Banksy in Manchester

Manchester was abuzz this week after someone cleaned an electricity substation in the Northern Quarter. Don’t worry – life around here isn’t that bad that such an action would cause jubilation and excitement in the streets. The Northern Quarter isn’t that avant garde – yet.

The reason for the aforementioned buzz is that the cleaning of said substation revealed something on the small building’s structure. A few years ago (possibly eight) some bright spark came up with the idea of covering one of those little brick structures that house electricity stuff (that’s a technical term of an electricity substation) in plants, to make it look a bit more natural, presumably (I reiterate that this is the Northern Quarter – they have some weird ideas around there). It’s taken eight years for those plants to die and someone to realise it’s perhaps not such a good idea, so they’ve taken them off now to reveal...this is where we get to the whole point of this, for those of you still reading...some genuine Banksy artwork! See, it was worth the wait, right?

‘Artwork’ is perhaps a touch strong, depending on your stance with such things – graffiti, some call it, others go with cartoons. Some call it ‘not art’, rather bluntly. Here it is – you can make your own minds up:



It’s a little beaten up – eight years under rotting plants will do that – but appears to be a version of this:

And you can tell it’s a genuine Banksy – he’s written his name next to it to give you a clue. Some are calling for it to be preserved seeing as, in the eight years or so since it was done, Banksy’s reputation has grown somewhat. It’s a shame he’s so elusive – we could get him to do a few more around the city, brighten the place up a little. I’m sure the Northern Quarter-ites would like that. It is, after all, oh so cool to have a Banksy around. If only we knew who to call to order some.