Where am I?

Well, I know its quiet here but I am pretty busy elsewhere.
Expect to see a new blog site soon detailing my recent trip to Mexico and the US, which is where my effort is being spent.

In the meantime here's some religious types dancing to Drum & Bass

South bank juggler

As part of a series of free events on the South Bank I went along to see D'Irque. A juggler, balancer, clown type act with a rather silly female accomplice.

They were actually rather good and interacted with the crowd very well indeed.

More from his website here

Mexican Wrestling comes to London

This was something I'd not been able to see whilst on holiday in Mexico so I was quite surprised to see it being advertised when I got back. Some of the most popular luchadors were over for 4 nights of wrestling Mexican style in the Roundhouse theatre in Camden.

Too good an opportunity to resist I went along.


Quite a good turnout considering the event.



The first match featured the midgets. The good (technico) midget was much shorter than the baddie (rudo) wrestler so it made this a bit of a mismatch. There's something a bit strange in seeing a midget getting kicked to the floor.








The rest of the night consisted of more conventional sized athletes.


That was up until the match where a transexual featured. I don't think the WWE have gone there in a long long time.

Ouch!

Flying senton, just a shame my camera was a lowly pocket one.


That looks like it might hurt.







and the night finished with a big pose down, whilst those brave members of the audience fought with security to try to get into the ring.

A different evening, which the audience took a while to get into but the luchadores did win us all over.

Holloway Road Grafitti

Took a walk along Holloway Road today after hearing there were a few Banksy rats still about. It also gave me an opportunity to find the hitch-hiker; one of the few untouched large pieces still remaining.

A rather bizarre piece not far from Archway station.


The hitch-hiker wasn't too hard to find in the end. I just had to walk around the main roundabout and it happened to be on the final junction to check.

A strange piece somewhere down Holloway Road.

A simple little piece.

I prefer the logo to the graff.

I only managed to find one rat along the whole length of Holloway Road but admittedly I wasn't being over thorough in my searching as it was raining. Still its 2 more Banksy pieces to add to the archive.

Comedy at the British Museum

As part of the pre-Edinburgh rehearsals, a small collective of comedians put on a free show in the British Museum. A strange location but it kind of worked, even if the acoustics were a little poor.




The most popular comedian there was Richard Herring who was trialling his new material. A routine about how with his small hands he could provide a service to society by masturbating off paedophiles.

He did get favourable reviews following his Edinburgh stint, whether he used that material or not I don't know.

Cans Festival Official Wrap-Up film

Who's the chap near the end taking photos? (The 2:08 mark) Hmmmm, he looks a bit familiar.

Cool advert

Cans Festival

The May Day holiday is often a time in London for protest and as part of that a large conglomerate of graffiti artists have taken part in "Cans Festival", a public gallery on an abandoned road under the old Eurostar Terminal in Waterloo. Led by Banksy, there are works from around 40 of the world's best urban artists.

The majority of the pics can be found on Flickr as I'm finding that much easier to use than the image upload in Blogger, which only lets you upload 5 pics at one time, and as I have quite a lot to show it makes sense to use that.

The flickr link is here and then I went back on Sunday and took more here.







The show runs for 3 days and will be having new pieces added each day, so I'll be popping back on Monday.

Nick Walker @ The Black Rat Press

Nick Walker is, like Banksy, a stencil artist primarily just not as well known. He has an exhibition currently showing at the Black Rat Press located behind Cargo in London. I was in town to do some work but was able to take a couple of hours out to pop along and have a looksee.


Someone misusing a well known Banksy stencil to gain votes in the local mayoral election.

Moorfield Eye Hospital. Guess what's located behing that piece of white board. Yup, one of Banksy's rat pieces.

Cute two-part piece across the road from the hospital.

This is in Shoreditch and I saw it last week but it had a van parked in front of it. Quite a stunning piece when in the clear!

The "Fresh" logo is metallic. A futuristic attempt at tagging :D

Some big piece behind the Rivington Gallery.

Nice stencil outside Cargo.

An Invader piece on the same piece of wall.

Now for the Black Rat Press gallery proper. It's quite hard to find, you have to walk through the Cargo gardens on Rivington St and its the building at the back. When there's an exhibition on they sign post it to make it a little easier.


Liking this one!


The pieces seem to be having a dig at Virgin. Nick often uses a bowler hatted pin-striped businessman in his more observational pieces.

At least I've now found out who's responsible for the butterflies I found in Bristol :)




Is this a piece aimed at another well known artist?

Not all of the pieces were canvas based, but unlike those this one didn't appear to be for sale.

Nor this one.

Most of the pieces were for sale and way too expensive for me to afford.




Liking these ones too!



Back outside, and 2 of the cargo walls have been white-washed, no doubt in preparation for some new pieces. I'll have to pop back in the next few weeks. The two Banksy pieces are still preserved fortunately :D

These rather gross stencils run along the bottom of the white walls.

I'd seen those stupid dogs around Shoreditch and didn't realise they were decent enough to be painted here.

This is Nick's most famous piece although its often misattributed to Banksy. This Moona Lisa is outside Cargo under the bridge and has lasted fairly well.

A toaster!

There's another much newer Moona Lisa outside Cargo now. Looks like the exhibition doesn't just exist indoors. Actually he's also supposed to be putting some laser projections of his work onto the main buildings around London, just a shame I'm not planning on being in London when it's dark enough to see them, plus I have no idea where they're going or when.



Another toaster

Nice piece on Rivington St.

More toasters

The Banksy Giant Rat is still hidden.

Loving this Mona Lisa near Old Street.

I wonder what the stencil looked like before they painted over it.

A rather strange door covered in penny coins. Found down the road from the big Old Street roundabout.