mischief mailart

Money found on the floor 2011

2012-01-02T13:57:00.000Z

Last year me and Elena found a grand total of £31.17 on the floor in cash. This is down nearly £7 on last year. Must be the recession taking hold. We're off to spend it on our first dinner out of 2012

How I became an accidental sexist

2011-08-12T14:43:00.005Z

At work I'm taking part in this big international exercise event called The Global Corporate Challenge. Basically the idea of this is to get people out and about and doing exercise in teams. We're all given a pedometer and we tot up our daily step count and we register our daily cycle miles on the site too.

At the start of the challenge, we got together in groups. As I was away on honeymoon at the time, I was teamed up with a group of 5 people I'd not met from across the university, which was fine by me and we agreed on the team name "Desperate Disparates" to show that we were a rag tag bunch of chancers.

I was really looking forward to getting started, and at the beginning of the challenge, the team leader sent an email around with our first team challenge, hoping to get us bonding.

"So," he said, "Who wants to try and make a logo for our team?"

Being the creative type, I decided this would be a good idea for me to have a go, and I figured that I'd get the first one out and let the others catch me up. So I started by doing a quick search for "Silhouette walker" and found an image of a silhouette of a woman walking a dog. I found the dog a little dull, so I looked for a monkey instead, cut the monkey out and put it on the end of a lead. A few tweaks later and I had the final creation ready to go, which I sent out to the whole team.

About half an hour later, I got an email back from one of the (female) participants, which was a reply to all that said something like

"I think this is an awful logo. Not to mention it's sexist"

I was aghast. I knew it wasn't the best work I'd done, but a reply to all email accusing me of being sexist?! I looked closely at the logo a few times trying to work out what I'd done wrong. I asked my colleagues at work and nobody could see anything wrong with it.

I then asked someone else, a black girl, who saw nothing at all wrong with it. When I mentioned that it had offended someone she scratched her chin and said "Oh yes! I see. It could be racist if you think about it. That woman is walking a monkey, which could be said to show white superiority over blacks!"

D'oh! What a minefield!

Anyway, I decided to let this blow over, and have never met the group I'm meant to be walking with, choosing instead to walk with my wonderful wife, who knows full well I'm neither racist nor sexist.

Then, this weekend, I was watching BBC iPlayer, and noticed a documentary about the Impressionist painters in France, which piqued my curiosity. The documentary talked about Georges Seurat, who painted scenes using lots of dots of colour. This technique of using points of colour was called "pointilism" and the commentator spoke about some of his best works, Bathers at Asnieres and Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

Immediately when they showed this picture, I was drawn to the woman with the parasol. She looked almost identical to my silhouette right down to having a monkey on a lead!

Apparently this latter piece, Seurat's most famous, was also a social commentary. According to Webexhibits

The Grande Jatte makes use of symbols. A monkey in French (and female) is known as “singesse,” denoting a prostitute. The smartly dressed woman is fishing — but for what? Then, as now, spectators have questioned Seurat’s meaning.

This agreed to what the narrator on the BBC had to say. Apparently "singesse" was a well known French slang term for prostitute in the 19th century! The woman with the monkey on the lead was, by extension, a prostitute! So there we have it. Apparently my piece, by some freak accident, was indeed as sexist as you can get!

*sigh* How was I to know I had a French art historian in the group...

My first go with FIMO clay!

2011-08-12T11:54:00.001Z

Me and Elena went to a Polymer clay meetup yesterday and I made this necklace.

We beaded the whole thing then went and made leaves from Fimo polymer clay.

This was my first ever Fimo clay creation and I'm really proud of it!

Elena makes the Liverpool papers

2011-07-25T10:13:00.002Z

After this weekends carnival in Liverpool, I done my customary search for pictures online.

A few years ago I made it into the Liverpool papers so I figured I should take a look there as well as on flickr.

To my huge surprise, I saw not me, but Elena, my wife on the site instead!

Incoming!

2011-02-11T00:16:00.000Z

Loads and loads of mailart incoming at the moment

Here's only a small selection...

24 by Okami

Zentangle by Laura Podob

Trophy wife by Nhigh

61 by Mim4art

"Little Big Stories" - A mailart call for Westminster libraries

2011-02-04T11:31:00.001Z

Little Big Stories - Graphic Narrative on a small scale"

Can you tell a story in words and pictures and fit it on a postcard? If so we want to see your stories!

As part of the graphic novel season at Westminster libraries, Westminster libraries and my REAL wall are holding a mailart show at Pimlico library, where we want to display postcard sized stories from YOU!

All of your "Little Big Stories" will go on display in Pimlico library in London for 2 weeks.

Full details can be found at The Westminster Libraries Blog. The deadline is March 11, 2011 and to submit work, just send your pieces to

Graphic Novel Mail Art Show
Westminster Libraries
c/o my REAL wall
PO Box 63138
LONDON
W14 4BR
United Kingdom

All pictures of the show and build up will be on my REAL wall

44/365 - Think HAPPY thoughts #1

2011-01-31T00:26:00.001Z

On the train home tonight I picked up a copy of London's Evening Standard and felt the need to take a pair of scissors and cut out all the headlines just to see what they looked like laid on top of each other.

Up til now I'd not yet made 2 pieces at once, but i'm 10 days or so behind in my own project so I wanted to make one piece I could pass off as 2, so I wanted to start by pasting all the newspaper headlines on a large card and cutting it in half.

Short of this I had no other ideas.

However, when I got home and started cutting, I couldn't help but read the headlines, and after a while I started to get a little depressed. All the larger type headlines were all totally grim or negative, with smaller title headings reserved for happier stories it seemed. It was as if the editor had hand picked the disasters and made them more important and news-worthy.

By the end of cutting out all the headlines I was thoroughly down and decided that the challenge of this piece was to make something beautiful from the monotone gloom that had jumped out of these pages, using only the raw material that the Evening Standard provided.

Luckily I like travelling and this cartoon air hostess was nice and colourful and the thought of 3 nights in Budapest cheered me up.

Think HAPPY thoughts editors, think HAPPY thoughts for goodness sakes!

43 - More happy thoughts

2011-01-31T00:25:00.001Z

So what else can get us over the doom and gloom of everyday news?

Why drink of course!

Cheers!

++Update++

Wondering who to send this to, I decided it made most sense to send this to the editor of the Evening standard. No point us talking about how depressing the news is and not taking affirmative action I say!

I found the address in print on the letters page and was just about to write it out, when I thought "Chuh! Where's the fun in that?!"

Cue digging out the Evening standard and creating a "Ransom Note"

I've added my REAL name and phone number on the off chance they might want to publish it, but I suspect that I'm more likely to get a visit from the police.

I'll keep you posted...

42/365 - Lost children

2011-01-25T11:17:00.001Z

Today me and Elena went out and bought a shape cutter, so I wanted to try it out and make a frame

Today's simple card is made from a very old photo I found in a box in Camden town last year framed in a piece of craft paper with old writing.

The words are from an Aerosmith tune. Paula sampled Aerosmith earlier, and with the historical theme, this could only be destined for her postbox!

Paula, the other side of this card is mildly collaged with pages you've sent, so the surprise isn't totally spoilt by posting here!

41/365 - Gothic owl envelope

2011-01-25T11:16:00.001Z

This is a bit of a 2 in one, as I'm a week behind, but I made the envelope for "In the Treetops" this morning and thought it was good enough to merit it's own number.

Here's to you Okadascat!

40/365 - In the treetops

2011-01-24T10:29:00.001Z

This little gem I made entirely from scraps of paper I've been collecting. I cut the face out from a newspaper this week, then sat down with it tonight and the rest of the piece just fell in place. Brown paper bag, purple card wrap and green card embossed in green glitter for the leaves.

This is going to one of my favourite artists in the whole world, Okadascat

39 - Andy Lau says Pimp my photos

2011-01-23T23:07:00.000Z

Rani recently left a request for some photos to pimp, so enclosed herein are some photos I have printed out and find no use for, winging their way over to Minneapolis for that Rani pimpin!

38/365 - Under the arch at Canterbury Cathedral

2011-01-23T03:03:00.001Z

I have used this tracing paper stencil of my friends under the front door arch at Canterbury cathedral in earlier pieces.

I didn't want to use the stencil again and wanted to incorporate it into a piece, so I glued it to a postcard with some interesting background.

The background was too dark so you couldn't see the shapes of the stencil, so I decided to go over it in Tippex. The effect was quite pleasing, but I must remember that Tippex isn't a fine medium!

37/365 - Polar bears

2011-01-23T03:01:00.001Z

Another miracle of natural design, the polar bear, this gigantic beast can somehow disguise itself against it's background and sneak up on its prey. Imagine having this thing sneak up on you, you'd feel like a bit of a fool right!

36/365 - Homophobia-phobia

2011-01-18T16:04:00.001Z

I have a little fear that has niggled at me for a while.

When people are accused of being racist, they usually hold up their hands and say "I can't be racist, I have LOADS of black friends!" in their defence.

I have plenty of black friends too, and therefore using this logic I can't possibly be racist. However, I do have no Jewish or gay friends and therefore I fear that people perceive me to be bigoted, anti-semitic and a homphobe. If asked I would point out that I have a few lesbian friends, but I get the impression this will only count against me.

I have been thinking of going to Bar Mitzvahs and gay clubs and approaching people. You can imagine the scene.

"Hello sir, are you gay?"

"Yes of course, this is the Pink Rainbow club and I'm wearing tight leather trousers"

"Great. Will you be my friend?"

This sexy little number (36) is going (obviously) to Frank Warren at Postsecret.

