The words in the picture

When I got around to reviewing the photos I took during my visit to Bristol last week, I came across this one, taken at a bus stop shelter not far from Temple Meads station, as I walked into the city centre.

It's a fashion store ad. graffiti'd with a statement which mocks the pretensions of the marketing mind behind the cool image of a trendy young woman of androgynous tendencies. I snapped the image without pausing to examine it at close range to find out  if the top side graffiti was additional or part of the ad. image. 'I am not who you think I am'  is the title of a 1999 American novel for young adults by Peg Kehret, also a song by Bryan Adams, so it might have been an esoteric cultural cross reference beyond my understanding. However the middle strip containing the punch-line seems to be in the same hand as the rest, so it stands as a later addition. It reads 'I'm Alan Shearer' - famous retired English footballer and TV footie pundit.

It made me laugh, and I'm not a football fan. I've managed to get through the World Cup telethon thus far without seeing a match or enduring more than a few minutes worth of those excruciating banale discussions by members of the sporting commentariat. I must confess, however, to my delight in Lynne Truss' hilarious daily audio blog contribution to Radio 4's Today World Cup News effort.

What drew my attention to this piece of demotic street wit was its setting - Bristol - home and early artistic canvas of internationally famous graffiti artist Bansky, whose works are visible on several walls around the city. This time last year, Bristol's City Art Gallery hosted an exhibition of Banksy's works which attracted a record quarter of a million visitors in the two months it was open, such is the interest shown in his work by the public.

To my mind, most graffiti has little artistic merit, and is no more than an attention grabbing outlet for bored neglected youngsters. Banksy has shown that street graffiti, irrespective of its graphic merit, can convey powerful social comment, subversive political comment or withering satire. His work makes you look at the everyday world differently, and invites you to question your accepted perceptions and values, and, more often than not, to smile if not laugh out loud at the vanities of this world. My interest in his work means that a walk through Bristol made me look twice at graffiti rather than ignore it.

The words in the picture I snapped may have had nothing to do with Banksy, but they reflect his subversive influence, inviting others to ridicule the vanities and whims of this passing age. Would that contemporary religion was as capable as this of critiquing the culture in which it is embedded.