Sheep magazine Archive 2: issues 10-17

SHARP BARBS DULLED BY
IGNORAMUSES & PARLIAMENT
Back in the early 1970s, when getting some picture framing done, the
picture framer was chit-chatting and name dropping and I remember
him mentioning Gerald Nabarro. It seems Gerald was a very vain
man who not only had all the numberplates of his collection of cars
personalised to NAB 1, NAB 2, etc (8 in all) … but also had all cartoons
of him expensively framed, whether anti or pro, he just loved to be in the
limelight, no matter if he were portrayed as a right-wing bigot.
49
This kind of vanity, a blind thick-skinned subscription to a thought/act/
image without even the slightest understanding/acceptance/realisation
of its critical message is being increasingly employed by the ‘worthy
arty-farty’ crowd of Banksy applauders. As an instance, the Cheltenham
Banksy, ‘our Banksy’ as a bunch of so-called art-lovers have called it
in the local media, depicted sinister spies listening in around an actual
phonebox in Cheltenham. Cheltenham is home to super spy listening
post, GCHQ … so the political message about the wrongness of this
surveillance activity is beautifully made obvious ... job well done!
The graffiti was then vandalised (hopefully by Banksy), its message
received, its work done, lets move on … but such a hoo-hah erupted in
Cheltenham, ‘how could anyone vandalise ‘our Banksy’, estimated to be
worth a million quid, a tourist attraction even’. This kind of absorption
October 2016