The government approves of this shark now.
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- Опубліковано 23 жов 2022
- The Headington Shark, in Oxford, UK, is a local icon: but it was protest art, put up without permission. Now, the local government wants to protect it. ▪ The Shark House: www.headingtonshark.com/
Edited by Michelle Martin / mrsmmartin
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In CGP Grey's video about "Sharks!", he said "apparently shark art has a history in England". Consider this an unofficial prequel!
Ok
And a tragic one it is.
p
Interesting timeing! I must say
I literally thought this was about SHARKS!!!
This is the true aftermath of a Sharknado that no-one wants to talk about
Nicely done sir, nicely done 👏🏼
Happens every year here in Oklahoma.
@@jamesengland7461 da fuc going on in Oklahoma 💀
is a sharknado like a horse tornado but with sharks tornading instead of horses?
I knew it was real!
As a local I'm always proud when people talk about the headington shark, it's such a landmark installation you truly can't miss it
hey
@@EnergeticSpark63 hi
@@farrel_ra hey
That's flakey.
Me too.
I was born with a Chronic illness and had to travel to and from the JR Hospital almost my entire life, with some inpatient visits lasting months. I can honestly say I used to get excited about seeing this shark as I grew up and it still brings me a smile when I see it as an adult.
I never knew it's meaning, I never had any reason to explore further. I just loved the smiles it brought me on every trip. It always lifted my spirits on the way to a very grim and scary hospital visit.
I LOVE THIS ARTWORK.
Decorating your house without asking your neighbors for permission, as a protest, is so British that now I need tea
happens in the US quite a lot too, it's a very common thing. Maybe not protesting the government like this shark, but very similar
@@BeetleBuns yea! Carhenge in Nebraska
My previous landlord, ages ago, wanted to put a pool in his backyard, behind a fence, but the historical society said it wasn't allowed. He threatened to paint the whole house in polka dots because there wasn't anything in the regs about repainting.
@@BeetleBuns Its way worse in the US with HOAs etc. People get fined for not mowing their lawns, never mind installing a giant shark on the roof.
I'm German, and our neighbours once threw a dead mole on our lawn.
Between that and calling the police, this is the standard German way of carrying out neighbours' feuds.
Over 20 years ago, my sister and I got a bit lost in Oxford, and ended up driving down this street. We'd never heard of this, so to suddenly come across a giant shark tail, sticking out of a roof, in one of the most normal looking streets in England, was hilarious! It really made our day!
I wonder how many thousands of other people have been similarly confused and amused.
@@Cyba_IT I wonder how many car crashes it caused because people got distracted.
@@tarananajaika none
@@tarananajaika that's on them. Not the shark.
@@Cyba_IT is that an arch linux logo on your pfp
The only thing you have to watch out for when it comes to maintenance are the shark edges.
That pun nearly jumped the shark.
It'll get repaired one day, shark my words!
I was going to Uni that morning and imagine my face when I see Tom getting out of this house. I knew what was going on immediately. I nervously babbled ‘Hi I see your videos! Nice!’. And that really made my day!
the blahaj was by far the most important part of this video
100%
yessssssss
this
I'm really glad the shark house has the very important blåhaj shark as part of interior decoration, wouldn't be complete without it
YES!!! Came for Blahaj, stayed for roof shark xxx
blåhaj my beloved
Magnus Hanson-Heine - there surely must be some Scandinavian influence here?
BLAHAAAAAAJ
mine is named Kwak because that's ducks crie and I love ducks :D
*nods*
As an Oxford local it’s super surreal and fascinating to see you covering this. It’s a local icon but I didn’t know a lot of the history behind it.
I’m a town planner with a council in Sydney. Our unit manager is a brit, and whenever we’re hung up on small things in planning assessment he points to this and says that this was allowed to stay and not to worry about that stuff.
I grew up just around the corner from this and I must say it brought me and my brothers endless joy as children trying to figure out how it got there. My dad sportingly insisted for years that it was real, blowing our little minds.
