The Bristol Tesco Riots – Not So “Mild Mild West”

Banksy Mild Mild West

The UK city of Bristol is home to Modern Canvas Art, worldwide sellers of fantastic pop art canvas prints and pop art paintings, and world famous graffiti artist Banksy. Last week we saw an evening a unrest and rioting in our great city. The trouble flared while police were guarding a damaged “Tesco Express” store as local residents complained that heavy-handed police tactics had provoked a night of violent rioting.

The cause of the trouble has been somewhat confused by two separate issues; firstly, the police raided a squat occupied by opponents of the recently opened supermarket outlet and this led to eight police officers and several protesters becoming injured. However, ever since plans for the new Tesco Express store were mooted, there has been very strong opposition by the local community, a body of which describe themselves as “The People’s Republic of Stoke’s Croft”.

The store is seen as a threat to the businesses of local communities, which are made up from very wide and diverse ethnic backgrounds. Tesco is seen as a capitalist enemy, taking over communities and milking the resources from within them by driving down prices and putting convenience stores out of business. Ever since plans for the new Tesco were announced the reaction to it in Stoke’s Croft has been bitter and at times, quite hostile. The hostility prompted round the clock security to be installed at the store while it was being fitted out. Reports came in that petrol bombs were being assembled in the squat – being known to locals as “Telepathic Heights” – for, allegedly, use for an attack on the Tesco store. The police confirmed some time later that petrol bombs had been recovered from the house and these were being examined.

The Stoke’s Croft area is Banksy territory in Bristol. Indeed, some 200 yards down the road from the troubled Tesco Express store can be seen Banksy’s iconic “Mild Mild West” piece on the side of a building which dominates the view down the street. This is so iconic that it has been ordered to be preserved by Bristol City Council. In fact – iconic and ironic – in the early days of Banksy the Council could not remove his art from public spaces quick enough. Now of course, he has put Bristol on the map and there can be little doubt that many more visitors are drawn to the city to see his works. As a result, the Council are bending over backwards to preserve them.

By coincidence, Banksy has produced his own piece of art making fun of this country’s obsession to shopping and Tesco – see here At the current time a large part of the Stoke’s Croft area is cut off. One feels that this may not be the end of the trouble in store for Tesco. However, the feeling is that they will not be bullied out of the area. The largest supermarket in the UK does not become the largest supermarket in the UK by bowing to local pressure. It could be a long fight. Take a look at Modern Canvas Art for a selection of Banksy prints

Kate Middleton and Prince William: The Royal Wedding

With the media’s hype and attention heavily focused on the royal wedding that is set to take place next Friday 29^th April, we take a look at the couple, their pre-wedding engagement and the wedding itself.

Union Jack Canvas Art Print

On 16^thNovember 2010, Clarence House in Westminster announced that Prince William Arthur Philip Louis Mountbatten-Windsor was set to marry Catherine Elizabeth Middleton, his girlfriend since 2001, whom he met whilst studying at the University of St Andrews. The couple got engaged during a holiday to Kenya in October. The Queen stated she was “absolutely delighted”, while Prince Charles added that they had been “practising long enough”. Kate Middleton received the very same ring that had been given to William’s Mother Princess Diana by Prince Charles in their engagement back in 1981. The ring features 18-carat white gold, a 12-carat oval sapphire, 14 round diamonds and an approximate value of over £250,000.

Clarence House revealed on 23^rd November that the Wedding was due to be held on 29^th April 2011 and to be staged at Westminster Abbey, which has held previous weddings including the marriages of Elizabeth II and Prince Philip (1947), Princess Margaret to Anthony Armstrong-Jones (1960), Princess Anne to Captain Mark Philips (1973) and Prince Andrew to Sarah Ferguson (1986). Although Westminster Abbey has held numerous royal weddings, it was originally used generally for Coronations and had only held weddings since 1918. The wedding is to be funded solely by the Royal Family, the Middletons and the British Treasury.

The service itself is due to start at 11:00 am, with the first of the guests arriving from 8:15 am. Prince William and his brother Harry, who is the best man for the wedding, will arrive by 10:15 am. Next the foreign royals arrive, after that the Middleton family and finally the Prince’s family. The wedding will end at 12:15, with the newly wedded couple and some other family members travelling to Buckingham palace in the form of a procession. At 1:25, Prince William and Kate Middleton will stand on the Buckingham Palace balcony to watch the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight “fly past”.