On a purely technical note, I was well pleased that the only word that managed to come out readable was the word "straight" I didn't notice this until I'd finished. Talk about serendity huh!

35/365 - Twins

2011-01-18T13:18:00.001Z

I want to try and economise on the amount of work taht goes into a piece by duplicating motifs where possible (although the repeating motif in piece 27 actually took ages to do)

I used tracing paper as usual on this one, but wanted to have Elena sitting on the beach with a twin sister (hey I gotta have my fantasies right...?)

Specifically I wanted them to look identical but not quite, so I retraced the hand in the reflection before scoring it for the final piece

34/365 - Monkey family

2011-01-18T13:17:00.001Z

Quick pencil sketch of some monkeys from September of the 2010 nature calendar on the wall at Elena's parents house.

Eyes are damn hard to do

33/365 - Communist Exhumation scandal

2011-01-17T10:26:00.001Z

While I was in Romania, the tabloid press were going wild over the exhumation of former crazy dictator Nicolae Ceausescu (told you they have too many vowels in Romanian didn't I Postmuse?)

Apparently, rumours have been flying around that his body was not buried, but perhaps taken out and chewed apart by dogs or somesuch, so his son took the metaphorical spade out and held a little family reunion.

When they popped the graves open, apparently Nicolae was still in pretty good shape, with his hair and everything looking like he was a regular Head and Shoulders user, but his wife Elena was not much more than a set of gold teeth.

DNA evidence apparently proved that they were indeed both dead.

32/365 - Who's eyeing who?

2011-01-16T23:39:00.001Z

Not one to let the tracing paper outline to go waste, I thought I'd mix and match today with some fineline pen action using the traced outline from piece 30 over some collaged maps and newspapers from Brasov.

The lady in the photo was apparently some really famous Romanian lady from Elenas youth and she was spotted in a Mongolian dress around town recently apparently.

Probably the nicest thing about this piece is the eye in the top right hand corner. As me and Elena sat making mailart, Elenas mum came in with this tiny little eye and said "I found this on the floor shortly after you left last time. I assume it's yours, although I haven't the faintest idea what it does. Here, take it back, you may be able to make use of it!"

And I did so straight away

31 - Don't show mum the saints

2011-01-16T23:36:00.001Z

"While in Romania, try and pick up some Romanian stuff and incorporate it into your mailart", I thought. Some little trinkets of cultural and geographical significance would be a good start, so I rooted through for things that I think of as Romanian, as an outsider, when I come to the country.

Obviously I had to put in a bit of map and a bit of newspaper, celebrating the New Year (Revelion), then I thought I'd cut out an Orthodox saint.

In the God-fearing family home this is apparently not a good thing to do I am told, and this piece was one that we didn't proudly display at the end of our trip to the folks. Heck I do still want to get married to her in March as planned!

Found on the floor 2010

2011-01-11T22:55:00.001Z

Me and Elena have a policy of picking up everything on the floor we can make use of, including absolutely any money at all, no matter how small.

At the start of 2010 we decided to keep track of all the money we found and tot it up at the end of the year. Whenever the change got a little unmanageable we swapped it for a larger denomination, but didn't spend or add a penny. Here's the total for 2010

£36.71

Not bad huh! We found a £5 note at the bus stop and a £10 note left in a cash machine and another £10 on a shop shelf but the rest was all in pennies and these little lucky finds.

I always picked up money when I saw it, but we actually look for it these days. It's amazing what you find when you are keeping your eyes open for small change on the floor. If you look for pennies, you'll be surprised how many 20s and pounds you'll see.

Today was recycling day in Kew and Elena, not being one to see good cardstock and collage images going to waste picked up a whole bunch of Christmas cards due for the tip. This should be fun to create with!

Farstarr_Jan2010

2011-01-10T22:49:00.001Z

Ria_Jan2010_2

2011-01-10T22:48:00.001Z

MissiveMaven_Jan2010

2011-01-10T22:47:00.003Z

www.missivemaven.blogspot.com

Ria_Jan2010_1

2011-01-10T22:47:00.001Z

DosankoDebbie_Jan2010

2011-01-10T22:46:00.001Z

Received : Rachel Freeman

2011-01-08T01:38:00.001Z

I never know how she makes these beautiful pieces, but they are a textural delight

Received : Rachel Freeman Envelope

2011-01-08T01:37:00.003Z

Took us ages to get the flippin customs mailing label off to see the awesome artwork below. Lino-cut perhaps?

Received: Joy from Piccadilly Post

2011-01-08T01:37:00.001Z

This was a REAL surprise, from REAL mail lover Picadilly Post, who I've not heard about until this. What a great piece, made on a piece of really perfect cardboard.

30 -Pondering mini-Andy

2011-01-06T00:20:00.003Z

3 years ago, my miniature papier mache twin went on a little trip to Egypt, where a kindly boat captain took him on a little personal tour of his island in the Nile.

I printed some of the photos taken of this adventure and sent them back to Egypt, but kept a few for myself.

This one shows a curious Nubian outline giving mini-Andy a talk about Nubian culture

29/365 - St Aldates Church reimagined

2011-01-06T00:20:00.001Z

Continuing my labels and reality series, I have started to try to experiment with the idea of introducing something that's not actually underneath the label on the label.

In this case, I begun with a photo of St Aldates church in Oxford that I had left over from my twitter #mailart series.

I wanted to get rid of the car and the trees on either side, so decided to go freehand with this rather than trace it. The trees on either side went, and I was left with a lot of space which I decided to go to town with and let my creative beast out the box!

The end result was significantly different from the original. The difference really came through in the colour. I was pretty nervous colouring at first, but Elena recently bought some great Derwent colouring pencils, that are a joy to use. Quality pencils make all the difference I tell you! I'm so used to using rubbish that I got used to feeling that colouring was a chore, but these things are great. Never again will I buy the cheapest colours in the shop "cos you get loads more for your money"!

The flower patterns were adapted from our patterns book, which is called something like "The crafters bible: floral designs" which is a tome of simple but effective outline designs for crafting

28/365 - In honour of Elefantus

2011-01-06T00:19:00.001Z

I made this piece from a photos of Elena posting some early postcrossing cards that I took early on in our relationship, when she was still watching me make post and wondering what it was all about.

Her arm just lent itself to an elephants trunk, so I had to complete the picture.

The idea was to send this to a great fun Italian mailartist who has been around for many years, Ennio Pauluzzi otherwise known as Elefantus. Many of you may know him for his postcards of elephants in various media, shapes and sizes. They'll always make you smile.

Sadly, when I got home, I found that Elefantus passed away in November 2010. My condolences go out to his family and although I never knew him personally, I feel sad that I'll never see another of his pieces in the mailbox again. A sad loss to the mailart world.

27 - Covent garden through window

2011-01-06T00:18:00.001Z

I took a whole bunch of photos away with us on holiday this Christmas for pimping. We also went away with a book of patterns and tracing paper in the travelling mailart kit.

I decided to start easy and just work with a repeating motif as I've never done this before.

I had in mind Paulas Geometric Panda, but as Morrisey mentioned earlier today, sometimes you don't get what you had in mind. Cool effect anyway so that makes it into the 365.

Dewi 16/365 - Windy Corner Toronto

2011-01-05T12:03:00.000Z

Dewis stuff looks so great when you inspect it closely. This is the third piece that's come to my REAL wall HQ from Toronto

2011-01-05T11:54:00.000Z

I received this one from Satu Kaikkonen
They look interesting.

14-365 Daffodility

2011-01-05T11:00:00.000Z

I received this yesterday from JJalltheway.
It's really nice made. I like the way she made it look like sky and hills and the guy on his antique bike completes the image. It made my day.

Received from Postmuse 16/365 - Fast Food confessions

2011-01-04T23:49:00.001Z

In response to my confession that I actually like McDonalds, Postmuse tells us that in truth she rather liked it herself back in the days when she ate meat over 30 years ago

26 - Bull in Alpine Landscape

2011-01-04T23:48:00.001Z

One of the things I want to do in 2011 is learn to draw, so I thought I'd get a head start on this little resolution on Christmas day. I borrowed a book called "Pencil Sketching" By Thomas Wang and have chewed up the first chapter. It looks like there's way more to this drawing thing than I thought!

Among the little things I learnt in the intro and first chapter was that there are (sorry if I sound like a total noob - I am one) different types of pencils with different properties. I knew this already, but didn't really put it together that a hard pencil is less versatile and that a soft pencil gives you different grades of shading. I guess I had to see it to really get it.

I also skipped a few chapters and found that the author uses shading to seperate hills and increase the feeling of depth in a landscape, another tihng I'd never really grasped by just looking.

I decided to dive right in and found a picture in a magazine that seemed totally out of place of a bull in the mountains. I've never really tackled landscape before, but thought this seemed a fairly simple one to start with.

This is done on a standard postcard, using B lead on a Faber Castell mechanical pencil.

Overall I'm really pleased with the effect, but there is one bit I can't work out. The little mountain on the right is actually recessed in the photo, but in my drawing it just looks weird. Any ideas?

25 - Puzzle portrait

2011-01-04T23:47:00.003Z

Building on the label theme and with my newfound love of the pencil and tracing paper as an artform, I decided to trace Elena and use the main lines of her face and hair to make a new piece.