I live nearby too and when I had hospital appointments and walked up to the JR and past this house my Mum would ALWAYS say it was real too. Took me longer than it should've to realise that it wasn't.
Do you remember the legs sculpture on the building opposite?!
I used to live on Lime walk, when I moved there people would say have you seen the shark, - I had no idea what they were on about.
all I could see out of my window was some scaffolding over the house behind our house, then one day, the scaffolding and tarpaulins were gone, and the shark was there, restored, painted and the roof was fixed... - was quite a shock to wake up and see that outside of my bedroom window!
Sharknado innit
It is real. They fed it all the councillors who are now gone,and when no-one's looking it has a wriggle and flaps its fins and tail.
As a renowned marine biologist I can confirm that is in fact the very rare Terraced Headed Shark.
they're critically endangered, right?
Ah, yes, _sphyrna ceilingus._
Giles - 😆
@A Megalodon With Internet Connection Dude, how are you getting internet in the ocean. Ship workers would probably kill to get service. What's your ISP?
@@anxiousearth680 it evolved a Wi-Fi antenna duh
Take it down quietly in the night and spend the next 20 years with the council demanding it's put back.
I moved to Oxford for uni and the shark is so fun! A lot of the historical sites in this city are all connected to the University of Oxford - only really used by academics who've moved to the area, or students who pass through and leave. The shark is firmly a part of the history of the 'town', a fun part of the local area where the permanent residents live and work, I really like it for that.
A shark's tale about a shark's tail.
When I saw the title of this video I thought it was going to be about the "Sharks!" sculptures that CGP Grey did a video about. I was not expecting that there would be another shark sculpture built without planning permission in the UK
Sharks are very well known for their anti establishment stances.
The timing of this video's release made me think it'd be about Rishi Sunak.
lmaooo same
Maybe it is the locked away Megalodon.
@Teamgeist CGPGrey, funny, genuine, and intelligent UA-camr. Does animations about educational topics, like "What is the solution to traffic?" Or "Who really owns the Statue of Liberty".
One of his videos was one about a art group creating a instillation of five sharks, literally titled "Sharks!", And how the artists are in a battle with the Hackney Council
The fact that there is a blåhaj on the fireplace is one of the best bits about this house they know exactly their theme and are running with it
Explain plz.
@@evanray8413 A shark soft toy produced by Ikea.
Blahaj sweep
The fact that Tom Scott did a panning close shot of blåhaj is so funny to me. Hats off to the guy being interviewed putting that there.
Look up IKEA Japan Blåhaj real estate
love that there’s a blahaj to go with it
The art i see is that the people protecting it and attacking it all passed of old age.
Marvelous art.
Absolutely love how you can see this dude smiling from the very beginning as he explains the shark, like it’s gotta be an endless source of ridiculous yet positive vibes
It’s definitely all positive vibes. Except the leaky roof issues!
nah it's just garden-variety attention seeking.
@@thewardenofoz3324 no.
@@mbrunnme yeh
(;´༎ຶٹ༎ຶ`)(;´༎ຶٹ༎ຶ`)
It has already been immortalized as a key case study in planning and property law in university lectures, it being physically protected is just a footnote in its magnificence
Would it have been equally magnificent had it been created to protest immigration, or something like that?
It is not being protected..it is being now mandated to bankrupt the owner
Soon they will start requiring a schedule of mandatory paintings per year
@@ricardokowalski1579 Couldn’t the owners delegate the maintenance to a foundation?
@@ricardokowalski1579 That is precisely what protection is - requiring the individual, authority or business in charge of a valued asset to maintain said asset. That is why we still have maintained so many culturally important pieces of architecture across the country. Your views on this being some ridiculous grand conspiracy don't change that.
As someone working within the property development industry, I am acutely aware of the shortcomings of our planning system, and have to deal with them on a daily basis - that being said while the system may be flawed, the outcome is predominantly good.
