Fifty years of laziness

Passing Kensington Palace Gardens and Hyde Park on a bus, today, I saw a bronze statue which I first noticed when I was four years old.

On that earlier occasion, five decades and most of a life ago, it impressed me greatly. Much larger than life it depicts a large muscular bloke, probably in combat to judge by his stance, wearing a round classical Greek hoplite's shield on his left arm and very little else. In the 50 years between, I must have seen it in the distance dozens of times.

I have often wondered who he is. Despite having visited both the gardens and the park many times, however, I still don't know. And I've never gone to find him in the flesh (so to speak). And I still can't say whether he's in the gardens or the park. Yet I go on wondering who he is.

What a fine example I am of the enquiring academic spirit...