Mick Hartley

First, the easy part; the ride down the Lea, with canal boats and the deceptive semblance of rustic calm:

But it doesn't last. Soon the charms of Hackney Marshes are replaced by the post-industrial graffiti-scarred landscape to the south:

A lot of the old warehouses here are now artists' studios. This is from the back of Mother Studios, and that's the Olympic Park over there. The boarded-up building is doomed: to be replaced, if I read the Olympic plan correctly, by a basketball arena.

Across the road – White Post Lane – is White Post Quay, another old warehouse, and home to a number of galleries. I'm not sure what kind of clientele they cater for, but to judge from their yard it's not the Royal Academy crowd:

  

A nice touch, that – the discarded mattresses in front of a depiction of a post-industrial waste-tip.

Though the veranda looks pleasant enough – for an evening Pimms, perhaps:

"Still Life with Arm":

Elsewhere in the neighbourhood:

That's the Lord Napier, which also featured here and here. It is, alas, getting scruffier. If that's possible. But a freshly-planted tree presages the dawning of a new era of shiny rows of designer-friendly apartments: 

That funny yellow owl-like creature, top-left, above the "I DON'T REALLY LIKE…"? Here he is again, off Hackney Road – but bolder, fresher:

What can it all mean?

[Map here]