Street art, with training wheels

As I sat there on the balcony listening to my (grown adult) neighbours from the Bruderschaft singing along to Katy Perry, I got to thinking once again about the many differences between Bonn and my previous stomping ground, Berlin.

Of all the things that I miss the most from Berlin - from the cheeky radio stations to the tattooed mothers with biodegradable strollers - I would have to say that the lack of quality graffiti really is the biggest hole in my life right now. Take a look at the examples below:

Out of town sledge

This has been on the power box at the end of my street since I moved to Bonn. That's over a month! That is just not acceptable. You can't have people come to your turf and graffiti their love for a neighbouring city (and their football club, I presume) and then just let it stand.

If no-one tags over this in the next week, I'm going to have to take matters into my own hands and get the spray cans out.


Too much time on his hands

This really is quite a nice piece. It's colourful, it's got presence - you can see the vandal is at least making an effort. But what is the treble clef for? C'mon man - what were you thinking? That could be the uncoolest thing I have EVER seen.

And how did you think that the copyright symbol in the bottom right hand corner was going to help things? I used to scrawl that sort of thing on my pencil case at primary school. I suspect that this graffiti was done by the shop owner's son.

Pool-time blackout

Normally in Germany, the changing room walls at the local pool offer a good insight into a region's graffiti. In Berlin-Kreuzberg, there are tags in Turkish, in Schöneberg's pools you see "personal ads" of all sorts of shapes and sizes(!).

Bonn's changing rooms seem to be covered with cave-man like attempts at graffiti. It would be different if the walls were shiny and bare. But this is like watching a group of kindergarten kids fill out tax returns. This one definitely caught my eye: what a catchy look!