24 - The fallen one

2011-01-04T23:47:00.001Z

As I cut out the pieces of The Chosen One, I realised that I had a load of shapes that I just couldn't throw away. I decided to make the negative of that piece and colour them in the opposite colours to make the opposing piece and chose a dark photo as a background

Some of the pieces were custom cut as they were not all preserved in the cutting process

Rani #5/365 - Bones

2011-01-04T22:38:00.000Z

This piece, a 365 piece from Rani arrived today

There is a very strange story behind this. I imagine that this may have been inspired by Ruff Day or perhaps the other way round, but when I opened this piece (I love a bit of drama in mailart - thanks Rani!) I gasped because it felt like Rani had delved into my mind and pulled out a long forgotten incident from my childhood.

As a kid, I used to love buying practical jokes from a mail order company called Joke shop by post who used to advertise in the back of the Beano. You know the sort of thing, stink bombs, whoopee cushions that sort of thing.

One day, when I was about 10, I bought a pair of x-ray spex, which were exactly like this. They are basically a piece of card across a plastic frame with some strange red thread aross a small portion of the eyes.

So one night, I'm invited to a friends house for a sleepover. I took the x-ray specs with me, cynical as you like about their effectiveness.

All night we were messing about as 10 year olds do, and I put the specs on to see if they worked. Obviously I just saw a bunch of red in front of my eyes and nothing else.

Then, at about midnight (obviously my memory makes it midnight for effect) I held my hand up in front of the TV with the specs on and lo and behold for a fraction of a second I saw all the bones in my hand just like on this postcard! I jumped out of my skin!

I tried and tried to recreate this and swore blind that I saw the bones. I can still see them now in my minds eye. None of my friends believed me and to this day I wouldn't be able to convince anyone.

As I grew older, I became a physics teacher and learned about Roentgens discovery of the xray, which was quite by accident. He was using omething called a Cathode Ray tube, which is the thing that used to power old TVs (he lived before TVs)

Cathode Rays as they were known, are electrons produced by a hot wire. Electrons are negatively charged, so if you put electrons in an electric field they will be attracted to the positive side, so you can quite easily accelerate the electrons.

Now here's the thing. When you speed up cathode rays/electrons they gain energy and when cathode rays are abruptly stopped, i.e. when they collide with something, that energy has to go somewhere. In some cases, they produce x-rays as a byproduct of slowing down.

To this day, I'm still a little scared of walking too close to those fat TVs, and I'm convinced I saw the bones in my hand through some bizarre x-ray detector that may have been built by a joke shop.

I saw what I saw and no-one can tell me different

23 - The chosen one

2010-12-31T19:21:00.001Z

A while back Keira Pannell suggested I try to expand my sticker technique to do something with lines.

I have to be honest, I wasn't quite sure what she meant, but I started this piece on the 23rd with the intention of cutting lines away from the sticker. The intention was purely to cut out Elenas outline then have radiating lines. However, I got a little carried away and decided to add wings to her with outline and also use the bridge in the background.

I finished this piece on Christmas day, stuffed to the eyeballs with duck, Elena now in possession of a pair of wings and everything.

I'm not sure if I quite done what Keira was suggesting, but I don't mind. It worked out alright.

A quick note to Mark Zuckerberg

2010-12-24T19:16:00.000Z

As many of you are aware I, like many other facebook quitters have returned to The Social Network. The reach is too far and the uses too many. Also, being an e-learning advisor by trade it doesn't make sense for me not to know what's going on on the most widely used social network in the world.

As you know, my REAL wall came about as a result of me closing my facebook account then basing a postal social network on the experience of facebook. After nearly 2 years, I've made loads of friends through my REAL wall and write and receives loads of letters. I've been in newspapers and magazines in various capacities and have discovered that I'm an artist. Heck I've even given lectures in mailart to art teachers and started mailart365!

Never one to take all the credit for myself, I decided on Thursday to write to Mark Zuckerberg, chief of facebook and Time magazine's man of the year 2010 and thank him. I give credit where it's due. Obviously, I did try and get a cheeky postcard out of him for my REAL wall as well. Here's what I wrote.

Hi Mark

Just wanted to drop you a quick message to say thanks for providing the inpiration for my little project at www.myREALwall.com.

The project started nearly 2 years ago, when I got fed up of virtual interactions, and decided to close my facebook account. I said to all my friends that instead of posting on my virtual/facebook wall I would prefer to see REAL post on my REAL wall, and hence the idea was born.

Since it’s launch, I’ve received post from all over the world and made loads of friends. I even started creating mailart and now run classes and shows in making and sending mailart (I’m a teacher)

In short, quitting facebook changed my life and I wanted to thank you personally for making the system as it is a great tool for connecting people and the design and concept made me think about relationships with people and what they mean to me.

I’ve now re-opened my account on facebook, but my REAL wall is still going strong! Why not drop by and if you’re in the mood, I’d love a postcard from you!

Cheers

Andy Hoang

I haven't heard anything from him yet. It would be damn amazing to get a REAL post on my REAL wall from Mark though right?

21 - Freedom

2010-12-21T00:55:00.002Z

21 - Freedom, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Ever since the awesome Thai mailartist Ubon sent us this gem, I've wanted to send her a return piece of mailart based on the same photoshoot, but have never felt confident that I'd made a piece quite worthy of her watercolour skill. I think I may finally have overcome that one.

One of the original photos on which that piece was based was taken at Blenheim Palace in Oxford, and this photo was taken on the same day. I used a tracing paper stencil to cut out the outline then wanted to repeat that pose a few times to emphasise the feeling of freedom and happiness expressed by Elena

20 - Migration

2010-12-20T23:30:00.001Z

Thought I'd keep it simple today. The postcrossing description said "wants animal or homemade", and the card is going to Russia.

Postcard ID: GB-191315

Alex and Rose

2010-12-20T23:27:00.001Z

Not part of my 365, just fancied making another piece from the Alex template I had already made, this time trying to put a different flower in front of her. Didn't quite work this time. In my opinion, it didn't work because the rose was too complex with the leaves at an angle and it was impossible using my present cutting technique to get this quite right. As you could see that there was no person underneath it made the rose a little meaningless. Whereas the original was a trace of the actual person and the fit was just right, here the overlay didn't quite work out.

In addition I felt, after I stuck the labels down, that I should have cut the shape out instead of sticking the whole label down.

The connection in this case is Spanish. Alex is a fluent Spanish speaker and the photo was taken in the Rosario in Madrid.

As I'm not happy with the overall effect I won't include it in my 365

19 - mail mischief

2010-12-20T22:15:00.001Z

I've been particularly enjoying the debates that have sprung up about mailart on the site and on surrounding sites lately., such as this short post by Crisispanty.

As I have stated before, I believe that art is when someone uses their skill to actively add value to something, so I thought I'd put up a little mail mischief.

The idea of this piece was to show that value had already been added to a piece before it was sent.

In summer, I brought this postcard with me along on a paragliding trip, and stuck it up on a barbed wire fence, with the intention of sending the piece out with 2 holes in it, showing it had been loved.

I sent one similar piece off and it delighted the postcrosser who received it, so I was going to put this card up just as it was. That would have started debate, and I would have held the position that not adding anything to the piece other than 2 holes from a barbed wire fence was art enough.

As it turned out, I couldn't bring myself to do it. The card still needed something else. So half an hour later, here's the completed piece, something that I feel is worthy of mailart 365.

Does that invalidate my idea of art as added value? Does art really have to constitute something hugely visually appealing?

This piece is going to a mailartist called Cross Ryu, who is a breathtakingly good artist. We have 2 artworks up of this Korean gem and both me and Elena count Cross as one of our favourite artists. Sadly Cross hasn't been heard from for nearly a year. I hope to wake Cross out of his/her mail-artistic slumber, as the mailart world is missing a great talent if Cross isn't buying stamps

18 - Mailartists do it...

2010-12-20T22:14:00.001Z

I'm pretty sure this is a problem reserved only for mailartists. When my friends and colleagues find out that I send lots and lots of post, I got offered all the postcards that they had picked up over the years "and never got around to sending"

The reasons people have postcards and not send them I'm sure are plentiful, but often I get postcards that people have not sent for the simple reason that they are shite.

These 2 cards fall into that category. I bet Glenn was just pleased to not have these embarrassments littering his house any more.

The original postcard was a line of condoms hanging from a washing line, with days of the week and the cheerful and frankly nauseatingly poor humoured "Having a great week in London"

Why the hell did he ever buy such tat I have to wonder. Everyone to their own I guess.

I decided to do a little censoring of that particularly tasteless gag but wanted to keep a bit of tongue in cheek humour there, hence this piece. Decided to add 2 for today as I wanted these embarrassing cards out of my collection as quickly as possible.

Received from Lady L

2010-12-19T21:06:00.001Z

Not numbered and not a part of mailart 365 it would appear. I love the fact that people are still making non-mailart 365 pieces as well!

17 - Ruff Day

2010-12-19T21:05:00.001Z

I was giving the drawing another go and thought I'd try to take on the human form again. I decided to build it up from the structure, hence the skeleton. Once I laid down the skeleton, I felt the whole piece needed a little something more, so I added the bone, as if it had fallen out of the skeleton, and the other rubber stamps just fell into place.

16 - Memories

2010-12-19T21:04:00.001Z

I took this photo about 4 years ago of Cata, a girl whose family I lived with in Romania while I taught there.

Whenever I see pictures of her these days on the internet, it always comes as a surprise how different she looks to what I remember.

I felt that this outline technique suited this expression of memory really well. These days I wonder if what I remember Cata looking like ever really was what she looked like. Memory is a strange thing

This is the first piece I want to announce where it's going. I know Camel isn't going to like this, and Elena already disapproves of my choice, but I am sending this to a prisoner in the US.

