Master of Love and Fate!

When I was working in Barbican for a short while this summer, the bus I took to work always passed a Banksy piece I had yet to spot before. I swore a vow on nothing in particular that I'd come back and record it. Today, not wanting to go too far but not wanting to sit at home all day, I did.
This is a most actual story.
It's located roughly here, not far down from from Angel Islington.As you can see, it's had it's share of damage since going up and I'm not entirely sure that pink paint is "canon". Plus some douchebag has slapped his myspace web address on there. I'm all for the impermanence of street art and all but man...a myspace web address?
Just down and to the left a bit was another one of Banksy's pieces...well I think it is. I mean, the ape is his but the bush stencil and the tag for "CARTRAIN" suggest that maybe somebody was aping him? Oh ho ho...Then just to the right of the Banksy piece was this thing, which I rather appreciated if only for it's roots in American pulp fiction covers. I have to wonder if, thanks to Banksy's huge success, his pieces have become like a magnet for other street artists to work on and around in hopes of getting a piece of that. I wouldn't suggest this right away except that the only graffiti I saw in a four block radius was strictly on or beside the Banksy piece and nowhere else. It might also be a preservation issue, since Banksy's works have earned a kind of quasi-immunity to being cleaned up, thanks again to his fame and a not entirely mistaken belief that his works can make neighborhoods more desirable. Augmenting this line of thought even further, two weeks back I noticed in the National Gallery bookstore a guide-map to (supposedly) all of Banksy's works in London.

I didn't even consider buying it. I'll keep the finding of his works in my "unexpected fun" category, rather than make it another checklist to work through. It'd feel too much like using cheat codes in a video game.