Interestingly, the image is not always associated with the business but appear to just simply brighten an otherwise plain space. I particularly like the surfer as an example of this.

According to the article on “Your Brisbane: Past and Present” this is the Gas Stripping Tower used by the South Brisbane Gas & Light Company in 1912. It’s the only one of it’s kind left in Australia and it’s job was to “purify” the coal gas by stripping out ammonia and tar.

Walking past, none of this is evident. The only signage appears to be on a small monument near the tower, but access to it, along with the tower is restricted by the relatively recent addition of the fence.

It takes a walk along the fence line a reasonable distance from the tower to find out why access is restricted. It appears that a number of the huge fig trees have Phellinus noxius, a fungus that can kill large trees. The council, rightly so, is concerned that large branches or even the trees themselves may fall unexpectedly and so access has been restricted.

What is disappointing is that none of this is obvious to the casual observer. It’s unfortunate that the Brisbane City Council hasn’t provided appropriate signage near the tower outlining the history of this unique and unusual piece of history, or the plight of the trees.

The old man and the bird in a sack image reminded me a lot of a puzzle game I played a few years ago, Machinarium.

These sort of quirky images are what I find really interesting. They take a rather bland, and in this case boring grey wall and give it character and life.

As someone said using Scrabble tiles, “Grey is the real art crime”.

So I was a little surprised when wandering recently to find that the previous graffiti had been replaced.

I love the colour and vibrancy of the first piece combined with the simplicity of the sleeping boy.

The second piece is seen properly when you walk into the little courtyard/garden beside the building. Again, it’s more art than graffiti and has a wonderful quality to it that reminds me of some of my favorite Anime like “Spirited Away” and “9”.

The first time I saw the crow sitting on the parking sign, I initially mistook it for the real thing. It was only on second glance that I realised it was one of the props.

I'm a big fan of things that make you not only look twice, but make you stop and think.

Reading the information about this campaign on the website www.savewestend.org it appears to be a community action to have a say in the draft plan by Brisbane City Council for West End. From what I gather, the plan is to take into account an increase in the number of residents in West End and includes the increase of height restrictions for buildings, in some cases now allowing 30 storeys. It's this increase in height that is identified as one of the key problems by the community campaign.

One of the things I love about West End is the atmosphere of the older homes, the characteristics of the shops and the overall eclectic nature of it. Replacing it with multi-storey residential and business blocks will have a significant impact on all of this.

The problem we face however, is as our population continues to grow, we are also increasing the area our city takes up. This "urban sprawl" eats into our remaining "wild" places, something that I expect many residents in West End would also agree isn't acceptable. If we are to limit our impact on the environment, then we need to consider high density living. In other words, building up, not out.

If we intend to continue our population growth and not impact on the environment, the challenge is how to do it while maintaining the "atmosphere" many of us look for in residential areas like West End.

The piece is on the side of a small shop and by the looks of it, it's been there for a while. I love the feel of the piece and how it seems to fit within the character of the building and the business within. In fact, this was confirmed when I showed one of the others in our office and they immediately identified the name of the business.

So can good graffiti contribute in a positive way to the character of a space? I believe so and this piece seems to achieve both enhancing it's space along with becoming iconic for the business within.

While our office in West End wasn't flooded, being on the fourth floor, the buildings underground carpark was. This resulted in our office being closed for a couple of weeks as everything from communications systems, to fire-control and the lift were affected.

I went for a walk along the Brisbane river near our office this week to see what the area that was inundated looked like now. The first thing that hit me was just how quiet the river is. The water traffic that you associate with our city is gone. No ferries, commercial or pleasure boats. In many cases, the pontoons that they would use are gone as well.

As I walked along the path beside the river, the signs of the flood were still in evidence in the trees around me. Rubbish is stuck in the branches a metre or more above my head. That said, the road, the gardens and buildings are mostly clear of the sludge and rubbish the flood waters dumped, testament to the hard work of the local people and businesses.

As I got towards an open section of the river, I came across the first boat I'd seen. A recovery team was next to what, at first appearances was a shipping container caught on the embankment. It wasn't until I was closer that it became clear this was an entire trailer from a semi-trailer. Who knows where it came from, but it highlighted the force of the river at it's peak that it could wash this away and down the river.

Despite the great work of everyone involved in cleaning up, there is still alot to do to return our city to normal.

I noticed a number of small insects near an access plate on the footpath. Upon closer inspection it looks like a Native Bee hive has taken up residence right in the middle of the West End cafe precinct.