I found this site a while back and never did bother to write to one. I felt that prisoners didn't deserve my hard earned stamps and artwork, so put it on the backburner.

However, Me, Elena and L-Plate Big Cheese went to visit the excellent "Art by offenders" show in the Southbank centre, which is a show run by the Koestler foundation and some of the artworks were truly outstanding. Not only this, but the concept of art as rehabilitation for offenders was clearly outlined and I warmed to the idea. Art is a great way to explore your emotions and express what's inside with the hope of being understood. So the idea of connecting through mailart with prisoners resonated. After all, is mailart not about connecting to others through art?

I've been the victim of crime a number of times. Recently I was mugged, punched in the face and the guy was caught. He went to prison for about 6 months. I know he is likely to come back on the streets and reoffend as he's a junkie and has no escape from that.

The prisoner I have chosen has displayed his artwork on this site and I hope that through art and through connecting in mailart with the outside world, I may play a part in his rehabilitation.

15/365 - The beauty of thistles

2010-12-16T11:15:00.001Z

After yesterdays questionable gap fiasco, I couldn't stop thinking about this technique all day.

Coming home, I looked through my photos and decided to make one based around a long stemmed thistle. The idea was to make use of the split between labels, which meant that the labels had to be angled, so this time I chose to leave the labels intact.

You won't be able to see it unless you receive the card, but the sticker to the left was corrected. I initially wanted to sketch in the trees in the background, but decided against it. The nice thing about using address labels to build up the effect is that I only had to stick another label on top of my mistake and voila - Good as new!

14 - Outlines

2010-12-15T23:48:00.001Z

Inspired by Keira Pannells recent outline pictures. I wanted to have the same effect, so I used tracing paper and some sticky address labels.

I tried to leave the label spacing to retain the scale, but perhaps should have closed the gap.

13/365 - Usagi Attacks!

2010-12-15T23:45:00.001Z

A piece I started before December 1st, I finally got around to inking this piece. Inspired by Stan Sakai's Usagi Yuojimbo, about a masterless rabbit samurai a comic I absolutely adore. I've been working on a few Usagi pieces and I was pretty pleased with the dynamism of this piece.

As it is only one of the first 10 pieces I've ever drawn, I think things will get better, and can't wait to learn to draw my own creations. This piece is going to Dosanko Debbie, a mailartist in Japan

17 happy inboxes

2010-12-13T09:07:00.003Z

This weekend Elena and I have been hyperproductive. Up til now I have been so busy making mailart and other things that I've developed a pile of unsent post needing addresses. We finally got around to addressing them and affixing postage, so that's 18 pieces going out today. Why only 17 happy mailboxes? Cos one of you lucky people is getting 2 of these!

12 - Not autumn not spring

2010-12-13T01:36:00.001Z

I really miss the warmth of summer and spring seems an awful long way away too, so I wanted a bit of both in this.

This is the first time I've tried watercolour pencils and couldn't really figure out how to get colours to merge with each other. After sampling this, I've decided to go and take art classes in January, so you may start seeing some drawing out of me in the new year

#11 - So you like stamps huh

2010-12-12T14:24:00.002Z

There's a little story behind this one. I got an email the other day from someone called JJ, saying that she wanted to swap postcards with me. Assuming that it was our JJ, I put the request in my "postcards to send" folder in gmail and thought nothing more of it, assuming that I'd get to her pretty soon. I sent our JJ a postcard earlier this week (yes you've got one on the way JJ) and took the request out of my send queue.

Today, I got another email from JJ in the gmail, saying "Have you sent anything yet?" and I thought "Man this JJ is really demanding isn't she..."

I looked again and realised that the JJ in my email is actually a totally different person called JJ, who lives in the US and not in Australia.

I usually hate being hassled for mail, but this time JJ got lucky and the coincidence made me laugh enough to put something together for her. She said she liked unusual stamps, so I dug a few up and stuck them on a postcard for her, thus making this a truly mail-centric bit of art. I reckon this has to count as mailart right Fi?

#10 -The inner circle

2010-12-10T01:15:00.001Z

I got a surprise email today from one of my ex-students. I haven't taught in a school for nearly 3 years but I taught this student Chemistry, which is not my specialist subject (physics) but I tried as hard as I could.

If there's one thing to say about the way I teach, it's unconventional, and I pissed off most my managers but always won the students affection for trying to make them THINK about what they were studying rather than just go through the books and pass exams. I got fired from loads of places and to be honest I am rather proud of that. I was fired for making students think.

So I left rather bitter about the profession, but I wonder why I the feeling of teaching has a special place in my heart.

I wanted to make a piece that sums up how I feel about the profession and I think I may just have hit the right notes.

8_365 - Imagine

2010-12-09T00:45:00.001Z

I wanted to make a piece in honour of John Lennon today. It's been 30 years to the day when he was murdered. I was born in the year that he died, and do feel sad that I shared the Earth with this talented man for such a short time.

When I was young I never grew up with music, but my oldest brother brought home a Beatles album one day and that was all I listened to for years.

The drawing was inspired by the cover to Imagine and the images came from a postcard from a recent exhibition on Beatles photography. In the background you may also notice that the Thames disappears quite abruptly around Embankment. This was a collage of a very limited edition experiment by the Tube to remove the Thames from the underground map ;last year, which met with public outcry. The Thames has now been restored

7_365 - miniAndy does Horseguards parade

2010-12-08T23:54:00.001Z

Definitely not by best piece so far. I wanted to recycle some old tourist postcards, some of the ones that are really so bad that I have no idea how they ever came into print. I found this one, a truly poor example of photography, probably from the late 70s.

What particularly makes me smile about the original postcard is that is looks just like a tourist snapshot, poorly composed with a couple of chubby tourists and has some random unknown photographer credited, as if it came straight from the family album.

Anyway the idea of this piece was merely to express my joy at the idea of an imminent return of the one and only mini-Andy, who is currently visiting Okadascat in North Yorkshire. I occasionally just drop him in cards for fun. If you want o do the same while you wait for his return, why not check out the awesome Dress me up app on the adventures of mini-Andy

And if you want to book an adventure of your own when he comes back, you'd better get in the queue...

6_365 - Tezuka at the drawing board

2010-12-08T23:53:00.001Z

Tonight I made two pieces, but #5 is still drying so I didn't want to put it in the scanner, hence the order will be a little off.

I pencilled this piece from an Osamu Tezuka comic that I was reading on the train a few months ago. I am a HUGE fan of Osamu Tezuka, who the Japanese call the God of manga. Very few people know him in the west sadly, despite the fact that he wrote Kimba the Lion. "What's Kimba the White Lion?" I hear you ask. Well Kimba the white lion is often cited as the inspiration for Walt Disneys Lion King.

In addition, Osamu Tezuka wrote Astroboy and the wonderful Black Jack series from which this image was inspired.

The image shows Osamu Tezuka himself, who would often draw himself into his comics. In this scene he's been arrested but his editor won't let him rest, hence he's drawing his next piece while in custody.

The piece will be sent to one of the schools who sent me a mailart call. I, like the rest of you, probably get way too many posts to answer to, and these days I get a great many schools sending me mailart to put on my REAL wall, and I do feel it rude not to reply. However, whenever a school asks for mailart, I figure that they probably want mailart from more people than me, so I have posted my school mailart calls up on a site which I hope will encourage schools to swap amongst themselves. Check out the site at schoolswaps.tumblr.com/ and feel free to add your own ones there.

4/365 - An inbox explosion

2010-12-06T12:24:00.003Z

4/365 - An inbox explosion, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

I'm not sure about everyone else, but since the project started less than a week ago, my inbox has gone wild! Like Postmuse, I don't like to miss anything and I have set all notifications to on.

Obviously this means that I get emails all day long, which I love, but it does also mean I am so distracted with what everyone else is making and talking about that the mailart is falling behind!

So here it is, a day late, #4/365, a homage to your lot for putting me right off! ;-)

#3/365 : Ballet dancer weave

2010-12-06T12:24:00.000Z

If you've seen my mailart in the past, you'll probably know I'm rather obsessed with using this particular picture.

I've made a few things with this, including a Halfcard and my recent submission for a mailart call in Norway.

This time I decided to play around with the pics by merging the two together in a weave.

This piece of mailart also held an extra surprise for me. On the back of the postcard and the photo there was a red butterfly stamped on. Shortly after me and Elena first met, we went shopping for rubber stamps. Elena bought this butterfly then got really carried away and stamped everything she could get her hands on.

While making this piece I only looked at the front, then when I awoke from my creative haze and looked at the back of the card, I realised that the butterfly was weaved in too. I hadn't even noticed it before!

Mailart 365 - 2/365

2010-12-06T12:23:00.000Z

Earlier, Camel mentioned that he was posting to Test Tower (The wonderful Heebeejeebee postbox is a favourite of mine too Camel) and JJ mentioned that she wished for some local postpals Down Under.

I decided to make this piece for someone very close to me.

Since starting this project, I've been utterly obsessed with creating mailart. Many of you have chatted to me at 2 in the morning, while my beautiful fiance slept.

I made this little piece for her because I wanted Elena to know that I haven't forgotten about her. While I'm up here making mailart and she's asleep downstairs, I miss her like crazy, and so this piece of work is hers. I don't intend to post it because I've written a message for her on the back and none of you guys get to see it!

Is it cheating not to post it in a box? I'm sure that nobody will hold this one against me...

Mailart365 - Day 1

2010-12-03T12:15:00.001Z

Thought I'd knock together a quick collage of all the day 1 submissions for mailart 365!

