It's a little hard to make out from this angle, but you can tell from the ripped muscles, spear and shield that this is a hero of antiquity.

And it was indeed the Greek hero Achilles.

And this sculpture is dedicated to... the Duke of Wellington. I kid you not, apparently it has Wellesley's head, though the body is modelled on a Roman figure at Monte Cavallo in Le Marche in Italia.

It was commissioned by a society known as Ladies of England and is made from 33 tons of bronze which were originally cannons captured during Wellington's campaigns in France. The sculpture was installed by order of King George III who, as we know, was bat guano crazy, and if you ever had any doubts about that, this pretty much negates them.

First of all, Wellington didn't have Achilles' body. And even if he did he would not have gone into battle naked as the original statue portrayed, before the moral outrage of the time demanded that a figleaf be placed in the appropriate area.

Second, it had long been a basic axiom of military tactics that it's a really bad idea for the commanding general to pick up a hand-held weapon and launch himself into battle. Dead generals tend to be unable to respond to shifting tactical conditions quite as well as live ones can.

The purpose of a general is to be the brains of the operation, not the muscle. In the unlikely event that Ferrari wins the constructors' championship next year, this would be like creating a statue of Mattia Binotto wearing a racing suit. A large part of such success will be down to him, but it would be frankly delusional to suggest that he was actually behind the wheel.

I can't help getting the feeling that this is probably taking things just a little bit too far, and suspect that at the unveiling ceremony Wellington actually turned his back for a moment and face palmed before looking back at the crowd with a fixed smile on his face.