Me Vs Banksy

So after absorbing weeks of saturation coverage and more hype than the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive unit, I finally made it to the Banksy exhibition at Bristol Museum.
Several attempts have been made, which have mainly involved trying to get out of bed early at the weekend to beat the queues, then deciding against the whole idea of standing in the rain for three hours and ended in going back to sleep.
But we headed down there on Wednesday after work, which was a beautiful sunny city evening. In fact it was so warm I dared to leave the house without a coat or jacket of any kind, not even a thin waterproof kagool. Pretty brave in this country I'd say.
We expected to age a little in the queue before getting anywhere near the world-famous exhibition, but to my sheer relief it was actually pretty quick moving and we were inside within half an hour. I'd have gone before if I'd known.
We shuffled along patiently with the crowds looking out for all the irreverence and cheeky artistic equivalents of one-liners. But I just felt like I'd seen the whole thing before, which of course I have, in every paper, on every website and on every television news programme.
There was very little which I hadn't already seen and I came out feeling a bit, well, underwhelmed by the whole thing. Had you collared me at the moment that I stepped out of the gloomy museum building into the setting sunlight, and asked me my opinion of this most trendy of urban/arty events, I would only have been able to muster a non-committal shrug of the shoulders and utter a barely audible, and less than enthusiastic "It's alright I s'pose". A bit like a 14-year-old boy who's been dragged around the Uffizi gallery in Florence while on holiday, when he's far more interested in playing football outside in the square. Which was also me.
This may say more about my ignorance than anything else, but I do wish I'd made more of an effort to see it earlier and perhaps could've been a bit more impressed by it.
Putting the grumpy old man to one side, I did think it was entertaining and once or twice kind of thought provoking.
I don't think he is the coruscating political commentator who can bring shame upon the ruling elite with a single flourish of his spray can, nor do I think he is the most original activist drawing peoples' attention to the absurdities and injustices of the world. But he is very good at taking a thought and summing it up in one clear image which provokes and entertains.
My favourite is the I Hate Mondays image above. That totally sums up our Western pre-occupation with the trivial nonsense of day-to-day existence, confined in that rigid pattern of work, home, work, home, five days a week, 52 weeks a year, while these kids a world away starve in slums.
The presentation of these political themes is obviously the key to his success. I find myself thinking of the gulf between rich and poor much more looking at that image, than I do listening to Bono or Bob Geldof guffing on about it.
It's undoubtedly a great thing for the city though, and I'm reliably informed by my friend Claire that trade in the surrounding area is up by 24 per cent as a result of the exhibition. For a start there's the enterprising ice cream van parked up by the queue, a modern day 'cut me own throat' Dibbler if there ever was one. The queue itself has become a daily fixture, and I wonder how many people made friends or even sparked new relationships and love affairs while standing for hours in that line. Fate has a funny way of bringing people together. Personally I couldn't think of anything worse than having to start polite conversation with a complete stranger, but some people seem to thrive of that kind of thing. Good luck to them.
The best thing of all is that it is here in Bristol in the first place, rather than London. I always like to argue that living in Bristol is great and that I wouldn't swap it for London for so many reasons, and now I have a genuine one. If the exhibit was in the capital, Banksy would have definitely 'sold out'. But keeping it in Bristol means he's true to his roots, and all those councillors who campaign for anti-graffiti measures and make community service kids scrub it off the walls, can claim him as one of the city's beloved sons.
So anyway, after all that malarky we went to Gourmet Burger Kitchen where I enjoyed a buffalo burger, with cheese and onion rings. It was proper gert lush.
I did play tennis for over an hour this morning to work it off, and I appear to be staying at the 16 stone level, according to the dodgy scales in our bathroom.
I'll need to draw on all that energy tomorrow in any case as I will be attempting an 8 mile plus run, possibly 9. Looking forward to it, will let you know how I get on, if I don't get distracted trying to analyse a Banksy mural on Gloucester Road in the meantime.

