Banksy, You Made Me Wet! But Was it Worth It?

I won't make you wait for the answer. Was it worth it...Yes. Let me explain more about it. I've been waiting for ages to go and see Banksy's exhibition at the Bristol Museum and Arts Center.

Before i go into it more you might not know who Banksy is. Well Banksy is a guy who goes around and does wall art and other kind of art related stunts. Many many people love his work but others are not so hot on his work and class it as vandalism. Personally i think he is great. He says things that other people might not have the guts to say. Look here for more on him.

We (me and my girlfriend again) left from Newport early in the morning and arrived at Bristol train station to a monsoon welcome. It was hammering down. But undeterred we ventured out into the monsoon rain to find Banksy's exhibition.

It was actually pretty straight forward. Except from the rain and getting stupidly wet. We got to the Museum in an uneventful fashion. Along the way we filled up on bacon sarnies and coffee at a hip cafe. I also found my first Banksy wall art.

To say i was excited was a pretty bit understatement. I was grinning from ear to ear and couldn't wait to get in. With a jump in my step (which made a weird kind of squelching noise) we made our way to the entrance only to be stopped just before the door. A big burly guy notified us that the que was around the next corner. Doh! Plus it started to rain very hard again.

Well my jump was starting to vanish but i have waited too long to turn back and go home. So we waited. Got even wetter. Got even colder. Got more hungry and this was in the first five minutes. To be fair the que moved pretty fast. And the weather got better. Then Worse again. Then better. Then Worse again. You get the picture, it was showery. While waiting we did find a great little peice of Banksy's work

Spotting this really gave us another Bansky kick. Not long after, we got into the museum and spent around 45 minutes looking around. I took some pictures of my favourites and put them into a little fim to show all those who will not get a chance to see it.

If anyone has had the good fortune of seeing this exhibit why not share your veiws and expereinces and leave a comment? If you haven't been and have anything to say about Banksy's work (and there is a lot to say) then why don't you share it with everyone?

The Epic Clean, Part 1

So it is still raining and it doesn't look like it is going to stop. So i decided to have an epic clean up of my mountain bike. Now i am not really one for just cleaning my bike, normally i hose it down, lube it up and then leave it. But it's getting old. Parts on it are starting to fail. So one more clean before things are replaced is on the cards.

Right i am not going to bore you or insult your intelligence by doing a step by step list of instructions on what i have done. But i will say what i have done. So firstly I started on the wheels. I took the tires off with a tire lever. The one i am using in the picture is just a cheap plastic one. They work as well as metal ones but do not leave scratches on the rim. The only problem with them is that they do bend and snap quite easily.

Finally, after getting the tire off i took a warm bucket of water, some de-greaser (if you don't want to fork out £3.99 for muck off de-greaser, you can use some washing up liquid and some lemon juice) and some bike cleaning solution. I just gave both wheels a good clean taking some time to get inbetween the cogs on the cassette. You can see me doing this in the picture below.

The brush that i am using is part of a brush cleaning kit that you can pick up for around £9.99. As you apply some chain lube (mainly the wet lubes) they pick up any grime the chain comes in contact with and then sticks to the cogs. So i have made sure that i get as much of this off as possible. This is where the de-greaser comes in handy because it does actually breaks down all the grime and makes it easier to brush away.

Because i have no money in the bank, i have decided on changing the tires on my bike and just clean and maintain the rest of the bike. This saves a lot of money and sometimes parts only need to be cleaned and re-greased and they will work like new.

Won't it stop raining?

For anyone in the UK at the moment. Be it on holiday, on summer vacation from school/university or taking a couple of days off from work, the weather isn't very summery. Britons should be used to our non-summer weather by now. As it is too wet to go out you might be sitting, looking out of a window and thinking "Why raindrops come in so many sizes?"

Well the answer is at hand. Here, on the BBC website, it is explained that raindrops over a certain size are too heavy/large to stay in one droplet. They flatten as they race to Earth from the clouds. Air then creates a pocket in the rain drop and bursts into many smaller droplets.

Fascinating, but it doesn't really give us any hope of a nice summer does it?! The worse thing about the British weather is we get a week of really nice weather then a month of really bad weather. It's like the weather gods are playing game with us mere mortals. It makes planning an outing a game of Russian roulette.

But these rainy days arn't all bad. It's good laying in bed (till 11am) weather. Also its a good time for going out for a walk, with your favourite person in the whole world on one arm and a large brolly in the other.