Destroy the Head Vampire

...sticker spotted at Tower Hill today.... ;)

The worst graffiti in Wapping...

...is now outside Thomas More Square...put there by a bunch of grown men in broad daylight...! ;)  I much prefer the efforts in Swedenborg Gardens by the kids (in chalk) -

Stop Sign Squeeze...

Spotted in Southwark the other day... ;)

Wapping Graffiti...

...well, what can one say?  This is about the best the area seems to have been able to manage (and I've walked around the place quite a bit)...it can't be that the local council are just good at cleaning up, because -this- has been here for *months*...

Summary - Could do better...

...(would love to be proven wrong, of course)... ;)

Chalk Reflektor Meaning

These things - chalk REFLEKTOR logos, which I saw a couple of young students drawing all over Wapping (and a couple in Southwark) - months ago - turn out to be a lovely bit of viral marketing for this album (pictured below) by some Canadians -

- so there we go, mystery solved...and well done for drawing my attention... ;)

"Before I die" by Candy Chang

Spotted in Southwark the other day...it's basically a huge blackboard and hundreds of bits of chalk, part of the "Merge Festival"...Spotted another one on Borough High Street, in a very similar condition... ;)

Good fun... ;)

Support your local squats...

...spotted under the DLR in Wapping (just next to Cycle Superhighway CS3, visible in the background) the other day...

Mile End Park

The Battle of Cable Street

...mural spotted just down the road from Fortress Wapping... ;)

Caught in the act...

Borough Grafitti

Around Southwark...

Trololo Secret Entrance?

Wow, what a random bit of chalk graffiti...especially the cryptic reference to Mr Trololo... ;)

Update - Ah, looks like he passed away recently...(which actually doesn't really explain it at all)... ;)

Stray Dogs in Lewisham

So, the other day, for no particular reason other than arriving slightly earlier than normal (and being a bit curious), I decided to take a little walk around Lewisham...and promptly wished I hadn't bothered...*hoards* of fighting school children (yelling in no language I could identify) threatening to knock over scared looking commuters (running the gauntlet from the bus station to the entrance to the DLR)-

- I didn't dare get out even my telephone in the midst of that little riot, let alone my camera...scooting past I came upon a tiny little green patch, strewn with discarded Special Brew/White Lightning cans where a small pack of (obviously well fed) stray dogs were feasting on heaps of discarded "Favorite Abhorred Fried Chicken" bones, shedding greasy stools over the tarmac -

- drinking from puddles, sipping stale remnants from the cans -

- and performing opportunist sniffing raids on Al Fresco breakfast plates for more greasy abandoned morsels...

Put it this way, on a first impressions basis, Lewisham wasn't scoring terribly highly...

I felt uncomfortable, and that feeling didn't leave me (100%) for the rest of the day, which bothered me a bit...I mean, I'm quite used to London (Per se) and have certainly seen similar, if not actually worse, (I mean, I've wandered around Chinatown in New York shooting the graffiti without the smile leaving my face) -

- and I used to have the pleasure of working in pre-regeneration cash Kings Cross -

- so what was it about Lewisham? My solution? I kept on going back, saying "Good Morning" to the guy that gives out the Metro, finding the local supermarket to buy my milk (instead of popping to Tesco or Waitrose in the Wharf), exploring some of the local shops, and now I'm walking around bold as brass (and shooting, as you can see)...

So, maybe it was just that...a bad first impression... ;)

Grafitti on the 435 Bus

Spotted this on the 435 the other night on the way home from Redhill...nothing odd you may think, a bit of grafitti on the bus - quite the usual number of individuals seem to be "gay", oddly named people are still routinely announcing that they are "4" other oddly named people and colourful meaningless scribbles that wouldn't look out of place in a 3 year old's colouring book are all perfectly in place just as normal...so what did I spot that made me smile?

In a medium that lends itself (on occasion) to acts of considerable creativity, and is as flexible as any artists pad, what form of expression is starting to appear that I (for one) have never seen before?

It's (most oddly) those used in the *extremely* inflexible creative medium (in a graphical sense) - the text editor - yes, people are using marker pens to grafitti simple ASCII text character representations of images...

<3 - a heart
(y) - as in choose (y) or (n), confirming the gayness as the correct option chosen
=] - an alternative smiley face

The mind boggles...  :S

Caution - Random Jack in the box cleaning system

Spotted in the toilet on the 1952hrs train out of London Bridge, looks like several vandals have made attempts to peel it off and then suddenly realised what it was and tried to stick it back on again...the sign reads "Caution. This toilet is fitted with a random jack-in-the-box cleaning system.", it's installed on an enormous steel trap door in the wall directly in front of the toilet (meaning if it were true you would have a good chance of losing your head should it decide to "go off")...

Very funny... ;)

Naughty Fink

Naughty Fink
Originally uploaded by kipperfrog.

Honestly, that wasn't me (spotted on Kipperfrog's photostream)..!

Redhill Town Centre

Got stranded for a while (in-between buses) the other night in Redhill town -

- it being a Monday it was actually rather quiet (only about 20 drunk teenage chavs making a nuisance of themselves) so I decided to pass the time looking around the place (normally it's just a quick dash in to grab this or that in one of the shops), and it actually (if that were possible) seems to be going downhill (despite the obviously totally ineffectual threat of "Big Brother" watching from above) -

- for example, this signpost, situated on Station Road right by the Harlequin theatre -

- has been subtly modified so that not a single arm is actually pointing in the right direction any longer, and the Pedestrian Zone signs have seen better days, this one being modified by spray can to resemble a bowling ball (for some reason) -

- and the other one used as a notice board/poster site, and lettering picked at -

- even the new take-away in town could have used a little in the way of help with their sign painting -

- that sort of level of attention to detail doesn't exactly fill one with hope as to the quality of the advertised food...Still there are signs of regeneration, the new bus station is coming along nicely (can't wait for that to be finally finished) -

- but I can't quite get my head around how it is going to work, it looks like they have got rid of the three lanes they used to have in favour of a sort of bumpy roundabout type affair, with bays arranged around the edge and only a very narrow entrance...Still, I'm sure they have it all worked out perfectly *raises eyes to heaven in silent prayer* and it has to be better than the current facilities -

- still, maybe that's me being spoilt by the glittering wonders of Canary Wharf, Redhill didn't seem that bad compared with Kings Cross... ;)

More pictures of Redhill here...