I Identify as a Surfboard: Last Words of a London Shelf

Walking through Brockley in South East London this morning, my eyes were drawn to the rubbish that was collecting - but not being collected - near the station. However, this wasn’t what grabbed my attention – it was the street art (graffiti, vandalism – what you will) that adorned the remnants of a piece of shelving that had been unceremoniously bound and dumped by the bins. It must have looked so forlorn that a would-be Banksy took (no more than a few seconds, in my judgement) the time to spray a pithy little message in the words of the abandoned shelf itself. The message? “I identify as a surfboard”. Now it was early in the morning, but I was struck by the sheer pathos of this plaintive proclamation. What also hit me was the angsty anthropomorphism of the face painted atop of the message. The existential distress bore all the hallmarks of Munchian despair. What hopes had been dashed? What dreams of sun and sea-spray had been denied? Here was a humble shelving unit, condemned by…