Kids Having Fun

But still taking phonepics

Street Art

In another car park off Murray St near the Perth CBD

Street Art

Yet another artwork flanked by a car park. This time a Numbat in Fremantle.

I was lucky enough one day back in January to find very few parked cars.

Street Art

Facing a dishevelled car park off Murray St

are these six story high creatures.

 

Street Art

Found in a little laneway off Rokeby Rd in Subiaco.

Street Art

Something new.

As I wander through my metropolis, I keep spotting some amazing artworks on otherwise boringly blank walls.

I don’t mean the pestiferous tags and scribbles of those looking for a night’s false fame.

I look for the bright, colourful and imaginative.

This will be something of a Saturday game for those Perth-based people I reach on social media.

I’ll be giving a suburb or an area or a street. I’ll leave it up to readers to fid the originals and give me a comment when they find it.

To begin, here is a wall I found in Subiaco.

Rolf Harris and Lang Hancock

Perth’s St Georges Terrace has lots of interesting features. Possibly the least noticed are the plaques of prominent West Aussies which are set into the footpath. They were a part of the 150th celebration of the founding of the swan River Colony.

I was walking along the the Terrace other day and I spotted this.

I instantly felt anger at the man who has betrayed all his fans, of whom I was one. I wondered how long this plaque would remain where it is. The Perth City Council has already spoken of removing it. The Rolf Harris plaque in his hoime town of Bassendean has already been stolen.

And now I know he has received a gaol term in excess of five years. One which is almost certainly a life sentence. Yet I am hearing a lot of people complaining that it isn’t severe enough. What would be a suitable sentence? Possibly one of the Texan sentences of 1,000 years? Sorry, folks, at 84, five years is almaost as effective. Once he dies, it doesn’t matter how long his sentence was.

Anyway that is just a personal thing. I agree he needed to be given a custodial sentence. Execution is possibly to strong a sentence but more that a life sentence? Why?

So I walked on. Just a few paces on and two years later I spotted this plaque.

Lang Hancock, mining entreprenuer. Gina’s Dad. Owner and developer of the Wittenoom Blue Asbestos Mine.

You know Blue Asbestos. The mineral which causes mesothelioma, the totally incurable and extremely aggressive cancer. Blue Asbestos which has killed thousands of people and will continue to kill thousands more. When it was proven that Blue Asbestos was a poison, back in the 1930’s, Hancock continued business as usual for decades. When the outcry became too great he did not close the mine down. He sold it!

Yet Lang was never charged with murder. There has never been a move to have his plaque removed. He is still treated as some form of God in the history of Western Australia.

I was struck by the irony. Harris has molested a “few”, almost certainly less that 100 women. None of whom died because of that molestation. Hancock, a murderer,  inserted a poison into the environment which will end up killing 10’s of thousands of people because of that poison.

Harris, the sexual predator, will have his plaque taken away. Hancock, the murderer, will have his plaque remain.