@@Schattengewaechs99 The point is why does the government mandate the maintenance?... not if a foundation does it.
3:25 Blahaj appearance
It's fun when I find out about new local (tourist?) spots in my area. This artistic icon is only 20 mins from my home and 5 mins from my nan's house and yet I never knew it existed until today!
Noooooooo!! It’s so famous!! Although I suppose like lots of bits of art, if it’s not mentioned anywhere and you don’t see it….?
How old are you? You don't go out much do you?
I don't live in Oxford but I've only just found out about this today and I'm like "How did I go this long without knowing we had a roff shark here???"
Petition for “the shark in the roof” to officially replace “the elephant in the room.”
the elephant in your mom
Yes please!
Seconded
Lmfaoo yes please
The shark in the elephant.
I never considered that it might be a pain to have a "protected" property. On one hand it's nice that art like this remains on the other I wouldn't want to be stuck with it.
Well you say that but really it wouldn't be that much work, at least in this case. I think the main thing that scares people is "Having" to. But really, people tend to keep their houses in good conditions in nice neighbourhoods anyways. Some repaint their picket fences more often than the shark would need to be repainted
Tom has a previous video - "The broken building that must not be destroyed" which goes a bit more in depth about how owning protected properties is a such a headache, worth a watch :)
It's known that houses with thatched roofs in England "mysteriously" burn down due to owners getting sick of constantly repairing them and being forbidden from changing them due to their protected status.
I would definitely try to install some plexiglass around it, just under the shingles, before it gets protected status specifically to let the roof still act like a roof
@@JuneTooJuly I heard people due that because re-thatching houses costs a lot and is a nightmare. Honestly I think sometimes they’re overzealous about protecting properties, but there should be some protections
It's so bizarre to open up youtube and see a Tom Scott video about the Shark I walk past whenever I go grocery shopping - thanks for covering this, Tom!
doxxed?????
If it wasn't art it would easily pass as british humor. Love that!
It's got a little Blåhaj brother inside! That's precious
a little wot
blahaj my beloved
@@TheFilipFonky Blahaj, plushie sharks sold by Ikea
Blahaj my beloved
Need money for my bottom surgery 😪
I was born in Oxford and lived down the road from here, when I was little we moved to Wales and I used to tell all my friends in school about this house but none of them believed me and thought I was mad. Many years have passed now and I completely forgot about it till this video popped up in my subscriptions.
Guess who’s sharing this video with all their old school friends?!?!
I'm sorry for the neighbors who got invasions from tourists now.
Love this story!
I lived/worked around Headington for a while and it always made me giggle, I think as a university town it would be weird if Oxford didn't have something like this in the town somewhere.
Lived round the corner from this 2/3 years of the time i was at uni, always wondered what it was and stood for, but just found it funny and a cool art piece. nice to finally learn the history behind it.
This video is absolutely wild to me, because not an hour ago, while I was waiting for it to drop, I got to thinking about what kind of story Tom could possibly cover that would bring him to my neck of the woods, and I came up with the story of our local theater, and how it getting registered as a national landmark has saved it and damned it in equal measure. You see, now that it's a protected site, this 72 year old building, which is the only theater in town and has not charged above $10 a ticket for as long as I can remember, cannot be bought out and torn down to make room for a more modern setup. However, from this point on, everything from the seats to the carpet cannot be replaced, no matter how battered and worn they get, unless the owners can track down the *exact* items that were used. This means that slowly but surely, our little theater is going to die of attrition, as the owners don't have anywhere near the money it would cost to keep up with the damage of time. It's amazing to think, though, that my little corner of small-town America has even just a little something in common with a house in England that has a shark sticking out of the roof.
That exact issue is why the law it stupid too many times. It's importance is its function, not its carpets. Idiot law makers.
It is a shame that a law designed to preserve a building can ultimately lead to it's demise.
