Saturday, October 2, 2010

Thievery

On my way to the market this afternoon I bumped into Steve Lewis from APT. He said he'd seen a couple of shifty looking blokes walking along Creekside earlier in the day with a carrier bag full of Willow Pattern. He wondered if they had nicked them from my installation, but noted that their boots were not muddy – it didn't look as if they had been in the Creek...perhaps it was a coincidence and they had just bought them in the high street?

I thought he was joking, and carried on to the market...later I went to the Hatch to have a look...

Here's how it was on Wednesday after I went down to mend the damage done by the Environment Agency...


This is how it is now...the teapot, the three large platters and ten large plates have been stolen from the 'right' bank...


Six large plates have been nicked from the 'left bank'.....


Everyone thought the tide would take them away, but no, this is Deptford, and so it can be no surprise that anything that is not nailed down will be carried off by a cash strapped Deptford tea leaf...

A pity they could not wait ONE MORE DAY till the festival finished tomorrow...

The resale value of the stolen plates is over £100...The piece isn't insured since the most likely threat to it would be perceived as...er...flooding – surely uninsurable! It doesn't really matter about the value since when we made the piece three weeks ago, the most obvious threat to its longevity was the river...it turns out that nature has been kind to let it stay for so long (absolutely amazing) but human intervention has ruined the display one day short of the desired (human) schedule...

More important than how the piece now looks on the last day of Deptford X, or the value of plates, if the thieves don't thoroughly sterilize the plates but sell them on, anyone who buys them and uses them risks exposure to Weil's disease (pronounced Vile's) aka Leptospirosis, also known as canicola fever, hemorrhagic jaundice, infectious jaundice, mud fever, spirochetal jaundice, swamp fever, swineherd's disease, caver's flu or sewerman's flu – a bacterial infection resulting from exposure to the Leptospira interrogans bacterium.

That is one of the reasons why Creekside Centre is so extremely Health & Safety conscious. Considering public health, I should probably get a witness statement from Steve Lewis...

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