Trafalgar Statue Chosen

Judges have chosen the statue of a pregnant victim of thalidomide to occupy the fourth vacant plinth in Trafalgar Square in London. “Alison Lapper says her portrait, by the artist Marc Quinn, is ‘naked, pregnant and proud’. Her portrait, made when she was eight months pregnant, was chosen last night by the judges to be created on a monumental scale, 4.5 metres high (15ft) in white marble, and take its place among the bronze generals and grubby pigeons on the fourth plinth which, despite more than 150 years of arguing, has been empty since the square was created.”