Michalis Kotsaris

2010-12-02T22:46:00.001Z

I can only say...

Wow.

This is an incredible piece from Michalis

RealWall2.0

2010-12-02T22:43:00.001Z

Received from Camelorama today

1 - Knight at sunset

2010-12-01T02:36:00.001Z

I have been toying with the idea of doing a theme for a while. The first theme I wanted to do was "Heroes and Villains" so I looked through the comics and found this awesomeBill Sienkiewicz piece froman early Sienkiewicz/Miller Daredevil story.

I had another idea that I wanted to reply to mailart calls in the first month, so decided to answer the "Where are all the Chinese Mailartists?" call.

I also wanted to think about using collage to a large extent and using some of my underused mailart resources like the embossing tool.

In the end, I couldn't decide which theme to go for so I done them all in this card.

Mailart that rocked my world - Heleen Protest Post

2010-11-25T17:50:00.003Z

Next in the series of mailartists that rocked my world - Heleen

Heleen is a dutch mailartist who has a style that instantly made me smile. When she makes mailart, her drawing and line style is very deliberate but playful.

This piece is so simple to look at but the size of the piece (it's larger than normal, about 8x6 in) but the effect always stands out when I look at the wall.

Here is an artist that draws too. Check out her pimped photo for pimp my photos.

The artwork was great, depicting her and her partner taking tea with us on a bench, but what made this work for me was how easy she made it look. Her assured lines and soft colours made the whole thing look not easy but achievable. She has an artistic style that inspired me to put pen to paper and that is how Heleen's mailart rocked my world

Mailartists that rocked my world part 1 - Cross Ryu

2010-11-25T00:26:00.001Z

How did a physics teaching, techie guy become an artist in 2 years? I wanted to present a few pieces of mailart from my collection that had a profound impact on me and turned me into the mailart junkie I am today. The first in the series of mailart that rocked my world, this one comes from Korean mailartist Cross Ryu.

The first time I saw this artists work on IUOMA, I gasped and got in contact. Unfortunately Cross doesn't send often, but I consider myself to be very lucky to own 2 pieces by this magnificent Indian Ink(?) artist.

The first piece I got was the girl in the bottle and to this day I have no idea how this was done. The detail is magnificent, the sense of scale conjured up in a 6x4 piece is really incredible. Even today, I still look at this piece with utter enthralled admiration. I really do not have enough superlatives for this piece.

Elena prefers the girl under the tree. I admit that this was slightly smudged by me, as I took it out on a trip and it rained and boy do I feel bad about that. Each piece has seared into into my brain.

These are the pieces that first made me realise that truly great artists exist in mailart alongside us mere mortals.

Dosanko Debbie - Lets sit and talk a while

2010-11-24T23:59:00.001Z

Dosanko Debbie is a prolific mailartist who works as a translotor in Japan. She does etigami, which I understand to be a fluid mix of poetry and image and recently picked up a prize for it. Keep an eye on her, as she is a brilliant person to send to and receive from!

I would LOVE to be able to read Japanese as I bet her Japanese etigami is amazing

Louise T

2010-11-24T23:56:00.001Z

This is a homage to Terry Pratchett from one of my oldest friends, who seems to have lately become a mailartist after following my streams. That's pretty cool to know

Pimp my photos by Dodo in Belgium

2010-11-24T23:50:00.002Z

Wow! This is the most drastic pimping yet! I sent a batch of cards to Dodo and when they came back I didn't actually twig that these were the cards I had sent out untiln I looked VERY closely at the collage.

Not only were the photos integrated, but Dodo has actually taken the envelope apart and reconstructed it into his collage too. Qhat an effect!

This was the front of the original envelope

Elenas first artworks

2010-11-24T18:24:00.002Z

I'm so proud of Elena - she's never thought to do art and only recently took up drawing. She's also taking part in mailart365. Here's one of the first things she has ever drawn.

She sent it to her favourite mailartist, the amazing Ubon, who I rate very highly indeed, and got a happy reply.

Read the comments on this on her flickr site (just click the pic it will take you there) - it warms my heart

British Gas saga continues - Pathetic compensation offer

2010-10-25T15:52:00.001Z

After having taken countless hours off to talk to them, they finally got the meter changed on 20th October, 2 months and 5 days after they pulled the meter out.

Fed up of being the victim, I have asked them what they intend to do about compensation, and they told me that British Gas don't compensate for days taken off work. I've taken at least 3 days off work to wait for them to come and spent countless hours on the phone, none of which would have happened if they had connected my gas properly in the first place, yet they think that this is an acceptable policy.

I also told them that they needed to compensate me for the plumber that I called to look at the boiler when they pulled the plug on our gas without telling us, which is another expense we would not have needed to shell out had they done their job properly.

They have offered to pay the £80 for the plumber and offered us £20 in compensation in addition to the £20 they gave us before. That's £40 compensation and £80 which we have already spent due to them. They then add that up and say that they are compensating us £120, which I find a little misleading.

So £40 compensation for leaving us without gas for MORE THAN TWO MONTHS. Is this acceptable? I don't think it is either, and have refused this. They are now going to escalate my complaint and I will not accept a settlement less than I have lost. They seem to think that taking days off work is something that isn't a loss on my part, and by not offering compensation they have not taken responsibility for their poor customer service.

I will post up all the details here. The custeomer service advisor has said that his boss will call me back tomorrow

Petition to @Britishgas

2010-10-13T16:23:00.004Z

This is my copied text from my official petition complaint on Groubal. Read the original and sign the petition >>here<<

Summary

On August 15th, 2010 British Gas sent an engineer to my house while I was out and changed my Gas meter from a credit meter to a Pay as you go meter.

This was done without my knowledge and without me being present. Now, on October 13th they have still not returned my credit meter, despite calling them 2-3 times a week.

Gas meter removal without my knowledge

The story starts in December 2009. When I bought my property, I moved in and called British Gas to fix me up with Gas. As I live in a flat, British Gas were unable to work out which flat was mine and which gas meter was connected to it. We moved on and they sorted out my electricity. They asked me to go and find out which gas meter was mine, but as I live ina block of flats it was incredibly difficult to locate with any accuracy which one it was. They had no idea and refused to send someone over. I called them a number of times and asked them why they couldn't just bill me on the bill that they had billed the last person on who had lived in the flat. They had no answer for me (I later found out it was because they hadn't known it for that person either) and insisted I go and get the serial number. I couldn't do this.

no help at all.

The problem arises because I live in a house which was converted into flats. The numbering of the flats is a little illogical, I am flat R, meaning rear flat on the first floor, due to the first floor being split in two. British Gas had me down as being flat 2. There is no flat called flat 2 in the building.

In August they came over and presented a warrant for the removal of my gas meter. To the neighbours. I wasn't in, they knocked on my neighbours door (as they couldn't figure out which one was mine, despite me telling them repeatedly in December) and they told them that they were going to remove their gas meter. My neighbours were terrified and called the Police. When the police called British Gas to ask if they had sent someone over they said they had no record of doing so!

They proceeded to remove the meter and leave. When I got home I turned on the shower and it was cold so we thought the boiler had broken. Called out a plumber which cost £80, and he told us the gas wasn't on.

Unhelpful support staff refuse to take payment and change my meter

then the saga begins. I called British Gas to ask what had happened and they said I owed them over £800!!! I had only lived in the house for 8 months and it's a tiny studio flat. They also said we needed to pay them for the warrant they had taken out. We had never seen the warrant as it was sent to flat 2. Where nobody lives.

I explained that we had tried repeatedly and in vain to tell them we had moved in in December. They blamed the whole thing on us, saying that we should have got our serial number, and I explained that we couldn't do that, as there were so many meters in the basement and that I had specifically asked them to do this. They continued to blame us and refused to sort out the situation or admit that they had got the wrong flat number.

I called again the following week and went through to someone who worked out that the source of the problem was actually that the company get their addresses from a national database. This database didn't have my address on it. It was quite comical when he read out the addresses attached to my building

"So can you confirm. Do you live in The basement flat?"

"No"

"Do you live in flat 1?"

"No"

"Do you live in flat 2?"

"No"

"do you live in flat 6?"

"No"

"Do you live in flat 12?"

"Erm no. There isn't even 12 flats in the block! And what happened to numbers 3-5? You have me in as living in flat 5 for electricity!?! " (I'm also with them for electricity so you'd think that would make it easier right? Wrong.)

"Oh well sir those are the only numbers we have on our database"

"Well I think we can see where the problem is"

So they changed our address (which took a few weeks) and finally now could work out where to send the bill.

This wasn't over yet though as we still needed to get the meter changed back.

We spoke to someone on the phone who seemed hellbent on making our life difficult. She told us that we owed £266 since we moved in. I said I was very keen to pay it, as I had always been since we moved in. I had no intention of dodging the bill, hence why I called them and asked them to move us in in the first place. I was at the time £145 IN CREDIT with them for my electricity.

So I said, fine, how do I pay. The customer service agent told me that in order to pay the bill, I had to firstly send a message to the meter. I had NO idea what she meant, and tried to get the explanation out of her. Surely, with the balance in front of her face she could take my payment right? Apparently not, as common sense seemed lost on British Gas.

In order to pay my bill, I had to firstly top up my meter. Not once, not twice, but THREE times. With £1.

I had no idea why I would have to do this, as I was happy to pay the whole £266 in one go, but I wasn't allowed to do this.

So I went along with it. This was about 6 weeks after I had initially had my meter taken out. We were still living with this unwanted meter. I had offered to pay the bill countless times by this time and was at my wits end.

