I can see many balls, but not much apart from that.

wait, no - I see the picture! Wow! I get it!

It is an ariel picture of St Johns Wood, okay, a Blower-pigeon-eye view of Lords? Top right is the Tube station and shopping corner where you pick up your booze and sandwiches before the game. Bottom right is the Ramada hotel, always good for a quick beer or a pee if the Taverners is overflowing as usual. Top left is Lords. The brown circle represents the traffic crossing to get up to the North gate and the big circle is the Grace Gates.

The cunning use of ephemeral light air tones in the pale blue represents the artist’s description of atmosphere which gripped us all so viscerally for the length of the summer. The contrasting brown, the earth emotion, in return represents this return to our roots - the ground, indeed the grounds that so joyously brought the Ashes back to their home - exquisited portraited in their smokey grey, delicate hues. This reviewer also suspects a deeper psychological level to the artwork whereby the pale blue and grey may also be a fascinating psychological insight into the atmosphere - literally the air - at his local near the Oval after the lat Test, the pale tones representing the fag-ASHES air and the brown tones reflecting that of the ale.

By figuring a depiction of Lords, the artist truely shows his deepest understanding of the Home of cricket, where the Ashes belong.

Now, I really hope you all didn’t believe that for one minute. To be honest, I think the picture is complete rubbish.

Well in my, admittedly limited, artistic opinion its closer to an abstract painting depicting the bowling of Dizzy Gillespie in the Ashes series - RUBBISH!

However, I think the danger is that we may have fallen foul of a popular ebay scam. A tactic used by a few ebayers is to add unique, interesting items such as this painting which will generate interest in other more serious stuff they are selling.

“Cricket”, “England”, “Ashes”, “2005″ are clearly well searched words on sites such as ebay. As it looks to have happened in this case, people find the joke item, think “Who the hell would buy this?” and forward to onto their friends, creating a chain. I had an email sent to me the other day linking to student selling bottles of his own urine on ebay! Obviously the ebayer may also instigate the interest by starting the email chain.

If 1000 people view the item as a result, 1 in 10 may also click on the other items listed for sale or onto the ebay shop the seller has. It’s then possible that out of these 100 people another 1 in 10 actually might buy something. BINGO, the scam item makes the guy some money! I note this seller has plenty of less abstract more appealling paintings for sale. The unique item has really made it when someone adds onto their popular blog!

Now I may also be accused of jumping on the post Ashes profiteering bandwagon here, but I’ve just added a link to an ebay store on my blog.

At the moment the store is selling “quality” novelty bank notes of The England Ashes hero’s but more; let’s say less novelty, Cricket items will be added soon. Take a look it’s a bit fun really but they are pretty good and ideal for inclusion in Xmas cards or for a bit of a laugh down the pub!

SAD!

It is as good as anything else people call art.