Eine Entschuldigung

I was giving out recently on my website about the appalling amount and quality of the graffiti in Berlin. I thought it was really shocking. Much worse than Dublin, I thought. And I was probably right. But I'll have to get down a bit off my high horse after a walk along City Quay yesterday.

Having left Matt Talbot, in all his pristine glory, behind me I came across one of my favourite sculptures - The Linesman. A very powerful piece by Dony McManus (1999). And what did I see before me. Mindless graffiti. I was disgusted.

And then I came to Creighton Street, where I was turning away from the river to go to Pearse Street library. More mindless shite.

And this bit looks like a whole can of paint was thrown at the window and shattered it.

I moved along the street in the direction of Windmill Lane and more of it.

And this time I took a closer look at the stuff on Windmill Lane itself. I had a sort of a recollection from passing by on previous occasions that there was some good stuff there. But on a closer look it was just more shite. Given the location I had probably been retrospectively attributing some creativity to it.

But really, it was just more of the same.

So I continued my depressing journey up Creighton Street and, eventually, the graffiti were no more.

Anyway I'm just apologising to the Berlin graffitiers. I should have given out about our own crowd first.

However, now that I have done that, I still think much of the Berlin stuff is wanton and absolutely awful.