A week later, after having filled the meter up with £1 three times as instructed, the customer service rep called again and asked me to go to the meter and press some buttons. I done this.

"Sorry but the message is still not through to your meter. You'll have to top up again," she said. "But as you've already topped up today you will have to wait until tomorrow to do it again"

I lost it at this point and said "For goodness sakes, you have the bill in front of your face. Why the hell can I not just PAY YOU?!" She had no logical answer. i had now been trying to pay British Gas for their services for over 9 months, actually at points begging them to take my money. But no. I had to put another pound in my meter. It was yet another humiliation, which I frankly did not deserve.

I lodge an official compaint

I lodged an official conplaint at this time and finally got someone with some sense call me up, Or so I thought. He said that the previous people had told me all the wrong information and that he could actually simply take my payment and replace my meter. Which is what I had asked them to do 6 weeks prior.

He took my payment over the phone then we proceeded to work on the meter change.

They ofer pathetic compensation

By this time I had already taken numerous days off and paid for a plumber to come over. The total cost of this whole debacle was probably about £500, not to mention the inconvenience of not having a meter and the stress.

Someone responded to my complaint and offered me £20 compensation for "mobile phone bills incurred ringing their customer services"

TWENTY POUNDS! I have been without a usable gas meter for two months. This is like spitting in my face.

Engineer says it's too dangerous to change my meter

So onto the gas meter change. It's now been 2 weeks since they said they would do this. I've waited and waited and it just hasn't happened.

The meter is downstairs in a basement that adjoins a neighbours property. The neighbour is doing some building work at the moment so his builders have a lot of rubble outside the house. I work 9-5 and then do things after work so I don't keep an eye on the rubble pile.

To top up the meter, I have to climb over a locked fence with a 15ft drop on the other side, then sometimes I have to climb over this rubble, which includes nails, glass and wood and some days I can't get to it at all.

British Gas sent around an engineer last Saturday. He took one look at the pile of rubble and said it was too dangerous to climb over it and left.

I had to reschedule, and I emailed the builders to ask them to move the rubble. They couldn't make it,. so when the engineer came over today he took one more look at it, wrote us a note to the effect of "I can't get in there it is a health and safety hazard" and left.

I now cannot even top up my gas, and my girlfriend has to take another day off work (she took today off so they could let us down again) tomorrow for which we will no doubt not be compensated.

It's the 13th of October. We have no outstanding fines with British Gas and we are in fact paying them too much for our electricity. We have been without a usable gas supply for nearly 2 months.

Please add your name to the petition or tweet @britishgas to complain on my behalf (my twitter handle is @andytgeezer)

Make them aware that what they are doing is wrong and please please don't let them get away with this

British Gas meter change saga day 60

2010-10-13T09:29:00.002Z

Dear British Gas

Here's the latest picture of the basement where the gas meter is located. I took it this morning. As you can see, there is no way I can safely get into the basement to fill my meter up and I strongly doubt that the engineer will even look twice at this before leaving. As you can see, I've tried to contact the builders but have had no response. (I emailed them and copied you in yesterday)

I now cannot even top up my gas safely and I imagine that British Gas will do nothing about this until I move the rubble or arrange to have it moved.

I would like to remind you, I have now paid off my debt to you in full and have now been without a satisfactory supply for just under 2 months. On Friday it will have been 2 months since you ripped our meter out without telling us, and in that time we have called you or spoken to your company 2 or 3 times a week to try and rectify this situation.

I would like it put on record that I am absolutely unsatisfied with the level of service I have received up until now, and as a paying customer of your gas and electricity I regret putting my trust in British Gas as a supplier and am looking to put that mistake right as soon as possible.

I already know that you will respond with something along the lines of "Sorry if there's that much rubble in your basement we can't do anything about it" but I believe that this is a really lame excuse. If you had even a shred of a conscience over the trouble you have caused you would move Heaven and Earth to get to that meter. After all, it was easy enough for you to rip it out while I wasn't around, I don't see why you don't just send some builders round to move the rubble yourself and get the meter put back in.

Even on a purely economical basis, in the last 2 months since I have been with a pay as you go meter I have only put in £10 of credit, mainly on account that I can't reach my meter. If you had been taking a direct debit you would have received £60 in that time. In addition to that, this fiasco has lost you a number of customers and a lot of face as I have now started to blog every customer service blunder that you make.

2 months. That is one sixth of the year you have left me, a paying customer begging you to supply me with gas. Supplying people with gas is your core business. If you can't even do that properly how can you possibly call yourselves professionals?

I trust that your engineer will still be there between 1-5 today as promised, as my girlfriend has taken yet another day off to facilitate this. I imagine that will be another wasted day and imagine that British Gas will refuse to compensate us for this too. None of this surprises us now as we are used to your incompetence now, but do bear in mind that this is now a matter of public interest as there are a great many people following how you handle this case. In addition I have now started to compile my case to take to OFGEM and Trading standards.

Yours

Andrew Hoang

Rain on the train

2010-08-31T10:26:00.001Z

I was on the tube the other day and it started raining. Over the tannoy, the driver made an announcement using a classic bit of British understatement.

"Ladies and gentlemen" he began, "do be careful when exiting the train as it is raining outside and there's a bit of a breeze blowing"

When the tube stopped at West Acton station, the doors opened and there was almost a hurricane, which blew so hard that it soaked most of our legs all the way to the middle of the carriage!

A light breeze indeed!

My appearance in the Liverpool Daily Post

2010-07-27T08:27:00.002Z

That's me at Brouhaha Liverpool 2010 in the Liverpool Daily post and the original post

mini-Andy interviewed

2010-05-26T22:56:00.001Z

I recently received a flickr mail from a toy making company in the US called Happy Worker, who custom design toys for companies. They had stumbled across mini-Andy on flickr and asked me a few pretty probing questions about our favourite miniature Hero.

I believe they will be writing a blog post about it soon, though I'm not exactly sure when it will come out. Here's a sneak preview of the questions and my responses on behalf of the little guy.

#1. People seem to like to take pictures in different settings, what I would like to know is why do you do it? What’s your motivation, what prompts you to photograph this little toy critter in your photos?

A1 - The idea for mini-Andy was initially educational as I was a teacher in a high school in Spain. The idea for mini-Andy came from a birthday present my students made for me, which was basically a miniature version of me. Flattered, I thought it would be nice to give something back to them, so I decided to take the joke a little further and sent them off with the toy that they had made whenever they went on holiday or visited famous people.

So initially, mini-Andy was like a class mascot, a little character that the students could relate to, to stimulate class discussion and bridge the student-teacher divide. As I'm quite an unorthodox teacher, the students thought it was quite cool and we would sit and create stories together featuring the character. I'd sometimes use him to explain complex scientific phenomena and my students would bring him away to meet people they knew

This was quite cool, cos it meant that using an intermediary we could explain to each other things that were important to us, without someof the boundaries that inhibit pupil-teacher communication.

#2. Taking pictures of toys is a big deal these days and there are a whole bunch of flickr groups dedicated to ‘non-gnome travellers’ and ‘toy travellers’. Why do you think this is? What do you think motivates other people to take pictures of their own toy?

A2 - I think that social networks, digital photography and the internet have played a huge part in the explosion of interest in travelling toys. With so many people on facebook gloating about where they have been, I think that people have become kind of sick of seeing their friends in exotic locations with smarmy smiles on their faces, and people have perhaps become sick of taking those photos too. I guess there's a bit of embarrassment about having travelled to all those place in some cases, not so much "embarrasment" but a conscious pang that you shouldn't be so smug.

Travelling toys however - that's a different matter! If a toy appears in 10 countries in a year on a blog instead of a human that's a little more socially acceptable. The toy develops a personality that people connect to and sees things that we as humans may not, because everything is BIG and ALIEN to the toy.

Because mini-Andy is so small, you can get away with foreshortening camera tricks and taking photos of things that would otherwise be quite inane and dull, because next to mini-Andy they look big and exciting! For example, I would never have taken a pic of myself next to these objects - They just wouldn't have made for interesting photos. But when mini-Andy stands next to them he brings a sense of scale and other-wordliness to the whole thing.

#3. Some people consider their toys to be muses, companions, or even stand-ins for loved ones not around at the time. What do you think the relationship is between people and their toys, and how do you think this affects the many photographs of toys? What do you think your relationship with your toy is or what do you consider it to be?

A3 - mini-Andy is perhaps a mouthpiece or additional personality. If you read the Batman comics you may be aware of a villain called Scarface/Ventriloquist. The character of the ventriloquist and his psychotic wooden dummy is intriguing. Initially, you suspect that the psychotic ventriloquist character is living out his sick fantasies of being a gangster through the dummy, but many of the writers of Ventriloquist/Scarface play on the idea that actually the wooden dummy, carved from a gallows is actually the one in control.

mini-Andy, although less sinister, is a similar dichotomy. When I write mini-Andy adventures on my blog I always write in a very specific way (as Scarface the doll speaks in his own voice) and the kids relate to the stories (as do my friends who have taken him away on trips too)

Then, when it comes to their turn to take mini-Andy away on trips, they too write in the same style. It's not like I ask them too, but people have read the style and imitate. Or perhaps it's mini-Andy really writing through them...

Who knows

So in many ways, the toy dictates the agenda over time, establishing his own personality. This personality has, at least for me, been strengthened by the group of writers, children and adult that I have had writing on the blog.

