Graffiti Run

Saturday was a great day, in spite of being gloomy and grey, as I headed out for my first long run since being ill. I headed down through London Fields, past the top of Broadway Market, and down Mare Street and joined the canal on my way to Victoria Park. First treat of the day was spotted along the far bank of the canal: an amazing new work of graffiti showing stylised boxing dogs, and a rather sneaky looking human apparently clearing off with the winnings. I’ve written about it more here on Qype. It’s really one of the best pieces of graffiti art I’ve seen in a long time.

Victoria Park was dull, slightly muddy, and infested with some extremely noisy rugby players. You can also tell its January as the folks training for London Marathon are out in force, wearing the training jackets they give to people rejected in the ballot. Having now collected quite a lot of ballot rejections (my one time in was on a charity place, having failed again on the ballot…) I could identify several years’ worth. Personally I was wearing the rather lovely fleece, from 2006 I think? Actually, since I’m not in London this year, maybe I’m wrong in my assumptions, but the knowing smiles they gave me looked like they considered me part of the club! Anyway, I plodded round several times, making up a total of 8 miles. I’d originally planned to head up the canal towards Hackney Marshes. But that takes me past the Olympic site, and to be honest knowing what’s going on there really puts me off going that way. The latest news is here. Anyway, it was a grind, but I kept going, and beat my time target too. It wasn’t an especially ambitious time target, but then it was supposed to be a long slow run. I’m happy!

On my way back I decided to pop down Broadway Market. It was just closing up, but I still managed to sample several varieties of flavoured goats cheese from one stall. Very nice: not too goaty and a lovely texture. I also enjoyed what can only be described as the free art gallery around the entrance to Ada Street. It seems like a whole gang of local graffiti artists have had a party and produced some spectacular work. Again I’ll write more on Qype, but special mention has to go to Sickboy, who’s produced something a bystander described as a poem, with words and pictures incorporated into one of his designs. He’s really put his name on the map with this one.

On the way home I picked up the Hackney Gazette, to see a story speculating that Banksy has returned to the area. Well, I think they are little desperate for copy… it’s pretty definitely not a Banksy in my opinion (and I did go and have a look today). It’s a picture of a policeman, with pig snout, and a couple of slogans, on a wall as you go into the car park at Dalston Kinglsand Shopping Centre. I think it’s much more likely to be the work of one of the many stencil artists working in the area, perhaps one who goes by the tag Cartrain. He’s something of a Banksy copyist, and does some good work, but tends to ‘plonk’ his work on a wall rather than place it in context as Banksy does (Banksy’s rats for instance will be were you’d expect to see a rat: at ground level or standing on something. Unless parachuting of course). On the whole I’d say give it a miss and go look at the other examples I’ve talked about.