I`ve got a worried post from a young couple. See below:

We want to warn people about some incidents in the park lately. We have two children, 6 and 10 years old, who often play in the park. Lately the children have been coming home telling us about a strange man in the park, who talks „in a funny way“ to them. He wants to give them sweets and pat them on their heads. Now we don`t let our children play in the park without older children being together with them.

Thursday night when my wife walked home through the park after a girls`s night in town, a man approached her and tried to pull her into the bushes. She barely got away from him, and came home very upset, of course.

We have informed the police, but find it important to let you know so that we can all be aware and report similar incidents.

Thanks.

P.

I thought this article in Telegraph.co.uk about grafitti in Bristol is really interesting. Could we do something similar in our town / park? Street art has come to stay, so why don´t we find a solution as to separating art and vandalism? Will

„Bristol City Council will put to the public vote whether murals which appear on buildings, walls and fences are street art or graffiti.

As part of a formal street art policy, the council’s street clean team will not take action if people decide the graffiti is nice and want to keep it.

The approach was prompted by a Banksy work which shows a naked man hanging out of a window while his lover’s partner looks for him.

When it first appeared on a council-owned building in the city’s Frogmore Lane in 2005 it sparked debate over whether it should be removed.

The council set up an online poll and said that 93% of people wanted to keep it.

Now they are extending the public vote to any other street art that appears across the city.

Although the council has pledged to remove offensive and unsightly graffiti, a street art policy will “seek to define and support the display of Public Art“.

The plan states that “where people tell us that murals or artworks make a positive contribution to the local environment and where the property owner has raised no objection“ the council will not remove the graffiti.

Councillor Gary Hopkins, cabinet member for Environment and Community Safety, said: “We have said informally that if it is street art that people like we will keep it but we want to formalise it now into a policy.

“People want us to keep up the war against the taggers so we have had to work out a way to differentiate between the taggers and the artists.

“Tagging is still removed but if it is art that people say they want to see they can take a photo and upload it on to our consultation website and we will ask people they think.“ „

Is graffiti not art? Check out Banksy: http://www.banksy.co.uk/outdoors/horizontal_1.htm

Bob

Pats has been in the park photographing again, this time grafitti, and I´m proud to tell you that her grafitti pics will be exhibited in ArtQuote Gallery from today until November. Go and see the show! It´s great! Here are some of her photos:

Why do people do is?? The gardener had just fixed it. Brand new, and already covered in grafitti. It’s going to need a paint job already. It’s not enough that they have a grafitti wall, they still have to write on the benches and other places as well.

Photo: baekken

Hint; use the anti-grafitti paint: http://www.antigraffitipaint.co.uk/

I have made a copy of yesterday’s article in the Magazine about unemployment!
Copy here

NOTE IN THE LOCAL NEWSPAPER

Last night there came to fights between teenagers in Green Park. The police confiscated a minor amount of marijuana when arriving at the place. There have been similar incidents earlier this summer, and neighbours say very young people hang out late at night in the park. Many worry about the teenagers getting in contact with the drug addicts in the upper corner of the park, the socalled Needle Hill.

Today I have got something to think about, a problem really. From someone who would not dear to expose themselves I have got a matter of concern regarding the park. They tell me that recently many men have come to the park to sell dope. They obviously are asylants. And when I asked my informants why they knew this, the only said they knew. They are from the same ethnic group as my informants