Banksy is the last thing we need right now

Tedious street artist Banksy has been busy in London this past week. On Monday, a stencilled goat appeared near Kew Bridge. It was soon followed by two silhouetted elephant heads in the bricked-up windows of a house in Chelsea, three monkeys swinging across a bridge over Brick Lane, a howling wolf adorning a satellite dish in Peckham, two pelicans swooping for cod above a Walthamstow fish and chip shop, and a cat stretching on a damaged billboard in Cricklewood. Today, Banksy unveiled his latest creation in central London – a glass police box made to look like a tank of piranhas. Apparently, there is a point to all this. A spokesperson for the famously pseudonymous graffiti artist told the Observer that the works are ‘designed to cheer up the public ­during a period when the news headlines have been bleak, and light has often been harder to spot than shade’. Apparently, Banksy hopes that the ‘uplifting works cheer ­people with a moment of unexpected amusement, as well as to ­gently underline the human capacity for ­creative play, rather than for destruction and negativity’. So there you have it. He is performing a great, noble service to the nation, hoping his...