http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-29446232
Clacton council have self-elected themselves for this year’s Darwin Awards by destroying Banksy’s latest mural so fast that it was gone before Banksy managed to get it up on his website:
Before:
After:
Close-up:
Clacton are possibly a touch sensitive as the local MP has resigned from the Conservative party & joined UKIP; the area is now awaiting a by-election. The local council said that last Tuesday 30 September 2014 they had received a complaint that the mural was “offensive” and “racist”. Officials from the council viewed the mural & agreed with the complainant (“it could be seen as offensive”). The mural was immediately destroyed.
Previous Banksy murals have been sold for several hundreds of thousands of pounds each.
Contacted by the BBC, Nigel Brown, communications manager for the council, said:
We would obviously welcome an appropriate Banksy original on any of our seafronts and would be delighted if he returned in the future.
(love that word ‘appropriate’)
PS
Re: Darwin Awards:
Strictly, these are awarded to those who die in some spectacularly stupid way:
Named in honour of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, the Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it.
Here is a recent nomination:-
http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2014-03.html
The first death was that of a driver whose job was to empty the septic tank into a slurry tank attached to a tractor; he succumbed to highly toxic hydrogen sulphide fumes and lost consciousness, falling into the pool. Following him were six people, each going to the rescue of those who had gone before, and each in turn falling unconscious into the muck and drowning. Fully 5% of the population of Karczówka was lost in this serial misadventure. An eighth person found in the muck did survive, thanks to the assistance of emergency workers.
The incident occurred on a hog farm and probably involved large amounts of sewage from the pigs, although details are not clear in news reports.
Gather ye rosebuds while you may,
Old Time is still a-flying,
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.
-Robert Herrick
--------- Alex Kemp