#4. Of course every place has a different meaning for everyone, but does taking a toy in that place make it any more meaningful? Does it give it a unique flair because it feels like a more personalized experience? Also, what about the toy – does it gain meaning from this as well, being able to house many memories and experiences in such a small object?

mini-Andy is made of papier- mache and is VERY brittle. The act of taking him to a place and keeping him in one piece is in itself a huge commitment and it was only the dedicated students who took him, knowing that. Whenever I've taken mini-Andy to a place and spent ages trying to prop him up on his crazy uneven legs it's always put my mind into sharp focus.

Just as when I first got a camera, my eyes began to see the world differently (i.e. I began to frame things in my mind and consider that perhaps the world was made of pretty pictures waiting to be taken), when I take mini-Andy out, my mind sees stories waiting to be told of high adventure and miniature underdog heroes.

The stories that are waiting to be told merely need the characters to play the part and mini-Andy fits the role.

I guess that having a miniature version of me around lets me see the world twice, once through my eyes and once through the eyes of a miniature Swashbuckling hero made of papier mache.

In the Sahara again

2010-04-21T08:43:00.002Z

Just dug up another clip of me in the background of this news report.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhwE7XHvFU4&NR=1

On the TV again

2010-02-26T13:54:00.001Z

Blimey! I'm on the TV again - this time in the Sahara desert working on an electronic postcard workshop with the Saharawi refugees of the Dhakla camp.

Check it out!

Missing the Buzz - what Google could have done

2010-02-11T13:09:00.001Z

So Gmail now incorporates Buzz, which to all intents and purposes looks like a watered down version of twitter/facebook with picasa and youtube links replacing twitpic and twitvid and I stated in the last post that I don't wish to have anything to do with this monstrosity.

Regular readers of this blog, and those of you who follow <a href="http://myrealwall.blogspot.com">my REAL wall</a> know what I think of crass status updates on facebook. For those of you who don't, my opinion of facebook status updates is that they are a nice thing to gossip about. And that's it. I believe facebook status updates have little intellectual value outside of self-promotion and marketing.

Recently Google have become obsessed with chasing this vaucous market oh tweets and status updates at the expense of real content and this ultimately has led to Buzz, which is a show of just how badly out of their depth they really are.

Google has always been about indexing content on the web. They are great at it and with their acquisition of Blogger from Pyralabs just over 10 years ago they moved into the business of providing a platform to create that content too.

Numerous acquisitions followed that blazed a trail for the company, showing that they were commited to content creation and sharing of knowledge and resources, such as picasa and youtube, which were both great acquisitions. They missed out on flickr of course.

With the media hyping up facebook and twitter, Google should have realised that the content creation tools had already been made in the area of microblogging and they should have chosen to catlogue that, but I think with the launch of Buzz they have signalled that content indexing is not enough for them. But their product is hugely flawed, years behind the competition and just unpalatable in so many ways, that it's unlikely in my opinion that takeup will justify the investment. Social networks are already cemented and google may just have to face that.

I think even hardened Google fans (I myself am one) will find todays rollout of Google Buzz disappointing. Really, you should ask yourselves, would this product, which is essentially a bit of a crap aggregator and oh-so-2007-Twitter/facebook clone have stood a chance of getting media coverage, let alone users if it had not been tagged on to the gmail interface? I think not.

So Google appear to be stuck in this mindset that they want a piece of the social pie and nothing we can say will change that. So how about considering what they could have done instead of release this patronising clone.

Firstly I feel that Google had already reinvented the wheel of social networking a few months ago with google wave. Although I didn't see it then, within the realm of the new social direction the company seems to want to take it makes perfect sense.

Google should have chosen to integrate wave-like features instead of wheeling out the same old "status update" rubbish that we've seen on twitter, facebook and ning among other places in thelast few years. The consumer is drowning in status updates, which contain little real meaty information in depth.

Why wave though? On Twitter and facebook there is no-one I particularly want to create content with. I don't actually KNOW most of them in real life. However, my gmail contacts include my closest friends, my work colleagues and my family. These include people I would happily write a blog post with, or share (privately) work information through the email.

The gmail environment would be far better suited to being a workspace and collaborative area online for the creation of deep content, than to being a social area for discussing what my dog dug up last night.

To use a REAL wall analogy, my gmail space is my creative office space, a place for thinking and creating. Twitter and facebook are the pub where soundbites are an acceptable form of communication. By using the gmail interface to send status updates sends out the wrong message and panders to the lowest common demoninator. google need to pull this back and focus on the creation of much deeper content through sharing, rather than the piecemeal offerings of many, so that Buzz can rise above facebook on it's own terms, that of collaborative content generation, rather than individual posturing.

And ultimately, google would own all this deep content. Although it may not be an easy short term solution and will not immediately grab those status updatin' facebookers, google need to aim higher rather than directly at the opposition if they hope to hit the target.

(Andy Hoang is an e-learning advisor at Roehampton University - any opinions on this blog are his own and in no way reflect those of his employer)

Google Buzz off

2010-02-11T11:03:00.031Z

Today I opened up my Gmail account to see a message from Google asking me if I wanted to activate Buzz, their new "social" service in my gmail inbox. I knew about this from the reports on mashable but thought that it was all a bad dream.

In my opinion, Google Buzz will turn out to be a bad dream for Google in the long term and here's why I think that. As a long time fan of gmail, I have always put my trust in Google to look after my information, and to keep my contacts a closely guarded secret. Alright, there were some suspicions that Google was not too sure of how private I liked my email, such as the linked advertising and google chat's seemingly random addition of contacts into the main list.

All of these little privacy invasions though could be forgiven in the past because the service of gmail was so far superior to any other email provider out there and they were only passively invasive into my personal space. And that's what email should be. PERSONAL space.

But now, with Buzz, gmail is actively looking to make our content public. I and many other gmail adopters didn't sign up for a public system to share our content with many people. We signed up for a private and personal system to manage our contacts and communicate personally without having to look over our shoulder at who might be watching.

There are many examples of where the contents of my inbox may be damaging if it fell into the wrong hands, and I still trust that google won't divulge this. However, by suggesting that people add me to their Buzz contacts and make it easy to connect with what was essentially my private profile they open us up to all sorts of intrusive opportunity.

But more so than other networks? I share all over the place, so why make such a big fuss about this? Because this is my INBOX we're talking about. It's a whole private ecosystem that I created purely for me. I don't even let Elena look at it.

On the web, we create contacts and personas under different guises, most of which filter back to our inboxes anyway. When I comment on postal stuff I may comment as Andytgeezer or as my REAL wall or as mini-Andy but the comment would usually be attributed to that persona and can be taken in context. I still take responsibility but in a persona that suits the topic.

By linking my public opinions with my private ecosystem, i.e. by making comments attributable to my inbox directly, I hold these views that I express as an individual, as a person who can be shot down. The person then becomes the centre of the discussion as opposed to the opinion.

This is a very bad thing indeed.

No longer can I be the e-learning expert or the postcard fanatic when the need requires, but instead I have to wear all caps at once and be held personally accountable.

Using a REAL wall analogy, by delivering messages straight to my gmail inbox, Buzz effectively takes the opinions of people and delivers them to my door, whereas before I would choose to go and pick them up in the places I wanted them. Imagine if people were to come over and knock on your door to hold you to account for something you said down the pub. That's the sort of fear it brings in me.

So, I've deactivated Buzz straight away. I have no intention of sharing any of my life online, except in the forums I choose and as the persona I want. It's not that I'm not accountable, but I want to choose when to be accountable. And I didn't sign up to gmail to share, I signed up to be bloody selfish and control what I want you to see.

So Buzz off Google. You're not for me

The beginning

2010-02-09T10:13:00.000Z

For those of you who follow my other blogs, you'll already know this news.

Last Thursday I proposed to my girlfriend Elena and she accepted!

Not bad for my 1000th post here...

It's Thing-a-day February!

2010-02-01T00:36:00.000Z

Apparently, February is a big month for postal craft and creative types and this month I got invited by Sunnysidey, one of my postal contacts I have made since starting my REAL wall, to take part in something called The Unofficial Thing-a-day 2010.

The thing-a-day is a month long project undertaken by creative types every February for the last 5 years. The idea is simple. For half an hour a day every day of February you just have to do something creative and blog about it. Couldn't be easier right!

The original Thing a day is this year taking place on Posterous and people are invited to post up their blogs there on that platform. For that project I've decided that during the month of February, I'd like to make sure that my REAL wall has a new wall every single day for February. For the sake of the project I'll post these up on the posterous site at http://myrealwall.posterous.com, but obviously these will also go up on the normal my REAL wall site too

With this and mini-Andy's resurrection for the Unofficial Thing of the Day, looks like February is going to be a long month!

Woah - 2 bookings already for mini-Andy 2.0! (in half an hour)

2010-01-29T01:09:00.000Z

The internet is a truly wonderful thing. After announcing the new, improved mini-Andy project, featuring postal interaction, I have already had 2 bookings, from Perth and Florida!

Want mini-Andy 2.0? GET IN THE QUEUE!

mini-Andy 2.0 - Take part by post

2010-01-29T00:56:00.001Z

The main challenge of February's mini-Andy comeback is to make sure that the little guy is a tad bit more robust. mini-Andy 2.0 will be open to all to participate in as he should be able to fit in the post!

So if you want to hang out with the mini-Hero, leave a comment somewhere on this site or on his site

Check out Day 1 on mini-Andy's road to recovery at http://unofficialtad2010.wordpress.com/2010/01/29/mini-andy_day_1/

February's project - The UNOFFICAL-THING-A-DAY 2010 - mini-Andy returns!

