As we near July 4th – the day of The Great Unlocking – there are sprouting on walls and any other available vertical surface in Soho, homilies? exhortations? aphorisms? I’m not sure what to call them. It seems that locked down people have an urge to give public advice – mostly fridge- magnet mawkish, occasionally witty and, sometimes intriguing. It’s surprising, given the ubiquity of social media, that this sort of thing isn’t taking place exclusively on line but maybe there’s something about the ghost – town atmosphere of boarded up restaurants and featureless streets where once was so much energy, that suggests such decoration is not vandalism but improvement. Perhaps it’s one way of re-introducing just a little life and conversation while we’re waiting for the real thing to return.
Locked down in London 