Network Rail Art Vandals

While BT kept me offline, Art News Blog (see my links) beat me to this story from the Evening Standard's website (title link). Network Rail painted over a Banksy monkey on doors in the Leake Street underpass into Waterloo Station with - horror of horrors - magnolia paint! This desecration has since been covered with graffiti tags! Fortunately, somebody photographed the Banksy, which shows a monkey preparing to blow up a bunch of bananas, before NR got heavy with the magnolia. Following complaints and a few searching questions from the Evening Standard, an NR spokesman declared "We have now issued our maintenance crews with photographs of Banksy's work, so if they come across it, they'll recognise it for what it is." Er ... art or graffiti? And what do they do with it? Slap on the magnolia or touch their forelocks?