"... pigs on the wing" ??

its all in the wrist.

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last orders please.

I don't know about any booklet or album sleeve photos because I don't have them to hand, but I can assure you all, having become familiar with London bureaucracy, that Roger or Pink Floyd would definitely have gotten permission to fly the pig, or at the very least tether it to Battersea Power Station.

I also believe the Power station was derelict - is still derelict - at the time of the photos. It would have been nothing at all to produce fake "smoke" from the smokestacks. The area covered by the power station is vast and I think the government owns the site since, when they privatised Electricity, the power station wouldn't have been part of the deal.

So to why they were allowed to fly it in the first place. As all of the foregoing, this is only my thoery, but my guess is that the officials did not know that the flying pig would be used to represent the capitalist swine who run, and ruin, the world. The authorities would have wanted assurances that the pig wouldn't be a hazard to anyone - in the end it was a great hazard to anything airbourne - and that whatever license fee required was paid in full. Other than that, I don't think they gave a damn what it was promoting, or what it symbolized. In my experience, bureaucrats are notoriously thick and very slow on the up-take.

So long, and thanks for all the fish,
Byron

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Count me in on the journey, don't expect me to stay.

Thanks alot BoaB. Been wondering about that one for awhile and I imagined it like you said. They sort of put it past everyone involved. "Yeah, we just want to fly a huge balloon over it." I didn't know it was closed. I always wondered what the workers thought after the album was released. As well as the owners! Makes sense it was shut down. All that garbage left behind!

Always a pleasure, my goode sarah, never a chore.

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Count me in on the journey, don't expect me to stay.

Actually, BoaB, Battersea (at least according to my PF Encyclopedia) wasen't closed into the early 1980s.

It was opened in 1937 and was built to supply the central and western areas of London with electricity.

And to answer Gerald's question, the Battersea site took up fifteen acres. But I've read that the pig was recovered in Kent... which I think is pretty far away from London.

Well, you may be right Shane G., but as the following suggests, the old girl was on her last legs regardless, so it's a close run thing...

Throughout the whole of its life Battersea has been a symbol of the electricity industry to the media and the general public alike.

A Heritage Building

In 1975 the "A" Station with its sumptuous Art Deco control room, Italian marble turbine hall polished parquet floors and wrought iron staircases was closed after generating electricity for 42 years. Three years later, amid rumours that "B" station was also to close, a campaign was begun to save Battersea Power Station as part of our national heritage.

Pressure to preserve the station grew and, in 1980, the then Secretary of State for the Environment, Michael Heseltine, awarded Grade 2 status to the building for special architectural and historic interest, so ensuring that it could not be demolished or altered without the government's consent.

Link: Battersea Power Station

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Count me in on the journey, don't expect me to stay.

That was a cool link, BoaB.

So, do you think that Battersea should live out it's days as a leisure center? Strangely, the idea strikes me as odd.

Hey, they put a Tate Modern Art gallery in that other old London power station.

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what do you teach your children about me?
what do you teach your little children about me?
pimp, thug, bling drug lord of the undergrounded kings
how can you be so sure i won't call down the rain?
what do you teach your little children about me?
you point your gun, wait, hide and run. i see it plain

True.

Right on, BoaB. That was the closest I've come to the answer to that question. I still wonder if some workers back in 1977 who liked Pink Floyd were listening to that album one day and it hit them..."damn, we're the sheep, man. We gotta rise up and make the buggers eyes water". Interesting that they were worried about pollution in 1927. Imagine how bad that water was by '83. A good symbol for Roger Waters pigs. Although we all enjoy our electricity.


Edited for spelling.
Thought you'd like to know.

Pink Floyd has no love songs... Wish you were here is an album for Syd Barrett, the album Animals was made for all those "sheeps" who follow the damn leader like idiots, being sure there's a "dog" watching. But guess what... No dogs, they're all dead! Pigs on the wing... It's all those other idiots that said: You can't do it! But they did it...

I hope so.

I don't know in England, but 1977 in Italy started a period of strong social clash (I hope the term is correct).

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"Don't you know there ain't no devil, it's just god when he's drunk." Tom Waits

It shows how the pigs have gained intelligence and ablilities that the never had but now there(the animals) checking to see if they (the pigs) have learned to fly.

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The tide is turning.

Who cares really? It's a great album, great lyrics, great music, enjoy it for what it is.