Free Chewz UncouthYouthLDN

24 year-old London based graffiti writer Chewz, known particularly for his hollow chrome throw-ups, has plead guilty to 22 charges of criminal damage (as well as one charge of burglary and one of common assault) and was sentenced to 21 months in prison.

While we will not post his mugshot or “name and shame” the young man, we can report that he has been sentenced to 21 months in prison, as well as being given a five year ASBO(which states that he must not carry paint, marker pens or glass-cutting equipment anywhere in England and Wales, and that he is expressly banned from non-public areas of the railway network).

The British Transport Police caught up with Chewz after a tag he was convicted for in 2002 began to reappear in South London. When officers re-investigated him, they found evidence on his Facebook page that suggested that he was also responsible for the Chewz graffiti.

He was arrested, and found to be in possession of large amounts of graffiti paraphernalia (which could be anything from magazines, to markers or pens), and was bailed to return, but he never did return to court when he was due to in August, choosing to going on the run.

Eventually, in November, the BTP caught up with Chewz and he was charged, including nine offenses that are supposed to have happened while he was on bail.

The court heard that Chewz damaged Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square during the November 2010 student riots and that he attacked 17 trains at the Grove Park depot on May this year. They were shown evidence from Chewz’ home linking him to the tag, as well as images on his phone and Facebook, and even a tag in the dust on top of his TV.

Chewz plead guilty to the charges, which the prosecution claimed amounted to £69,000 worth of damage. As often happens with these cases, some have been suspicious of this figure, which suggests that it cost £4,000 to clear up two pieces of graffiti on the trackside near London Bridge, and just over £2,000 to clean South West Trains carriages at Waterloo. Trackside walls between Charing Cross and Waterloo East apparently cost £3,000 to clean.

Perhaps there is an argument to be made that graffiti on a train window affects health and safety, because people can’t see out of the train, but if it honestly costs £4000 to paint over a trackside piece, why not just leave it? The tracksides near Finsbury Park station don’t seem to get buffed, and it doesn’t seem to bother anyone.

BTP spokespeople have made the usual comment, that graffiti is not harmless, because the costs of the removal get passed onto the fare paying passenger. A clever approach to the issue, designed to get members of the public on-side.

Article from The London Vandal

swoon will be giving a hour long talk about street art at the Bank of Ideas thursday from 6pm-7pm
if your interested in that kind of thing.
read more here.

NotGuilty are collecting for Issue 7, the deadline is mid January so get them in soon.

If you are like me and didnt manage to pick up a free copy of WP8 then here it is for you to view online at your leisure.

This is a handy trick to know when you lose the damn key to your toolbox

Once in a while i like to mix it up and just do a post on some gruesome shit i find in books or on websites. Like this and this.

So today i would like to enlighten you on how the Tibetans bury people. Technically im not sure it would be classed as a Burial but anyway.
Now i have read about this on a few different sites each saying slightly different things but. the way i will describe it is from a book which tend to be slightly more accurate then  what some nutter has written on the net.
So here goes. First off somone dies. There body is left for a few days while monks pray to them. There back is broken and they are tied in the fetal  position. They are carried out to special places on the plains of Tibet where, while the family watches, there skins is sliced in many places and vultures come and eat the flesh. Once the vultures have done there job and stripped most of the flesh off somone has the job of taking a sledgehammer and smashing all the bones including the skull into small pieces and mixing it with Yak butter and wheat or something i cant remember. Which is then also fed to the vultures.

I just read back through this and realised how boring it is but iv written it now so whatever. You might like the sick photos after the jump. Seriously if you are a girl you probably dont wanna look. what am i talking about no girls check this site.
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I got hold of newly released ‘Beatrice Magazine’ from Sicily. The first project by guys from the Ufs crew.

Its quite a slim read, at only 46 pages, but every magazine starts small, and im sure it will up the page count  as the magazine progresses. There are some real nice photo’s in here, some good action shots and quality panels from the usual suspects. Its kinda like a small version of Xplicit grafx content wise. On a few pages the photos are thumbnailed (an inch wide) a bit too small for my liking, and you struggle to see what could potentially be a nice panel on some interesting systems. Also there is a fair bit of pixelation in this issue which will need to be addressed. The centre spread (poster?) will raise a smile, and the guys have made a good effort on promoting the mag in their local pieces.

Overall a good effort for a first time mag, definitely one i will look out for as it progresses, and the few kinks evened out. They have a tumblr which is worth following, and are available in the UK from NotGuilty.

Some of you may be aware that some big changes are happening over at Wordplay. They now are not just covering UK graffiti but also the UK Hip Hop scene, not only that but the next issue will be free.
From these spreads the magazine is looking good. I will try and get hold of a copy for a review when its released.
We will keep you updated as news comes in.

more images after the jump
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Working for First Gert Wasteman has its perks, the book-of-everything, that tells you

what time which is going to sleep where and when and where it goes when it wakes up,

and of course, the funny names.