There’s this perception of the UK, usually held by people who aren’t from here, that I often spend my free time trying to challenge. 

It goes that Britain’s a country which is past its best. Where once our cultural exports loomed large across the world, now David Bowie is dead — and all we have to replace him is Sam Smith. And where once our welfare system was the envy of the world, now our politicians spend £1,645 of public money on floating duck houses, while a third of our children grow up in poverty. 

And so the view goes. If Britain was a sandwich, you’d find us with a little yellow sticker on us on the reduced-to-clear shelf. Usually I’d be the first person to call bullshit on this, pointing to our vibrant subculture or blossoming arts scene. But it’s a Friday afternoon, and I’m tired, and I’m reading the reports that Haringey Council bungled the installation of a set of bike racks and is now trying to pass them off as ‘art’ and frankly - I’ve got nothing. Britain is completely fucked. We’re a Gilbert and Sullivan country.

According to local paper The Tottenham Independent, a mangled set of bike racks outside Turnpike Lane station that are impossible to lock your bikes to are actually a work of “public art”. In a statement to the newspaper, Haringey Council said that “following public consultation about making a range of improvements to Wood Green High Road, it was agreed that old bike racks should be recycled to create a decorative feature at this location.”

Bafflingly, the spokeswoman went on to add that the Council is committed to encouraging “more local people to get on their bikes”. Because cycling to work when it’s freezing cold isn’t fun enough, the bright sparks at the Council — who you’re probably paying in excess of a grand a year in council tax — has decided to play a practical joke on innocent commuters simply looking to lock up their bikes after another soul-crushing day in the office. 

Twitter user Keep Haringey Tidy has posted an email from a local councillor explaining that the recycled bike racks were “implemented to the agreed design as a piece of public art”. Meanwhile, the reaction from Twitter users has been predictably brilliant. One Twitter user said “let’s start labelling all our mistakes as art”. Personally I’m totally on board with this idea, because it means I’d be able to pass off a lot of terrible one-night-stands as ‘performance pieces’. 

Dazed reached out to Haringey Council for comment, but they didn’t get back to us despite repeated inquiries. To be fair, they’re probably thinking of other ways to improve the borough’s street furniture, like benches that collapse when you sit on them and bus shelters that only display the routes in Latin.