Fall guy

Big has always been…um…big on OTN. When we saw that this jumbo-sized (36 meters high) statue of Mao was being built in China last year with a price tag of just under $700,000, of course we tagged it for a post. How quickly things change. No sooner was the major Mao finished than it was internationally mocked so that just weeks later, mumbling about ‘lack of registration and approval’, local officials had the golden giant taken down.

The giant-statue-of-me business is a tough one. As a rule of thumb, the more tyrannical you are as a leader, the better your chances of ending up nose down in the mud. And usually with the added indignity of a mocking crowd to celebrate your fall. The International Business Times did a useful round-up of the fallen recently, you can see it here.