my contextual references..martin parr-ty time

ok, so martin parr has to be first up, my biggest inspiration, open toed sandles and stripey socks, deadpan geeky geezer full of irony, satire, abandoned mills and boons, sun beached whales, soggy spam, pruned to death suburban rose bushes......always posing the question, 'what is britishness?' and oh i do prattle on about him more than any other photographer....and so I find myself here asking why? he makes me laugh a lot at british nature, culture, which possibly isn't always a good thing, he has been said by some to be patronising in his unsympathetic depictions of class and commodity culture. his series on 'signs of the times' was particlarly notable, asking people who considered themselves to have good taste to respond to an advert and then pose for the camera,with 80s dancing coke cans, exclusive copies of the sun left out in the living room, floral toilet paper to give the bathroom a feminine touch...... i have used his style in juxtaposing clashing commodity elements in playful visuals for gigs, and have always been fascinated by lives which pass me by on the train which look like scenes from one of his photos....the other day i was at clapham junction station where a very mean faced man was wearing a cutesy poodle t-shirt...