# Mild Mild West to be protected as part of new development



## JTG (Jun 6, 2007)

story here

Recently voted Bristol's favourite alternative landmark in an online BBC poll, the finest work Banksy has ever done or ever will do imvho

It's to be enclosed by glass as part of a new flats/offices development

Quite apart from my misgivings about the impending yuppification of Stokes Croft and St Pauls, I'm a bit  about this. I like the fact that, despite its iconic status, it is nevertheless an illegal piece of guerilla art. Legitimising and sanitising it like this seems entirely wrong, like they're putting all of us residents of the Stokes Croft area in a museum, so that the incoming yuppies can gawk at us and kid themselves they're being all edgy and dangerous by moving in to the area whilst simultaneously forcing out us regular folks.

Hmmmm.


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## Crispy (Jun 6, 2007)

encased in glass???!
*shakes head*

I do like the way the story says "he has a huge following in Bristol" without managing to work out that that's where he's from - not Hoxton as most people think


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## JTG (Jun 6, 2007)

I have given up on the unequal struggle to convince people on Urban that:

a) he is from Bristol
b) before he started stencilling he painted some damn fine murals
c) his murals are actually miles better than any of his stencils, witty as some of those are

He's been very successful at getting stupid twatty people to pay heaps of money to him for his work and for that I salute him. I don't worship him like some do though.

I was sad when his Sevier Street mural got demolished a few months back and sadder when somebody elected to chuck red paint over his Cato Street work. But such is life, nothing is permanent (unless encased behind glass as part of some inappropriate yuppie horror show on Stokes Croft of course)


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## ICB (Jun 6, 2007)

JTG said:
			
		

> I have given up on the unequal struggle to convince people on Urban that:
> 
> a) he is from Bristol



FFS  It's a sad day when the cult of celebrity has got a grip on urban to this extent.

He's just an ordinary bloke who was at 6th form college with my sister (and a bit of a non-entity at the time), I'm not going to put his name up on here if he doesn't want it widely known but he's definitely from Bristol.  He gave a good eulogy at a funeral we went to about three years ago.


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## Crispy (Jun 6, 2007)

Oh I reckon he's a twat too - but he's done a few decent pieces and we Bristolians are proud of our achievers


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## JTG (Jun 6, 2007)

people who leave Bristol to achieve elsewhere are a bit of a rarity tbh. Even Massive Attack never did that!


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## big eejit (Jun 6, 2007)

JTG said:
			
		

> people who leave Bristol to achieve elsewhere are a bit of a rarity tbh. Even Massive Attack never did that!



John Cabot?


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## Crispy (Jun 6, 2007)

big eejit said:
			
		

> John Cabot?


Wasn't he norwegian or seomthing anyway?

EDIT: Genoa, Itlay.


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## JTG (Jun 6, 2007)

My wife went on holiday to a north western Italian port

Genoa?

I should hope so, we've been married for ten years


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## big eejit (Jun 6, 2007)

My wife went on holiday to a small island in the Irish Sea.

Man?

Why, you cheeky....!!!!


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## Sunspots (Jun 6, 2007)

JTG said:
			
		

> I like the fact that, despite its iconic status, it is nevertheless an illegal piece of guerilla art.



Was it ever actually 'illegal' though?  I honestly don't know The Law on this kind of thing, but I always assumed part of the reason that particular one's stayed up there for years (-rather than days) was because the owners of the building it's painted on (-[once] a record shop) were cool with it.  _(?)_ 




			
				JTG said:
			
		

> Legitimising and sanitising it like this seems entirely wrong, like they're putting all of us residents of the Stokes Croft area in a museum, so that the incoming yuppies can gawk at us and kid themselves they're being all edgy and dangerous by moving in to the area whilst simultaneously forcing out us regular folks.
> 
> Hmmmm.



Yep, this is the creeping gentrification of Stokes Croft... They will only want the symbols; not the reality.  

This story is also yet another example of the council's ridiculous double-standard regarding the city's graffiti.  Until somebody else deemed it to have monetary value, the council had for many years seen him as just another vandal.  Now the council falls over itself to cry _"-Oh, but it's a Banksy!"_, while other equally talented artists still get their pieces removed.  It's hypocritical bollocks.   

I saw the BBC story yesterday and thought this was a bit misleading:




			
				BBC story said:
			
		

> 'Mild Mild West', which depicts comic policemen and a bear...



-I've never seen anything _'comic'_ about the riot police it depicts.  

-The story neglects to mention that the bear is throwing a petrol bomb at the policemen.  The accompanying ^picture^ on the BBC has been cropped to exclude that part. 

_"-Well weapon."_ Indeed.


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## JTG (Jun 6, 2007)

Yeah it's interesting that. It was put up not far from the scene of the 1980 St Pauls riot and the message or whatever is incendiary (boom boom). Yet that's airbrushed out of the reporting of the story - see what suits you rather than what the actual reality is. Somewhat how they view Stokes Croft as an area really.


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## Gerry1time (Jun 10, 2007)

Sunspots said:
			
		

> I always assumed part of the reason that particular one's stayed up there for years (-rather than days) was because the owners of the building it's painted on (-[once] a record shop) were cool with it.  _(?)_



I've told this story before, but apparently the building it's on was derelict at the time, and the record shop owners next door just covered for him when the police came along saying it was their building, and also let him through their attic to abseil down from the roof. Did the outlines on one day and filled it all in the next i was told.


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## Sunspots (Jun 10, 2007)

Gerry1time said:
			
		

> I've told this story before, but apparently the building it's on was derelict at the time, and the record shop owners next door just covered for him when the police came along saying it was their building, and also let him through their attic to abseil down from the roof. Did the outlines on one day and filled it all in the next i was told.



When you say _'the building it's on was derelict at the time'_, do you mean that empty office building, or the shop next to it?  

The piece is on the side wall of the record shop itself, isn't it?


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## Gerry1time (Jun 11, 2007)

Don't reckon, almost certain the building it was on was derelict at the time (has since been done up) and the record shop is next door to it, although they're very similar buildings.


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## chazegee (Jul 3, 2007)

Well it's better than what they've done in Old Street.
One of my Ameican students was so eager to see some real life Banksy, I took him on a tour...
Only to discover they've painted over half of them.
He was gutted.
I felt like an idjut.


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## Sunspots (Jul 3, 2007)

chazegee said:
			
		

> Only to discover they've painted over half of them.



That happened here too.  

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/6444501.stm


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## DaveCinzano (Jun 6, 2014)

JTG said:


> story here
> 
> Recently voted Bristol's favourite alternative landmark in an online BBC poll, the finest work Banksy has ever done or ever will do imvho
> 
> ...


Seven years on (to the day!) - and the incoming gawkers won


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