Ellen and I were walking over an old bridge that connected the second storeys of two big gothic buildings in a distorted version of the Westminster Parliament complex. We noticed that the bridge had empty pedestals along it where, presumably, statues once stood. Ellen knew something about this and said that the old statues were being replaced with new ones in the modern style.
At the end of the bridge, just outside the door into the building, one of the old statues was lying, abandoned, on its side. It had obviously been carved from inferior stone, as it had weathered badly and all the details and almost all of the features had been washed away. One odd thing was that the erosion had somehow caused what must have been the subject's long hair to resemble a second head. I didn't mention this, though, and we continued inside.
I asked Ellen whether the statue was meant to be of some politician or other. "No," she replied, "It's supposed to be that old actress who--"
"Had two heads!" I said, before laughing so much and so uncontrollably that I doubled up and fell to the floor, unable to help myself. One of the House of Commons security guards wandered over and said that he'd often thought the same thing. I couldn't answer him, so heartily was I laughing at my own joke.
Notes for Freudian Analysis
I've been reading Tony Benn's memoir of his childhood, which details his family's four generations in Westminster. Also, I got a letter from my MP yesterday telling me that he's well aware that I think that the UK's intelligence didn't show that Iraq was a threat and that, as he's told me many times before, he supported the invasion based on the intelligence that was available to him at the time and that he doesn't think that there's anything further that he can add to the discussion. So that's cleared that one up, then.
Ellen and I were in Westminster together in 1999, before the Scottish Parliament was open, when everyone in the office was sent down there for a week to see what a Parliament looked like. I generally think of that as the time when I got to know Ellen, as I hadn't talked to her much at work before then. I remember nothing about statues from the trip, but I do recall both of us talking about the strange fact that every painting in Westminster is rubbish.
It strikes me that, since starting this blog, I've had two other dreams that have featured a statue. In the first, it was made of wax; in the second, it was made of copper. The one in this dream is made of stone. I doubt that this is relevant.