Love locks - basically just vandalism?

[SnoozingFox]

Piece on the One Show about those people who attach padlocks to bridges and it's being pushed as an "awwww isn't this lovely, it's a gesture of love, people come back every year to see their lock, such as shame when they have to be removed" and I'm sitting thinking the opposite.

It's no different from scratching your initials into the bricks of a castle, or spray painting a wall. Vandalism. Nobody cares that some random bridge is where you had your first date or your boyfriend proposed. Nobody wants to walk across a city centre bridge covered in padlocks which the council then eventually have to pay to remove.

Leave no trace.

Neither of those pictures are remotely lovely. And one is just a zoomed in version of the other

As I said before, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Myself and many other Nuremberg residents liked the bridge. Many now like the balloon fixture instead. Some of you are very rigid thinkers. One man's fish is another man's poisson

Maybe I'm just a horrible person, but I can never for the life of me understand why somebody would see an actual mountain of tonnes of flowers as far as your eye can see - in front of the palace gates or in a public park or wherever - and their instinct is that they must go and get another bunch to toss up on top of it.

Why would you do this?

I still remember the lunacy of the people chucking bunches of flowers at the windscreen of the hearse for Diana's funeral. A lot of people complained afterwards about the driver being 'deeply disrespectful' for sensibly putting the wipers on to sweep them away so that he could actually see to drive safely. It's a stupid thing to do in any circumstances; but seriously, at the funeral for somebody who died in a car crash?!

To PPs... I'd put a photo up but it works be outing.

The park where this awful memorial is known locally for birdwatching and wetlands. There's a lovely walking loop right around the edge of it. This memorial spans both sides on the loop. If you want to walk the loop, you have to walk through it. And let me be clear... there are no teddies and balloons... just piles and piles of plastic flowers, some of which are in 'planters' specially brought for the purpose. But with cellophane over the top to keep them dry. Loads of bunting and streamers, and probably dozens and dozens of laminated photographs of the deceased young man and his 'stoner'-looking mates making v signs to the camera stapled to the trees. Loads of handmade signs with his nickname on, think Wozza or something like that. No plaque. It looks really really shit.

Contrast this to two new benches that have appeared in another park over the last year, that occasionally have a little bunch of fresh flowers tied to them with twine, or a single plastic flower tied on with a zip tie... all regularly replaced, really not interfering with anyone else's enjoyment and pretty subtle.

I didn't know that young man. The way his family remember him is not what I would do. People die for all sorts of reasons all the time. I just don't want to see, process, and have to walk through mounds of gaudy tat at my local nature reserve.

Well said!

Let people make their shrines at their own homes, not tat up public property.

I agree in general - it's ugly and a structural problem for many bridges and monuments. The one exception is the Hohenzollern railway bridge in my hometown: https://www.cologne-tourism.com/arts-culture/sights/detail/love-locks

It's encouraged here (despite some moaning in recent years). We even have some nice romantic songs about it. I cannot confirm if my teenage love and I are still named here - couldn't find it if I wanted to!