Just like the protest shark, the unrepairable theater can be removed without permission. Just tip off the fire department and they will keep the surrounding buildings safe while it goes.
@@reachandler3655 That's how you know it was designed and written by government.
The UK has Listed Building consents, which allow alteration, demolition etc. to protected buildings - applications that involve this are scrutinised based on the importance of said Listed Building. The shark is locally listed and not nationally protected. If the owner can make a robust case then there usually is a way. Conservation doesn't mean stagnancy or having buildings fall into disrepair. The problem in quite some cases likely isn't the protection of the site but the funding.
I live 5 minutes from that shark and I didn’t really know the history, so thank you for this video.
u ever used it as a landmark? like saying, turn to the left and keep going untill the shark in the roof, then turn right.
you were in the tom scott danger zone
How can anyone be so incredibly lacking in curiosity. Your life must be boring
Same here, lived just round the corner all my life and never cared for the backstory till now
I'm a local parish Councillor nearby, but I didn't really know this history. Very cool.
I know I’m half a year late but I live less than a 10 minute walk from here and I pass it everyday on the bus and knowing the history behind it makes it feel a bit more special.
I remember driving through this town many years ago when I was staying nearby before the British GP. I had to do a double take when I saw it down a side street. Its a magnificent feat of engineering and i'd always wondered, why?
3:25 Blåhaj cameo
Ah, that moment on the bus where you can tell exactly where you are because someone who hasn't been to Headington before has just glanced down the side road and said "Is that a shark?!"
Indeed. I have seen many a bewildered tourist travelling to city centre on the number 8 do a double take
Oxford City Council wanted to move the shark to the swimming pool at Cowley. The original owner of the house, and the shark, was a radio presenter for BBC Radio Oxford.
Talk about bad taste!
I've passed by the Headington Shark every time I've gone downtown, ever since I was born. It's an icon of my home city, more relatable and evocative to me than even the "dreaming spires" of the Oxford colleges themselves. I have the utmost respect for the family for installing and maintaining it.
Isnt his mum a bit of a hero? Big ups to all caring mothers out there.
somehow I wasn't surprised to hear that dad's endeavor would require mum's intervention to sort everything out 😆
Having grown up in Oxford and seeing the shark multiple times as a kid, I can honestly say that I'm glad it's there to stay. 😊
Did you know that the artist was an American?
Same here.
Seen it many times. Good to be reminded of it.
me too!!
I’ve been away for a decade, this is how I found out the guy died. My parents chatted with him a couple times. Sometimes we’d drive the long way home to look at the shark.
The leakage and any structural concerns are great examples of why you should involve an engineer in such an ambitious art project.
It's fine, chill out.
Something a jobless engineer would say
3:28 OMG THEY HAVE A BLAHAJ???? amazing
5:15 I’m pleased that he mentions that ‘the council’ is not a fixed thing but a group of individuals who have changed.
And they will change again. It would be foolish to put the project in their hands...
I wonder, how exactly does one go about installing a giant metal shark IN SECRET?
@@ragnkja would be very noisy
People over here mind their own business to an almost pathological degree.
"Fella over the road is tearing off his roof."
"Uh huh." (rustles paper)
"Now a crane and a lorry with a big shark on the back have turned up."
"Hmm. Not my problem."
"They're putting the shark into the hole in the roof."
"Alright nosey parker."
@@MrMonkey2150 Especially if it was really *dropped* as was speculated(?) in the video.
Easy instead of cats & dogs , it's raining sharks !
Quickly
I used to live a couple of streets away and went past this every day on the bus - always fun to watch the reactions of people who didn't previously know about it!
This was my absolute favourite part of going to Oxford to visit family as a kid. It was just so big and expressive. I'm so glad it's still there.
