Ginger's Guide to London Streets: Bits and Bobs

The first time I ever spotted one of these little critters was on Tottenham Court Road. Given the plethora of geeky electrical shops around there, I thought it was some kind of officially sanctioned reflection of the consumer bias of the area. It was only when reading Art of the State that I realised that it was actually part of some much larger project; these mosaic space invaders can be found all over the world. Thus far, I've only located two: the red one is on the corner of Bedford Avenue and Tottenham Court Road, the blue one is near the Oxford Street entrance of Tottenham Court Road Tube station - have a look here to see it in situ.

In other news, I was contacted a couple of months ago by a website called Schmap who wanted to use one of the photos from my Flickr photostream for the new edition of their London guide. I happily agreed, but I'm not quite sure what I think of their guides overall. Firstly, the pages have so much on them that they take ages to load on my less-than speedy machine. Secondly, they stuck my photo as part of a gallery above a review of Patisserie Valerie. Which is fine, as that does feature in the photo. But as the review fails to mention they have more than one branch, I thought it was a bit misleading that they listed the address as Brompton Road. I did contact them about this, and eventually they seem to have removed my contribution, although they didn't tell me that they were going to. Ah well, that's my fifteen minutes of fame over!

Ginger's Guide to London Streets #3: Parliament Court, E1

I don't often find myself in the City of London (as opposed to the City of Westminster) but I was over there yesterday with a couple of hours to kill and a camera in hand. So don't be surprised by the next few entries being clustered around that area.

Parliament Court is a real hidden gem. I've only been able to pin its exact location down on one map out of three since I got home. Even Google Maps doesn't show it properly - just points to an blank space in between other streets. A passing glance suggests nothing but a fairly empty alley, and I probably wouldn't have noticed it at all if a couple of people weren't stood there looking at a grafitto/mural at one end of it. They were saying something about Jack the Ripper. It may well have been in 'tribute' to his presence in the area, but I doubt the original ever carried a spray can. Like Londonist, I wasn't convinced that, although in a stencilled style, it was the work of Banksy, but it was certainly eye-catching.

I figured I might as well go down the alley, not expecting to find much else, except perhaps for an alternative view from which to take a photo. I was rather startled, therefore, when I came across an even more striking graffito, this time very like a Banksy piece: an armed man firing doves out of his weapon.

I've been trying to work out if I've now seen a Banksy in situ for the first time. On the one hand, the black and white colour scheme, and the stencilled look of the gunman were very reminiscent of his work. On the other, it seems less elaborate than a lot of his other stuff. The doves looked like they had been block printed on, rather than stencilled, although I don't know if this is significant. Also, it didn't feature his tag, but rather a somewhat undecipherable signature (below). Googling got me nowhere (it just bought up the Londonist article), and looking at maps of the locations of his work doesn't tell me anything either.

So, I'm thinking it probably isn't. But it was a really great piece, and a wonderful surprise to see down a street that I could very easily have ignored. If anyone has any idea who created it, please leave a comment!