proposal is to have a photo of every Stirling resident as part of a massive collage of faces.

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ROSPA, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, says it�is the location that gives cause for concern. Spokesman, Michael McDonald, said, 'Striking displays of art have been used on long, boring stretches of road such as the M8 corridor, but in the�centre of� town drivers need to be alert to the potential dangers all the time.'

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The Wonderbra poster advertising campaign, featuring a pouting Eva Herzigova showing off her assets, was know to have caused a number of traffic shunts in London and elsewhere. It was eventually withdrawn as a result.

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But, if the scheme goes ahead it will certainly secure Stirling's place on the map of world firsts in art, as the photograph, it is thought,�would be the biggest ever produced anywhere.

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It will join the rarefied company of other similar world records:

• Van Gogh's Sunflowers, the world's most expensive work of art fetched $38million at auction in 1985.
• The world's oldest written work of art was penned, or�rather, chiselled, by the world's oldest author, who was a woman. Enheduanna, Princess of Inanna, was writing on cuneiform tablets over 4,300 years ago in Ur, a province next to Babylon.
• The world's largest statue is soon to be erected in Houston, Texas, as a monument� to the hi-tech industry there. It is made of steel and is called the Spirit of Houston. Its claim to fame is to be the world's tallest statue�of a woman.� Standing at an astonishing 555 feet tall, it will dwarf the Statue of� Libery at only 155 feet (index finger a mere eight feet long).
• The giant Stirling photograph aside, Britain's other claim to a world first is Glastonbury Abbey. This is the oldest above ground Christian church in the world.