There's a part of me that's interested in the art of the shark and the statement it makes, but I'll admit there is an even larger part of me that just says "look at the cool shark in the roof! You gotta keep the cool shark in the roof"
this guy gets the real art of the shark
I wouldn't take it down unless they tried to force me to keep it up.
hu hu shork
Lovely point about how now the planning council are part of the art no matter what they do. It has a Terry Pratchett flavor to me, like installing the art has cast a narrative spell and everyone finds themselves carried along in it helpless. The initial planning council tried to force it down to avoid the obvious geas, but once it had stood for a day, their struggles only got the headless shark's teeth to sink deeper.
@John Smith ahahahaha nice
This is a brilliant description. Thanks Thomas.
I believe Pterry would have called the shark "anticrime".
"If you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine." - the shark
Shark, no shark, they don't care as long they are the ones who control it
I was a student at Ruskin College and would often see the shark when I walked into Headington to do my food shopping or catch a bus to Oxford. This video brought back some fond memories.
I used to live on the Main Street near the shark for a bit and used it as a reminder my stop was coming up when I took the bus home… good times.
The original owner's son was very articulate about why he thinks protection goes against the idea.
I think the son wants to protect it, as long as "the goverment" is against it and some people think that it is great.
Resolving the conflict of his dad against "the men" by "the men" forcing someone to keep it up removes the nature of protest, while keeping it up their without permission is continued protest.
@@CanadianaEast gets people talking, just because you don't get it doesn't make it stupid. outing your ignorance!
the original owner was the kind of legend that would have taken it down (overnight in secret) and repaired the roof as soon as it had been officially listed as protected, and i totally love that
@@sarowie maybe it's just reverse psychology? XD
@@DeezNuggz If I shat on the floor of my local supermarket it would 'get people talking' doesn't mean that that I would be praiseworthy. Getting people talking is what idiots say to defend low concept art.
I don't understand Tom's line at 1:55 that people seem to like the shark "more than the current owner would like." The owner is the son that is being interviewed, and he seems to be just fine renting it out as a BnB and making money off it.
Government worrying about affect to neighbour
Neighbour: "I'm not even mad that's amazing"
I feel like the most shark thing ever would be, if you knew it was about to be listed as a heritage site, vanish it just before it officially became one.
Yes! An artificial reef was my suggestion.
it would be really funny to move it to another house in the middle of the night the day before
Also because it's an antiwar sculpture, a protest against the government. Would be less symbolic if even the government approves it
@@Envy_May Ooh! have a group of car kitters turn it into a vehicle then park it out front.
This is the solution!
4:22 Tom Scott saying he wouldn’t want to be “part of the art” but he’s already a masterpiece ❤️
And now is almost definitely part of the art as without him millions wouldn't have known it existed.
Tom Scott should be a listed building.
I don't care that he's not a building, he needs to be PROTECTED!
Once they demand it be protected, feels time to tear it down!
This is officially my second favorite shark art related British legal dispute.
This is brilliant. I love that someone just installed a shark on their roof. It also really says something about the person, which is super cool.
i agree i think
i like turtles
@@kakt apparently, i do like them too.
it says they are an attention seeking person who does not care about the wellbeing of their neighbours
@@bigwizard807 "wellbeing" ?
I like to imagine the shark on the roof is the parent of the plushie and is trying to save their child
The plushie is a Blåhaj!
redstone
Or the parent wants to visit their kid in their house but is too big to fit through the door, so the parent shark improvises
blåhaj 🏳️⚧️
@@Slushee roughly translates to "blue shark" from swedish
Council needs to Symbolically request its removal. Not actually try and get it removed but request it just for the sake of the art.
I was waiting for you to do a video on the shark! We've lived a street down from it and all of Headington is VERY proud of the shark, its on drawn skylines of Oxford!
The Headington Shark is an absolute icon of Oxford, when I lived just down the road I would walk past every morning with a smile. I've been tempted to book a stay in the house since I saw it on AirBnB.
It is a legend.
Well you should book a stay while you can. I mean, suppose something were to happen to the shark and it was removed for whatever reason and you missed out on the opportunity to stay in the house while the shark was there. You would be kicking yourself for years at your missed opportunity.
