Mick Hartley

I've been here before often enough, but, well, it's spring now. It's different:

 

It's even spring on Hackney Marshes:

 

Coming up to the Olympic site – with work apparently surging ahead as a delegation from the International Olympic Committee arrives for an inspection today – there's a spot under the A12 East Cross Route where for the past year or so there's been a traveller's camp, with old caravans, cars up on blocks, and junk littered about. Well, now they've been cleared out - perhaps not unrelated to the visit from the Olympic dignitaries – but they've left….this:

 

 

All that fun smashing the windows – and no one thought of doing the headlamps?

Further down, and right opposite the Olympic site, the monkey man – whose work is all over the bloody place – makes his boldest statement yet:

 

The shiny new development across the water seems to be producing its own counter-reaction. It's that metropolitan dialectic again.

This:

used to look like this. So at least there's some improvement.

A few places are still relatively monkey-free, though – as yet:

 

Give it time.

[Google map here]