I Deserve a Prize

Dear Mr Nobel and Co.

Thank you so much for giving my friend Mr Obama a Peace Prize. One of the reasons I would have voted for Mr Obama, had I been allowed to vote in the American elections, is that he sure looked like a peaceful kinda guy. Anyhow, well done.

Now I'd like to apply for one of your prizes too. I'm mainly interested in a Peace Prize as I'm not very good at mathematics or science. I am quite good at writing (and spelling), so I'll let you decide on that one. My heart though, is definitely set on a Peace Prize, and here's why I deserve one:

I don't shout at anyone anymore. I have retired from that game. Neither do I get into fights. I was always getting knocked out and to be honest, I'm now just too fat and old. I am still feisty and I still get into arguments, but that's because I like to pit my wits (such as they are) against others. Also because I'm always right (not that I'm boasting, its a burden I have to live with).

The reason I am so desperate to get a Peace Prize is that just like Mr Obama, I, one day in the future, plan to be REALLY peaceful. Yep, I'm going to lock myself in a white painted room with nothing to distract me or annoy me. I am going to think peaceful thoughts and and not even argue with myself. I know that sounds difficult but it isn't. You see, to argue with myself means I have to provoke myself - and if I'm being peaceful, I can't do that. Win-win!

Regarding dates, well, I'll let you decide that - although the sooner I get my Peace Prize, the sooner I can get on with carrying out my intentions.

Kind regards and expectant thanks

Paul

PS Do you do bank transfers or cheque for the prize money? Only I prefer a transfer because cheques still take a while to clear.

PPS Do I get a trophy too? It would look good next to my 2nd place (veterans) Enduro trophy that I won in 1999. I also won a (dead, plucked) chicken and a bottle of Zimbabwean wine (Mukuyu Cabernet) at that enduro and saw a dead python on the way home.

PPPS Do I get to attend a glitzy awards ceremony with a red carpet and all? I want to get papparazzied and go in a posh magazine like OK or Hello.

Copyright © 2009 Paul R Davey. All photographs, text and artworks in this portfolio are copyrighted and owned by the artist, Paul R Davey unless otherwise stated. Any reproduction, modification, publication, transmission, transfer, or exploitation of any of the content, for personal or commercial use, whether in whole or in part, without written permission from the artist is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved.

The Abominable Works of Zerx and His Friends

In 2012 London will be hosting the Olympic Games. Splendid! I am fully in support of the games as I do believe that there will be a permanent, useful legacy left behind in the form of stadia, housing and sporting facilities. I have no fear that the Olympic park will fall into a state of disuse as has happened in several cities.

Where I have a problem with the London Olympics is in its branding. Now I don't want to go into a rant about how horrible the logo is (it is awful), I want to go into a rant about its origins: Graffiti. Yes, the design agency that birthed this horrible piece of graphic art chose to celebrate the territory-marking piss dribbles of taggers. They, in their wisdom decided to, celebrate gang culture. Knife crime. Gun crime. Drugs. They decided to celebrate the lonely, dispiriting, expensive, ongoing battle a very nice, elderly Italian gentleman from my neighbourhood has with a graffiti tagger, who defaces his home on a weekly basis. Is graffiti what sums up London??

The 2012 Olympic Logo

Nearly all towns and cities suffer from the hideous scarring of graffiti. Some of it is a genuine attempt at making art - and on rare occasions it adds a positive, interesting detail to the cityscape. Most of the time it definitely does not. Some tagging is gang related – marking out territories. Most of it though, is simply the pointless, thoughtless handiwork of bored "youths" (some are well into their twenties) who just like to show the world where they have been. Quite why we would want to know where these pointless vandals have been beats me, but there is at least one valuable dimension to their 'work': We get to keep count. And each instance of their tags is (well, they bloody should be) one count of vandalism added to their charge sheet.

This tag "Zerx", is seen all over north west London in quite literally, thousands of places. I would be unsurprised if the cost of professionally repairing/removing the damage doesn't run into several millions.

What we need to be very clear about is that tagging is in no way a legitimate form of self expression. Tagging has no wit. It has no merit. It destroys the work of much better artists and architects. Near my home is a body shop and panelbeating business. The owner of the property commissioned a proper, bona fide graffiti artist to create some stencil paintings on his external walls. I liked them. My son's band even had their publicity shots taken in front of them. They were pretty clever. Simple black on white. They had wit - he'd created characters with cameras for heads and named them Mr FFFFFF etc. (after HTML colours). Whilst not being everyone's cup of tea, they were indeed art; the visual expression of someone's talent and imagination.

So there we are, a small body shop having added in its own little way to the artistic value of London. What happens next? I will tell you. "Zerx" whose many thousands of acts of vandalism litter north west London scrawled his tag in flourescent pink paint over the artwork, ruining it in just seconds.

In London, graffiti is considered to be if a crime at all, a minor crime. The police it seems, believe they are too busy to have to deal with it. (I challenge the police to arrest and charge this criminal - there is no question as to his identity) They have come to accept that our buildings, our architecture, our street furniture, graves (yes, graves), trees, shopfonts etc. are continually covered in ugly tags and obscenities. They appear to have given up. And why not? The courts merely treat taggers as naughty little scamps. They might be sentenced at worst to a little bit of community service (almost certainly NOT cleaning up the mess they created). They might be ordered to go for counseling (the poor little dears are releasing their pent up angst by defacing peoples' property). Bullshit!

The punishment does not fit the crime. There is no connection between the crime and the consequence. I can understand that the courts would not want to impose the death penalty on a tagger (Its been abolished, apparently) but to sentence them to a hug and a nice chat? That is just not justice.

It is my belief that if someone is convicted of tagging then they should be made to pay for the costs of having their work removed. Any of their victims should be allowed to pursue them for the costs of repairs. Obviously most of these idiots could never in a million lifetimes earn enough to properly pay for the damage they have created, but I believe that there should be a way of having for the next few years (depending on the severity of the damage), a deduction from either their benefits or their wages - when and if they ever bother to work.


Copyright © 2009 Paul R Davey. All photographs, text and artworks in this portfolio are copyrighted and owned by the artist, Paul R Davey unless otherwise stated. Any reproduction, modification, publication, transmission, transfer, or exploitation of any of the content, for personal or commercial use, whether in whole or in part, without written permission from the artist is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved.