Give it Welly in Banksy’s town

It’s one of life’s great mysteries alongside where does the other sock go but let’s park that to give it Welly in Banksy’s town.

My own wee city Glasgow is just emerging, blinking into the light, from a summer of Banksy at its Gallery of Modern Art.

And Glaswegians reckon Banksy made his own mark when the exhibition wrapped up.

By putting a propeller on the traffic cone on the head of the Duke of Wellington statue outside the GOMA front door.

And another cone under the Chooky’s arm.

Now if it was a Banksy stunt, and he is said to have revealed that the Chooky and the traffic cone is his favourite statue anywhere.

Then he is of course merely channeling the high jinx of Glasgow University student freshers.

Who first put a cone on Chooky’s heid back in the day.

Of course, the council couldn’t remove the cone at the rate the students were putting it back on.

And eventually they relented and turned a defeat into a victory.

And branded the Duke and his Cone as a symbol of The Dear Green Place.

Bristol fashion

Banksy first came to my notice on the walls of New York, a hard concrete jungle to make a mark, with his rats graffiti poking fun at Wall Street.

The artist though is believed to have been refining his skills since the Nineties.

Thousands of miles away in Bristol in the west of England.

And it is there where we are taking to you today by flagging up the Banksy Walking Tour…

Well, if he was a citizen of my town I would, wouldn’t you.

Bristolians, who have a lot in common with my own Glaswegians.

Spray it again

Port city, musical heritage and heritage, built on the Slave Trade (eek), and a love of graffiti and street art.

And long before Glasgow went Banksy mad the spray-paint genius was going mad around Bristol.

Daubing among other masterpieces The Girl With The Pierced Eardrum, Grim Reaper, Well-Hung Lover and The Canteen, Mild, Mild West.

And, of course, the world can only be grateful to Banksy for making graffiti, which has been around since the days of Pompeii and before, cool again.

While we also fully applaud the Bristolians for pulling down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston and throwing him in the River Avon.

And while we acknowledge that pulling down the 14ft Dundas statue in Edinburgh and hauling it to the Forth is a bit of an ask can we not put a big disclaimer on a stand in front of him?

Though height is no guarantee of permanence as evidenced when poor old Admiral Nelson too-ra-loo was blown from his plinth in Dublin back in the day.

Nelly, the symbol of Britannia ruling the ways, got the goat of others around their former empire too with the Bajans removing Irish-born Arthur Wellesley and putting them in the Barbados Museum.