Where I live

Believe it or not, but the part of London I live in is agrueably the most hip happening place known to man, and as such, each day, it attracts thousands of visitors from other not so hip happening places.

The majority of these transients, known as hipsters, are in their late teens and early twenties and will be on their way to a vintage shop, or to Allen Gardens to smoke spliffs, or more commonly just urinating in the street somewhere.

The more mature males will be sporting ironic moustachios and beards, lumberjack shirts and skinny jeans with loafers and no socks.

Apart from the vintage clothes scene in and around Brick lane, the artist of Hoxton, and the market stalls of Spitalfields, we also have the murderous history of Whitechapel and surrounds, plus the silk weavers and the Huguenots.

With all this going on, it's easy to miss the changes and happenings when you actually live here.  We're not here on holiday you know, so we tend not to amble around obliviously with a £500+ camera hanging from our necks, nor do we stand in the middle of the road taking another photograph of another piece of street art by another street artist that nobody really knows or cares about, unless the name is Banksy.

To be honest, I'm only living here in the vain hope that Banksy will one day discover the virgin red brick side of my house, do a doodle, thereby adding another zero to the value.

This hasn't happened yet, but recently, somebody did hang a bike-cycle wheel to the trellis on top of my back garden wall.  (Sadly not Banksy, more like Bikesy.  Aha ha...)

You're probably remembering at this stage that I was supposed to be doing a cigar and Rioja pairing, but I've had to postpone that for now as I need more time for research purposes.

Instead, I decided to grab my £500+ camera, hit the urban landscape and photograph some hip happening street art, which I'll exhibit with some cigars I got for Christmas.

I want this to be my way of saying thank you to those who got me these gifts.  You know who you are.  Think of this as my gift to you...

So let's get things moving with the wheel installation hanging from my garden wall.

It's a bit like art I suppose in that I don't understanding it and I don't know what to do with it.

The wheel with no name...

The council won't remove it and I haven't got the wherewithal to do it myself, and our estate management people are money grabbing useless leaches.

So for now it stays.

I'm not going to pair a cigar with this as it's not art.

It's just a wheel some moron locked to my trellis, so you just get to look at it and wonder why.

Maybe it is art after all...


Any who, I took these photographs today in a round trip from my house in less than 30 minutes, which should give you some idea of how much of the area is covered with this crap.



No idea who made it, but it caught my eye, so here it is.






Here's a Cohiba Behike.

Absolutely beautiful.

A masterpiece.







Next we have this thing.

Again, I have no clue what's going on but apparently art is trash and I couldn't agree more.





This is a Cuaba.

It's very big but makes sense.

It's not trash.







This is my favourite photo, and that's only because it's the cooperage entrance at the back of the old Truman brewery





This is another Cohiba.

A maduro 5

I'm planning on smoking this on Saturday.

While drinking Rioja.






Here are some more photos from my 30 minute adventure.

Those three guys against the wall are artists...