OXFORD CITY COUNCIL tho! what complete and utter wankers. and county council. Especially with the absolute mess they are making of the cities roads. Block major routes. traffics forced to take another route, clogging everything up even more.. now they are going to prevent people using the roads that they forced all the traffic on to... UNLESS YOU HAVE A LICENSE/PERMIT of course. I seriously want to the folks making these or supporting decisions to have their brain checked. its ludicrous.
Don’t support AirBnB, it ends up screwing up rent prices for whole neighborhoods.
@@Palmit_ lmao are you getting worked up at the ltns?
I’ve seen that shark multiple times just from randomly going past it but I never knew the whole story, this is why I love Tom Scott
When I saw a report on the local news in 1986 about the shark and the battle to stop the council getting it removed I was hoping the shark would stay but never imagined it would still be there all these years later. I wanted to deviate off from our trip to the chippy and go and see it when I went to watch my footy team Watford play against Oxford United at the Manor Ground in Headington in the 90s.
3:26 BLAHAJ MY BELOVED 🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈
I live 20mins away from Oxford love seeing it every time we drive past the road !
I remember stumbling across this in about 1992, when I was working in Oxford, completely by chance. Utterly gobsmacked and utterly brilliant! I'm so pleased to see it's still there and still looking good.
It's one of the most English things I've ever seen or heard of. I hope the English continue being weird.
@@realMaverickBuckley Hehe, it's one of the things I love about this country.
Same experience for me when I moved to Oxford in 1988.
I consider it a BLÅHAJ monument and (of course) it should be kept up for generations to appreciate. 🦈
Excellent and very inspiring for me, during my renovation work.
Imagine throwing a fit over a shark thats not even on your building. Gotta love government
The fact that there is an Ikea shark in the house just makes it perfect
i like how Tom explicitly made sure to get a close-up shot of it
3:30 BLÅHAJ Replay button
Blahaj my beloved
I watched this with my Blåhaj and i got very happy at this bit
Blåhaj ♡
Bill was a character. Some of us met him in Witney (cant remember the occasion) and of course, he was a radio presenter. IIRC, he also owned a cinema in Headington which had a pair of stripey stockinged legs above it. The legs somehow made their way to Brighton to top another cinema. Theres probably another story to that.
So glad this was posted - I’ve seen this for over 25 years and always wanted to know the story behind it
Looking at how it interfaces with the actual roof I can imagine that keeping leaks under control must be an extreme challenge to say the least.
I was kind of hoping that Tom would explain how the obviously substantial water intrusion is handled. Maybe by some unapproved means that would cause more controversy?
@@brianw1620 There looks to be quite a bit of unpainted fibreglass on the recessed roof part so I'm guessing they glassed it up as much as humanly possible.
@@brianw1620 the internal shot shows a boxed area, I'd guess that the felt from the roof would lead into that box, so any water that makes it to the felt would end up in the box, I'd guess that the box is heavily fibreglassed, waterproofed, felted, and that it has a slight fall to it, so that the water in it, runs off naturally down to the guttering.
@@brianw1620 If it were me I'd have drainage pipes connecting that opening to outlets outside, but it would still be likely to leak.
I wish he would have gone into rainwater management. Perhaps there is little to none?
The call to the crane operator might have been one of the funniest conversations ever... "You want me to do what!??"
Right? Is he drunk, and is this his ex-wife's house, or is he about to lose it in the divorce?
@@jamesengland7461 in some places that last case is illegal. Purposefully sabotaging property you’re about to lose to divorce, bankruptcy, etc. is illegal in a lot of places here in the states
@@samreid6010 duh.
@@jamesengland7461 there are also places where it isn’t technically illegal. The recipient can take you to court if the damage is extensive enough but if you’re simply changing it for the worse and not actively damaging it, there are jurisdictions where there is no remedy
I would see it being listed as the ultimate form of poetic justice, at least if the person who originally made the statement was still around. Now it's just an inherited burden, but that in itself is still a testament to consequence. I do hope it becomes a nationally listed building, because it would serve as a monument of living in a society, and how owning the consequences of our actions is integral to that.
so overthinking does lead to stupid choices....
Nice portrait Tom! And kudos to the son and his mom keeping this alive.
Thanks. I'll pass that on.
I like how Tom felt the need for three shots including the Blahaj, two of which specifically encompassing it
I knew it was the Headington Shark without seeing the thumbnail. I used to live a couple of streets away and it's much loved in the community. The local brownies have a shark on their badges and the chippie has a shark of their own.
Oh that’s adorable!
Lived in walking distance of the shark my whole life (and loved it) but never knew why it got put there. Thanks for giving me a new perspective on it
I absolutely love it and can remember it in the newspaper at the time
I looked out for 'the shark house' every time we made our way up to my late grandparents' house in Headington, ever since I was little. Thank you for sharing it with such a wide audience.
I remember when this was happening and installed. It was all over local news. I was 11 years old and lived just down the road. I’ve always liked it - even my conservative father did!
true conservatives are anti war
I love it, it looks amazing and the sentiment behind it is fantastic. I would have liked to have met his dad. He seems like the kind of guy I would really get on with. As long as the building remains structurally sound, I don't see any problem with it. Hopefully, it'll still be there for as long as humanly possible, preferably forever.
Owning a listed building is such a burden that people will do almost anything to not own a listed building. The art-deco Firestone factory on the A4 in Brentford, west London was about to be listed in 1980, but the night before the listed status was due to come in effect there was an "accidental" terrible fire that burnt it to the ground... Today there's a retail complex on the property and only the art-deco walls remain
He bought a BLÅHAJ! I approve of everything in this video
If I had a quarter for every time there was a Shark Sculpture based legal dispute in Britain, I’d have two quarters! Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice!
No, you would have forty-four Pence Stirling.
Dunno where you'd get quaters or what you'd do with them in the UK. I guess just show them off and become known as Mr Two Quater Fancy-Pants, ooooh, won't ya just look at him, basking the glory of his two quaters.
@@mrmonkeboy monke
I can’t tell if people in the replies just don’t know the reference I’m making, or if they’re insufferably pedantic.
@@archsteel7 we're british, it's definitely the second.
I am from the area and loved seeing this as a kid driving last with my mum and brothers.
I used to travel from Oxfordshire to Newquay and at one end of the journey would be this, and at the other end a B&B with a shark's head coming out of the front wall. It always seemed like a nice bit of symmetry.
I lived in close to that street for 6 years but every time I asked for the story people just used to tell me this is a story for another time, but today finally the story!
I've driven past this house many times and always wondered what prompted the owner/s to want to have a giant fish stickng out of their roof. I just took it for another English eccentricity. Now I know, after all these years! Thanks for a great video.
Thanks for bringing another lovely piece of UK to my knowledge.
The blåhaj on the mantel is the best touch
3:20 BLAHAJ
THE BLÅHAJ
I'm not sure what is exactly on the opposite side of the Earth from that flat, but if it is a land mass, I would dearly love for someone to put a sculpture of the shark's head emerging there, and title the piece "Longshark is long."
I oddly like this!
The antipodal point of Oxford is in the ocean, with the closes land being New Zealand about 885km away.
I could see why neighbors would have been upset, but at this point this is history. And I know people love to tear down history for some reason, but it's my belief things like this should be preserved to teach our future humans of our past.
As a schoolboy of Oxford I used to see this every weekend ‘89 to ‘94 when my mum and dad picked me up and dropped me off at school. I never knew the full story about it until now.
I went to Oxford a few months ago, we accidentally found this on the way to a Greek restaurant - it is crazy! 🦈
I've seen it too some years ago. Back then the issues bought up were from neighbours complaining about ingress of weather conditions into their shared roof