2010-01-29T00:26:00.000Z

I was invited to take part in 2010's Unofficial Thing a day and decided that this would be an awesome reason to take up an art project that would challenge me. I decided to take the opportunity to repair mini-Andy and so by the end of February, mini-Andy will be relaunched with new skin and new ideas - stay tuned for mini-Andy 2.0. I'll write it up at http://unofficialtad2010.wordpress.com/ with selected stuff reprinted right here.

mini-Andy - The comeback : Day 1

2010-01-28T23:49:00.001Z

I was digging around in a box earlier tonight for something and came across a very sad sight. Everyone's favourite miniature Hero was looking a little dejected and out of sorts.

I have to confess now that since returning from Algeria, mini-Andy has not been quite himself and his recovery has waited while maxi-Andy went out and lived it up with postcards and that sort of thing.

Disgraceful.

So today the comeback begins for 2010.

Keep watching this space for more mini-Andy adventures!

Sunday Times 1 - Front Page Header Crop - me and Elena in top left

2010-01-20T17:27:00.002Z

Here it is folks! Me and Elena made the front page of the money section of the Sunday Times money section! On page 4, we are featured in a larger spread.

On Friday, I got a call from my mortgage advisor telling me that the Sunday Times had been in touch with him. They wanted to interview a young couple who had recently taken out a mortgage, and so he thought of me and Elena, and gave me a call.

The paper arranged for a photographer to be around in an hour and interviewed me on the phone as to why I chose the mortgage I did and next thing you know, me and Elena were on the front page of the Sunday Times money section!

I could hardly believe my eyes on Sunday, when I picked up the paper and saw our thumbnail on the front page in the top left hand corner, the very first thing you see when you turn to the money pages, and all my friends have remarked how little sense it makes that I, who care not a jot about the stuff, should be there looking like some money guru! As Jason says "...it just doesn't compute"

Amusingly, the paper reported my name as Anthony Hoang, the second time that my name has been spelt wrong in the papers. And yes everyone I know has ripped the piss out me for that already, so feel free to add yours below...

For REAL wall fans, me and Elena tried our very hardest to get your mail in.

The picture on the front page, which is also featured on the online version of the story was taken with the official REAL wall as the white background. The photographer was looking for a white background and said "Could you take those postcards down and we'll take the picture over there"

D'oh!

Inside the paper, on page 4 me and Elena are pictured on the stairs. After clearing the place up a little, Elena slyly draped Okadascat's knitted banner across the top of a table in front of us, and I set up a postcard from Richard Canard at our feet on the staircase.

Desperately we tried to maneuvre ourselves so that the photographer would take a pic of a postcard, but to no avail. Shucks. Maybe next time.

Yippee! I win a postcard!

2010-01-19T17:48:00.000Z

Just been getting through some blogs as part of a swap-bot event and came across this one from Rhodyart. Based in Rhode Island (which is apparently not a part of New York), she has this rather cunning blogging knack of putting a song title in the occasional post title. If you can guess the song title, you win a postcard, and obviously I'm always on the hunt for postcards, so here's my stab at the title for this one.

The title of the blog post is "Good Morning Mr Rain" and I tried hard to rack my brains for the solution. Finally, good old Mr G came through and out popped....The Bee Gees!

So another day into 2010 and I've now appeared in a national newspaper and won my first competition (I hope). Whatever next!

Me and Elena appear in the Sunday Times

2010-01-17T12:23:00.001Z

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/property_and_mortgages/article6990719.ece

Buy a copy today! Further write-up when I get to a computer (I.e. when I'm not freezing in Greenwich park on my phone)

my REAL wall vs Hammersmith and City council - final chapter

2009-12-11T16:10:00.000Z

I just got a call from the editor of Westside Magazine, who featured my REAL wall this month. It seems that Hammersmith and Fulham council read the article in the magazine and have decided to set the record straight. They send me a quote from the council's communications officer

It became apparent that this was a hobby and not a business, so the matter was dropped and Mr Hoang was not fined a penny

and asked for my quote back by the end of the day, to which I wrote the following, which I doubt will be published in all it's glory. Let's wait and see what happens.

I and the readers of my REAL wall are so relieved that the council have backed down over this without unnecessary fines and it's such a relief to know that it only took a 50ft sign over Tower Bridge, blu-tacced protest postcards on the door of the Town Hall and a sustained blog campaign to get them to do so. my REAL wall will continue to showcase the most innovative mailart in London and I'm looking forward to including a postcard from the council on my REAL wall soon.

Watch this space for more and thanks again to everyone who sent in protest post!

Westside Magazine December 2009

2009-12-11T16:04:00.001Z

This months press coverage is in a local magazine called Westside

The write-up is on page 10, under a headline about the local library running out of books.

I have to confess I don't particularly like this write-up. I wrote a full write-up of the incident and they've pretty much left out the facts and written up a pretty poor, humourless article. There's no mention of my REAL wall, the headline screams that the council have actually levied the fine, which they haven't and the picture is a generic pic not one that I sent. I'm most miffed that your protest mail hasn't made it into print anywhere too, which is a real shame.

Oh well, any publicity is better than nothing I guess, and I've finally got some time to get your protest post to the council this weekend, so watch this space.

my REAL wall in the news again! Shepherds Bush W12

2009-11-23T13:23:00.001Z

my REAL wall vs Hammersmith and Fulham ~~bullies~~ council has hit the news again, this time on local news website www.shepherdsbushW12.com, who have made the story top story on their site ahead of Mariah Carey!

Quote of the weekend

2009-11-03T17:12:00.001Z

Quote of the weekend came from Khiem who said about the council

"I think I might just call them and tell them to write you a public apology to save themselves a world of pain"

I think he might be on to something there...

Nokia viral for my REAL wall

2009-11-01T19:50:00.001Z

Here's what we saw when we turned up at Tower Bridge for the filming of the next Nokia advert yesterday.

A 50ft screen shaped like an arrow was hanging from a crane advertising Nokia maps.

I was scheduled to have the message

"Thanks to all the people who have sent post to my REAL wall. The council will never get us!"

The filming started later than expected and the light was not great by the time the shooting started, and the message had been edited so that by the time it went out it lost a lot, so consider this an insider gag to fans of my REAL wall.

The final message read

"To all the postcard senders"

"From around the world" (We missed that one - the message wasn't up very long and I was busy being filmed)

"You are all fantastic!"

"The council will never stop us!"

"by Andy Hoang"

I was a little miffed that the words "my REAL wall" were unceremoniously dropped (it was too late to do much about it at the time) and the filming took place so late with such poor light I don't hold much hope of it being screened, but I will be sending the pics to some local papers to make sure that the pen-pushing jobsworth who sent me the demand letter gets it shoved up him...

Text message request - I am going to be in a TV advert for Nokia!

2009-10-29T13:44:00.001Z

Readers I need your help ASAP!

Yesterday I saw an advert which read

"Have a special announcement to make? We will make your message spectacular. Service is free of charge, first come first served"

I thought about it for about 2 seconds and picked up the phone. Having a chat with the boss of a large advertising company I talked them through my recent my REAL wall/council windup and said that the announcement I would like to make would be something like

"Sending postcards is not a crime - leave us post fans alone Hammersmith council!"

The guy liked the sound of it and has booked me in to film on Saturday.

The idea is that they are putting up a 50ft billboard somewhere in London to display this message.

I need to send them an appropriate message by the end of today, and thought I would open this one out to my readership.

So, what should the billboard say? Think my REAL wall. Think council. Think text message/twitter length wit.

And hurry up about it!

Mailart call - Pester my council!

2009-10-27T23:32:00.007Z

Hey my REAL wall fans I have an urgent mailart/postcard petition call that I need a quick response for, and I need your help!

As many of you know, recently I received a very strange demand letter from the local council, who seem to think that my REAL wall is a business, and have demanded that I send them some paperwork proving that I get my waste disposed of properly, or face a potential £5000 fine!

On the advice of Postmuse and with the support of my REAL fans, I decided not to bother to answer them straight away, but decided instead to send the story on to my local paper, the Hammersmith and Kensington Times, who sent around a photographer and put the story on page 3 of the print edition and headline on their website.

Another local magazine, Westside magazine caught a sniff of this story and sent me an email to send them more details and I got in touch with them. They emailed today to say that, instead of running it as the same story that HKtimes ran with, they wanted to print a ‘what’s happened since’ story in the news page of the December edition, and they asked me if I paid the fine.

Of course I haven't paid the fine, I have no intention of doing so as I've done nothing wrong, but I've been planning to send the council an intricate mailart postcard as they have demanded that I send them "paperwork related to the business" and the "business" I run produces large amounts of pretty paper and cool postcards, so I thought it was the most appropriate thing.

When I told the editor that this was my intention, she was delighted

"Send the intricate postcard to us please and I’ll use it as an image for the December issue!"

Sounds like a mailart call to me if I ever heard one!

So the call is this. Write the coolest, funniest prettiest piece of mailart or send a postcard of support to my REAL wall at the usual address to arrive by November 15th (please allow time for the postal strikes, so post early please), and I will put together a package for the council and send it on to them, via Westside Magazine, who will print your mailart as my official letter to the council.

Nothing horrible please, this isn't a nasty one, it's a friendly jab showing the ridiculousness of their demand, so please don't get mad, let's just get even! Grrrr!

Hopefully we'll wind em up a bit and they'll fine me or something.

The address for those of you who don't know it by heart is...

Andy Hoang
Manager
my REAL wall
PO Box 63138
LONDON
W14 4BR
UK

If you need to see the letters and paperwork, they are on my flickr site, here, here and here

Feel free to use these in whatever way you want, use whatever medium you like.