King of the hills

Pic caption: Park Street in the centre of Bristol, where I finished my run at the top.


Just recovering from another long run yesterday, with another hill climb at the end of it.
After going 6.7 miles I wanted to push myself a little further and try to increase the mileage as the half marathon is really getting quite close now.
I reasoned that all the chocolate and bread and red meat I've been happily consuming over the past couple of weeks , (and the odd bottle of wine) would actually act as fuel for my body and enable me to go further than before, drawing on all that sugar and energy to keep going.
Well there may have been something in that as I managed to run 7.6 miles yesterday, in a time of 1hr and 43 minutes. That is one mile further than the last run I did, and I was running for 11 more minutes.
But what I'm even more pleased about is the fact that I managed to run up Park Street, which is a really steep hill in the centre of Bristol, at the end of the run. Probably not as steep or long as Bridge Valley Road, but at the end of a 7 mile run it's pretty darn steep. I had to stop once I reached the top, just opposite the museum where the Banksy exhibition is being held, and I did feel like my knees had been smashed with a baseball bat.
But it was that weird sense of futile heroism that kicks in with me which makes me want to keep going and try to do things that are probably a bit beyond me.
I think I have some psychological complex where I think my whole life is a film and that there are millions of people around the world tuning in to see if I get to the top of the hill. Perhaps we could coin it right here and now and call it the Truman Show complex. Maybe I'll write a book about it and make a fortune that way!
But anyway, I knew I had to go for a decent run yesterday having not really done any exercise since my last run on Tuesday last week, but I thought it was important to get over the trauma of that first.
So after a mediocre day in the home office I finished work at 4 and decided to head out for a run.
I went the usual route across the Downs and up the Portway, but instead of cutting back up Bridge Valley Road to head home I kept going, and going, heading for the centre of the city.
I think by the time I had reached six miles plus my running style resembled a hippo wading through treacle, as each step was just off the ground long enough to count as very slow jogging. It definitely wasn't walking - although that would probably have been quicker.
When I got into the Centre, I realised I had to get back up to the Downs where my car was, and the only way to get there was to go up Park Street and Whiteladies Road.
Of course, what I should have done is keep a couple of quid in change on me so I could get a bus, which would have been a much better option.
The sky looked a bit grey and spots of rain were blowing around on the breeze, making it feel distinctly autumnal, and really not like the end of July.
Then I just thought that the quickest way to get home and to avoid any potential downpour (although the rain would have been welcome to cool my overheating body) was simply to keep running, so I did.
That was when the music in my head really kicked in and the imaginary crowds were screaming my name and Oliver Stone was just ahead of me behind the movie camera giving out epic directions. I fancied I could see fireworks exploding from the top of the university's Wills Memorial tower, but that might have just been the pain of the running.
I just kept reminding myself of my inspiration, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, who at 106 or something crazy, managed his third Everest climb by just saying to himself 'plod forever', and it really works.
I thought I was doing pretty well actually, but then I saw some kids on their bikes racing past me as if they were on the flat.
But I kept going and reached the top, feeling utterly, utterly knackered, and rather dehydrated. Again berating myself for not bringing any money out with me to buy a bottle of water, I ducked into the nearest pub and got a pint of tap water. It slipped down like ambrosia from the gods, not custard, and restored my energy levels just enough to enable me to walk the remaining mile or so up to the Downs to get my car.
There is only five weeks to go now before the Bristol half marathon, and I really do want to put in a decent show for that, although I feel I may have neglected my training a little too much to be able to do a decent time, or even get around without stopping.
But if I can add a mile a week between then and now it may be okay. I have decided that one long run a week is probably the way forward to prepare for the half marathon, but I really need to hit the gym to improve my stamina and all round fitness. It will be an important benchmark though in terms of setting out my training from September onwards for the full marathon next year. Which still sounds like an impossible idea.