IUOMA

Pester my council for my REAL wall and potentially be in the newspaper in London (to arrive by November 15, 2009)

Hey my REAL wall fans I have an urgent mailart/postcard petition call that I need a quick response for, and I need your help!

As many of you know, recently I received a very strange demand letter from the local council, who seem to think that my REAL wall is a business, and have demanded that I send them some paperwork proving that I get my waste disposed of properly, or face a potential £5000 fine!

On the advice of Postmuse and with the support of my REAL fans, I decided not to bother to answer them straight away, but decided instead to send the story on to my local paper, the Hammersmith and Kensington Times, who sent around a photographer and put the story on page 3 of the print edition and headline on their website.

Another local magazine, Westside magazine caught a sniff of this story and sent me an email to send them more details and I got in touch with them. They emailed today to say that, instead of running it as the same story that HKtimes ran with, they wanted to print a ‘what’s happened since’ story in the news page of the December edition, and they asked me if I paid the fine.

Of course I haven't paid the fine, I have no intention of doing so as I've done nothing wrong, but I've been planning to send the council an intricate mailart postcard as they have demanded that I send them "paperwork related to the business" and the "business" I run produces large amounts of pretty paper and cool postcards, so I thought it was the most appropriate thing.

When I told the editor that this was my intention, she was delighted

"Send the intricate postcard to us please and I’ll use it as an image for the December issue!"

Sounds like a mailart call to me if I ever heard one!

So the call is this. Write the coolest, funniest prettiest piece of mailart or send a postcard of support to my REAL wall at the usual address to arrive by November 15th (please allow time for the postal strikes, so post early please), and I will put together a package for the council and send it on to them, via Westside Magazine, who will print your mailart as my official letter to the council.

Nothing horrible please, this isn't a nasty one, it's a friendly jab showing the ridiculousness of their demand, so please don't get mad, let's just get even! Grrrr!

Hopefully we'll wind em up a bit and they'll fine me or something.

The address for those of you who don't know it by heart is...

Andy Hoang
Manager
my REAL wall
73b Goldhawk Road
London
W12 8EG
UK

If you need to see the letters and paperwork, they are on my flickr site, here, here and here

Feel free to use these in whatever way you want, use whatever medium you like.

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Comment by Ptrzia (TICTAC) on October 30, 2009 at 10:17am: My card for your RealWall left today....cross my fingers for it to arrive on time!! Good luck Andy!!!
all the best
Patrizia

Comment by andytgeezer on October 29, 2009 at 2:56pm: Absolutely scandalous stuff and I'm glad you all agree. Thanks to the mailart community for your continuing support too - let's stick it up them! Tally ho!

Comment by Rosa Gravino on October 29, 2009 at 2:38pm: It´s incredible! Your proyect it´s very important and artistic response to de legal demand. My postcard is going to you tomorrow. Best of success!

Comment by Ruud Janssen on October 28, 2009 at 1:18pm: A card OOLA is on its way.....

Comment by Katerina Nikoltsou on October 28, 2009 at 10:16am: Andy, I hope you have already the art postcard I sent on October 14th?
But another one is on its way to you tomorrow. Best of success!

Comment by Carroll Woods on October 28, 2009 at 5:46am: Andy,
I'll do my part to save you and your REAL WALL! The art is in the MAIL! We must end the harassment of the innocent mailart hobbyists!! Next thing you know, they will outlaw stamp-licking.

Carroll