From 2-3am on the 24th of June Tom de Freston took part in the One and Other Fourth Plinth project. Dressed in boxers, socks and a paper crown, he arrived armed with a wooden sword, water pistol and a megaphone. He interviewed his alter ego for the Varsity newspaper.

Tom de Freston (TdF): This outfit of socks and boxers? It seems to be a parody, aimed to strip yourself of heroism. Add to this the golden paper crown, the wooden sword and the odd white mask, is this all an attempt to make a mockery of power and masculinity?

Napoleon Bonaparte (NB): There is nothing funny about the attack. This is serious. This is war.

TdF: At the start of the performance you crowned yourself with a paper hat. Were we supposed to laugh, because the public’s reaction was one of derision?

NB: Laugh? This was an event of iconic and historic importance. You were supposed to pray and worship me.

TdF: Through your megaphone you screamed the command: “Turn hellhound, turn” at Nelson’s Column. The obvious lack of response, being a statue and all, to your increasingly loud and frustrated demands seems to sit your performance in the realm of tragic comedy.

NB: Nelson’s refusal to turn confused me. Initially I saw him as a coward, refusing to confront me.

Then it began to dawn on me that perhaps he was the ultimate stoic hero, refusing to bow under the weight of my verbal onslaught.

TdF: You were very loud and very animated. It seemed to get the late night revellers interested. You could say you were causing a public disturbance?

NB: A public disturbance? This was a war. Wars are loud by nature; the apathy of the public to the plight sickened me.

TdF: One of the ‘attacks’ involved you shooting water from a tiny plastic pistol in the general direction of Nelson’s Column. It can’t have travelled further than one metre of a 100 metre gap?

NB: You clearly have no understanding of modern warfare. The pistol contained liquid birdseed aimed at Nelson. I then planned to attach a series of grenades to pigeons.

TdF: The aim being for them to fly into Nelson’s column and blow it up?

NB: Exactly.

TdF: A large audience will have watched this performance over the internet. Were you conscious of this during the performance?

NB: Like all great leaders I evolve. Obama used the internet to help him get to office. My director of communications believed that a live stream would be the best way to get an extensive army together.

TdF: The last fifteen minutes of your performance were spent playing dead with your head flopping over the edge of the plinth. Were you bored, tired, cold?

NB: I was dead you fool. A fallen Icarus, a dead Marat, a dying Gaul, Capa’s soldier, Goya’s victims, a suicide bomber, Christ on the cross, the beheaded John the Baptist, a flayed Marsyas, a St. Sebastian. I was the omnipresent Martyr.

TdF: So you didn’t appreciated the lad shouting: “If you get up I’ll buy you a McFlurry?”

NB: I couldn’t hear him, I was dead.

TdF: The recurrent motif in this performance was the contrast between your noisy activity and Nelson’s stillness, between his statuesque regality and the ludicrous image of your red socks and boxers. Was the dialogue between these oppositions your central focus?

NB: The focus was revenge for the Battle of Trafalgar and a call for the French to rule the English. This was war.

TdF: But Napoleon was not even at the first battle of Trafalgar, and this was fought in a square not out at sea. This all feels a bit incongruous.

NB: Mere historical minutiae. The pendant has no place in war, save the gallows.

TdF: I’ll start tying the noose.