Tired Boy, Rest and Repair

Blog update

I have woken up today and I am still aching from football on Sunday. So I decided to have a rest and repair day. This is on two levels, fitness and my blogging. So you may see a couple of minor changes on my blog, I had upgraded my Justgiving widget to include how I am getting on with my fundraising target. Just to update you, with five and half weeks to go I have raised £535 for charity, increased my fitness levels and bored you to tears with over 7190 words. The last stat was because my Nan hasn't got access to the Internet, so I have had to copy and paste all the blogs onto a word document for my Mum to print off. This reminds me of a conversation I overheard when I went out for dinner with my Girlfriend, my Parents and Grandparents. My Grandad said to my Dad 'Doug, have you downloaded any tunes on your Ipod recently?' Yeah my Grandparents may not have the Internet but they are certainly 'down with the kids'! I have also added a web counter for everytime someone checks my blog, how exciting I can check its latest circulation figures. Also I amended my facebook page, with new details of my blog rather than a link to my Oxfam Cambodia/Vietnam entries of 2007, and removing the Wallbirds from my music likes and nearly removing Summer Heights High off TV programmes.
Thanks again to everyone who has sponsored me so far.

So to the second rest/repair, fitness, as I said my body is aching with the cycling and not warming down from football. Last season I started going to Yoga classes at a school, the main reason for this was a magazine article I read with Ryan Giggs who said he has prolonged his football career by using Yoga stretching exercises. If it is good for probably the best left winger in the history of the Premier League then I need to keep going, however as I am reminded constantly by status updates from teacher friends, schools are closed for the holidays so Tuesday night Yoga is off ufn. I thought I would go for a little cycle.

Cycle Ride

Then I had a lightbulb moment, I would do an entry with a few pictures cycling around Bristol, as a lot of the people I e-mail the blog updates to are not from round here. First off though just thought I would update on the Bin Men front (as I have just remembered my landlord is on the distribution list for links to my blog), I put the black bins out last night and they duly took them.

Now because it was a leisurely cycle ride I ended up getting carried away with the photos, so I will try and work out how to put the whole album on, rather than just a couple of images. After a few minutes I thought what has Bristol been famous for recently? Last year over 12 weeks more than 300,000 people, visited the Banksy vs Bristol Museum exhibition this matched the museum's own annual number of visits. I would take some pictures of Graffiti.

So Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property.[Wikipedia definition] There are number of debates with Graffiti, whether it is art or considered vandalism. It can be used as a gang symbol for tagging terrority, it can be used to decorate the side of a shop or an eyesore area. It can be used as political statement, someone even sold a Banksy mural with a free house included, as part of their house sale.

My two hours of cycling showed me a number of different displays and forms from just a simple tagline to elaborate wall paintings. It showed me how
People had made ugly old buildings look less derelict and jazzed up Railway stations.
People had made political and anti-corporate statements. Well there is a lot of unrest around with a new Tesco being built one person had even gone as far as putting posters up in their window showing a price match for local shops compared to the nearest Tesco stating, Think Tesco are cheaper?
People could remind other residents not to use their bins.
People can advertise their shops

But it also showed me the negative side of graffiti, how
People had defaced a local street signs from Cotham Park to Gotham City which is hilarious, but the postman may deliver to the wrong address.
A council worker had to clean a wall with taglines off costing the taxpayers money. (I took the picture after when he had gone round the corner for a break.)
People had even gone as far as vandalising fellow artists work.

My conclusion is there are some amazing street artists out there and they should have dedicated spaces where they can work. But what is with little taglines in black on people's houses it looks awful. Although as everything is subjective some people may like that thing.

If someone wants to go on a Louis' magical cycling tour taking in Graffiti let me know, I can widen the spectrum to Pirates and TV locations! (Only Fools and Horses, Casualty, Skins and Being Human)

After two hours of a gentle cycle I got back to see someone from the Top Floor Flat taking two of the four Black bins back onto our drive, (why he couldn't take all four in I don't know). He then proceeded to place Books, DVDs and empty Folders onto the wall. I was just having a relaxing tea when one of the Recycling Men who were just emptying the cardboard, paper, tins and bottles picked up one of the DVDs off the wall to take home. Now if only the Bin Men were as helpful someone would have picked up rubbish when the bins were on the drive two weeks ago! I then went out there myself picked up the rest of the stuff, put them in a bag and gave them to a Cancer Research charity shop minus a finder's fee (ironically Summer Heights High on DVD).

I am not looking forward to football training tonight.

Louis