Dirt is a catalyst for change.

Dirt is a catalyst for change. If there’s one thing we learned from the mayoral cleanup, it’s that the shocking state of the city keeps a whole lot of people employed, who cruise on the promise of a better tomorrow.

The thing about getting older is that you no longer feel resentful when the youngsters stand up to sing, ‘We are the world, we are the children…’ You just want to hum along and then go back to bed.

Meanwhile the streets look like a scene from Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. I’m torn in half about whether I want the city to look like a wild sci-fi adventure or a sedate and terrifying version of an East German parking lot.

Edgar Müller used to be my absolute hero. Remember, he’s the German guy who paints those huge crevices and canyons on the sidewalk, so people jump over the illusion in fear. To me he was like the supreme surrealist before illusion became the domain of CGI and 3D virtual reality headsets. Now it’s all so numbingly obvious.

These days I think of Müller as a kitschy proponent of a system that saw its day. But the point is that I landed up in town while the upgrades were happening last week, and saw some real inner city canyons that weren’t art illusions at all. Müller would’ve been impressed.

The city is like the sea, it washes in and washes out and stays dirty — and somehow one is always on the brink of a major journey over it. But one never seems to get anywhere, even when one gets the hell outa here. #fringetheartist