There is a Banksy round the corner. I popped round to see it this morning. I’m guessing it’s an environmental joke: we’re going to be reduced to painting the leaves onto trees. But maybe it’s just an irresistible visual gag, based on the weirdness of the pollarded stumps. So I’m naming it Eve Pollard. That’s a journalistic joke for the kids.
Still, nipping round the corner to see a Banksy takes me back. When I first moved to London I lived off City Road, and there were lots of Banksys around there. There was a smashed TV at the junction with Angel. A giant rat round the corner. When I moved to N19 he was still around. The Charles Manson hitchhiker stood on the Archway roundabout.
Banksy was more accessible back then. I once stood in a queue to buy a print, but it was moving very slowly so I gave up. I knew a guy whose proud boast was that he owned an original Rolf Harris and a Banksy. Which just goes to show that art is risky investment. Values go up and down.
I like this one because it brightens up a stretch of Hornsey Road which resolutely refuses to make itself any more glamorous, though it also has the beautiful Hornsey Road Baths neon sign a few hundred yards away. Also, you can’t steal this picture. You could chip the girl off the wall, but not the green, and it wouldn’t make sense without the tree. Will it last? I doubt it. If nothing else, it’ll be an absolute pain for the people who live in the flats beside it to have prats with cameras clambering around outside their window. Sorry about that.
PS
A Banksy Round The Corner sounds like an old nursery rhyme title. Perhaps the subject, given the proliferation of them in your neighborhood, is: Does Banksy Live Round The Corner? LOvely little MOnday morning read.