Various forms of merchandise and memorabilia have been designed for the wedding, including cushions, t-shirts, hats, mugs and many more various other items. Some other companies have opted to design more rather anti-royal wedding and humorous merchandise, for example mugs that say, “I am not a royal wedding mug“ or a plate that states in big letters “Thanks for the free day off”.

At Modern Canvas Art, we like the Royal Family and will have one eye on the wedding next Friday. Royal Wedding canvas prints are not really our thing as such, so we prefer to celebrate British culture and are proud of the union jack and all that it represents. You can take a look at our union jack canvas prints and Cool Britannia canvas prints and canvas paintings by clicking on the links

Visit Modern Canvas Art now and get some cool stuff on your wall !

The History of Video Gaming

Video gaming has become a major part of many of our lives, with hundreds of games to choose from spanning many different platforms and consoles. The industry has become one of the biggest in the world, but when and where did the modern day practice of video gaming originate from?

Pong Video Game Canvas Art Print

The first officially recognised video game was developed in 1948, which was called the “Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device”. The game involved using buttons and knobs to control the cathode ray beam in order to simulate firing at airborne targets. Many other games were produced throughout the 1950s and 1960s (such as ‘OXO’ and ‘Tennis for Two’), however these were created more as a hobby and so were not commercially available, partly due to the lack of computers.

The 1970s brought upon the first generation of arcade video games – the first of which was created and installed in Stanford University. The game, which was called the ‘Galaxy Game’, was the first ever game that required the insertion of a coin in order to be played. Only one of these was built. A short while later in 1972, Atari was founded, allowing the hit video game ‘Pong’ to be born. Pong was the first commercially successful video game; it achieved sales of over 19000 units.

The 1980s gave us the second and third-generation consoles, allowing gamers to own consoles in their own houses rather than having to travel to an arcade. The late 1970s and early 80s were known as the ‘Golden Age’ in video gaming, where famous titles such as ‘Space Invaders’,  ‘Asteroids’ and ‘Pac-Man’ entered the scene. In the late 1980s, many more home consoles and games were developed, including Nintendo and their Nintendo Entertainment System – this finally allowed the ‘Super Mario Bros’ to break into our homes. Other well-known faces appeared with the introduction of ‘The Legend Of Zelda’ and ‘Metal Gear’. The end of the ‘Golden Era’ was marked in 1995 after the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was discontinued.

The 1990s saw Handheld LCD Games rapidly increase in popularity with the introduction of the Game Boy, while the arcade video games began to decrease in popularity due to the increasingly widespread availability of home consoles. Technological advances in 3D graphics saw the creation of other game genres such as the First Person Shooter and Real Time Strategy.  These advances also saw three new consoles enter the stores – these were the Sega Saturn, the Playstation and the PC-FX. Another notable game created in this decade is ‘Alone in the Dark’ (1992) which was one of the first successful survival horror games – it was not the first game in the genre, but it set the tone for the future ones to come. Other successful franchises hit the market in the 90s, such as the ‘Sims’ series. Also, Nokia became the first phone developers to include time-killing games on their phones when they introduced snake to their range in 1998.

The 2000s saw the creation of sixth and seventh generation consoles, the most notable being the Playstation 2 (followed by the PS3), Xbox (followed by the Xbox 360) and the Nintendo Wii. Many popular games were produced for these consoles, such as Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty. While these modern day games seem popular, the best selling game ever was actually Pokemon Red, Blue and Green for the Gameboy while the best selling franchise is the Mario series, which has spanned 200 games since 1981.

At Modern Canvas Art, we fondly remember the childhood days of Pong and latterly the Sinclair ZX Spectrum with its “massive” 48K ram pack, where we would spend our childhood days playing Jetpac and Jet Set Willy. Check out our Classic Canvas Art Prints and our Classic Pop Art Canvas Paintings now!

Lewis Hamilton Wins Shanghai Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton Canvas Art Print

Lewis Hamilton stormed to victory at the Shanghai Grand Prix this weekend with his first win in almost eight months, which was back in August 2010 at Spa. This adds life to his season as he has now closed the gap on the Red Bull driver Sebastien Vettel, who is the Championship leader, to a mere 21 points. Hamilton told the press that it was a win on par with those of his at Silverstone and Monaco. “I live, breathe and exist to win,” he also said. Hamilton drove a brilliant race, involving swift manoeuvres to pass the likes of Felipe Massa, Nico Rosberg, Jensen Button and Sebastien Vettel (twice!). Lewis may have been lucky not to miss out on winning when Jensen Button missed his pit stop call, going in a lap late and consequently causing his fellow team mate to enter later, which cost him a place. Jenson Button was unable to fully recover from this odd error – he could only manage 4^th place.

The team at Red Bull seemed happy with their team’s performance, as Sebastien Vettel and Mark Webber attained 2^nd and 3^rd places, also finishing 5 and 7 seconds behind the Brit respectively. Mark Webber performed rather well, considering the fact that he started the race in 18^th position. Despite their impressive performances, they could only manage a total of 33 points, which was 4 points fewer than McLaren accumulated. Over at Ferrari, Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso produced, what some might say, a disappointing performance. They could only obtain 14 points between them at 6^th and 7^th places. The remainder of the points were shared between Michael Schumacher (8^th), Vitaly Petrov (9^th) and Kamui Kobayashi (10^th).

The next Grand Prix we have to look forward to will be the Turkish Grand Prix, to be held at Istanbul Park from the 6^th to the 8^th May. This race last year produced an incredibly exciting race, with Lewis Hamilton and Jensen Button swooping the top 2 positions with only 2 seconds separating the British duo. Kovalainen retired after just 33 laps and Sebastien Vettel crashed on his 39^th lap.

At Modern Canvas Art, we love to see British athletes triumph, whatever the sport may be. Although having seen the poor performance at the 2010 world cup in South Africa, it’s beginning to feel like we might have to turn to other sports for joy.

Visit Modern Canvas Art to view our extensive range of Sport Canvas Prints, Pop Art Paintings and Multi-Panel Art.

Manchester City Reach the 2011 FA Cup Final

In the FA Cup Semi Final on 16^th April 2011 treble-chasing Manchester United were beaten 1-0 by their rich (and trophy-starved) neighbours Manchester City. A goal in the second half by Yaya Toure following a stray cross-field pass from Michael Carrick was enough to give the blue half of Manchester another trip to Wembley in the final next month to play either Bolton or Stoke, who play later today in the other semi-final.

It was a bad day at the office for Man Utd. After a bright start in which Berbatov missed a couple of good chances, Man City grew more and more into the game and became stronger the longer it went on. In the middle of the park Yaya Toure put in a towering performance and strong defending by City ensured that Man Utd did not put in one of their typical late fightbacks for which they have been somewhat renowned this season.

The final will certainly be an interesting one from the neutrals point of view as none of the so called “Big 4”clubs are competing. Man City haven’t won a trophy since 1976 and for Bolton and Stoke (whoever gets through) the wait has been much longer. That’s the magic of the FA Cup. That magic is still alive although many people criticise the fact that the semi-finals are now played at Wembley, in addition to the final. That seemed all the more ridiculous this year given that 4 teams from the north west were in the semis. However, as we know, it is all about generating revenue and the colossal expense of re-building Wembley must be paid for.

At Modern Canvas Art we have a strong allegiance to a UK club (but we are not saying which!) All we will say is that they are by the far best team the world has ever seen, of course, and what a shame they are not in the final in May. For Man Utd fans, they still have the Premiership and the Champions League well within their grasp so it doesn’t look like being too bad a season for them.

Modern Canvas Art have some superb Man Utd canvas prints showing past great players and glories. Take a look at this classic George Best canvas print for example. Our canvas art prints and pop art paintings really are second to none.  Order one and we guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

Doughnuts! Doughnuts!

Doughnut Canvas Print

A doughnut is a fried dough food and is popular all around the world. They are made from a flour dough are usually sweet and deep-fried, shaped in rings or otherwise flattened spheres that often contain fillings, the most popular one being jam. Other types of dough such as potato can also be used as well as other different types of batter. Various toppings and flavorings are used for different types of “filled” doughnuts. At Modern Canvas Art the Krispy Kreme doughnuts our favourites but we’re good boys here and we don’t eat too many of them. Hell, they can make you fat.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the world record for doughnut eating is held by a man named John Haight, who ate 52 ounces of doughnuts (about 26 average doughnuts) in just over six minutes in 1981. His mum must have been so proud!

The largest doughnut ever made was an American-style “jelly” doughnut which weighed 1.7 tonnes and measured 4.9 m (16 ft) in diameter and was 40.6cm (16in) high in the centre. It was made in Utica, New York, USA on January 21, 1993.

At Modern Canvas Art we are partial to the odd doughnut during breaks from producing our pop art prints and canvas paintings. To celebrate the great doughnut, we created this Doughnut Canvas Print which is quite funky we think you’ll agree and would look great in a kitchen or children’s bedroom. Take a look at Modern Canvas Art and check out our terrific canvas prints. Oh – and take a look at one of our Banksy prints featuring – yes – a doughnut.