This new bus stop chair appeared on Crown Street, Surry Hills, just up from the library.

It was so surprising I did a double take, and then watched everyone walking by do the same – including the man in this picture, who tapped on the arm rest and sat down.

This bizarre object is on a bus stop on Crown Street, Surry Hills. At first I guessed it was this guy.

But I spotted an unmolested version on Devonshire Street, on the other side of Surry Hills, today.

It’s a promo for Richard In Your Mind‘s new record, My Volcano. Look we’re not usually partial to this kind of guerilla advertising. But it is a brilliant record.

He’s on a stool and peering around the corner.

I found him on Jesson Lane, Surry Hills. It’s the back of a restaurant, which is really on Crown Street. I love how this cute chap with his stubbly facial hair and long nose shows himself as you walk down the (dead-end) lane.

What he’s trying to see, I don’t know.

Did you see the bright lights in Potts Point and Kings Cross over the past few months?

It was the tail end of a sustainable lighting trial by the council – they swapped 200 street lights to LEDs in Circular Quay, Martin Place, Alexandria Park, and on Darlinghurst Road between Bayswater Road and Macleay Street, plus another 50 street lights at Bourke Street, Surry Hills, with Energy Australia.

Energy savings of 30-40 per cent have been touted, which is a big deal considering the council reports spending a third of its electricity on street/public lighting. No results yet, but the council plans to install the energy efficient lights in all 8500 of its street and public domain lights over the next three years.

This legal by two of our favourite Sydney street artists, Numskull and Beastman, went up on Foveaux Street, Surry Hills, two weeks ago.

The pair’s sharp couplet: “they keep painting, we keep painting.”

“They keep getting rid of our stuff and we keep doing it again. It’s a pointless process,” said Numskull – the piece was triggered by yet another campaign against street art.

There’s a tree halfway up Crown Street, Surry Hills, on the wall of the Salvation Army shop building.

It seems such a metaphor for the stories inside that place. Clutching on for dear life, but reaching out for this glorious sunshine above. It gives me a lift just walking past.

This appeared outside Surry Hills Library on Crown Street, and I couldn’t help thinking guerrilla marketing.

Look closer though. It’s actually nothing of the sort.

Bizarrely enough, it’s a research project. Part of the Visualising Research class at UTS, Poster: More Than A Gaze aims to “examine the potential of the poster as a ‘public and communicative’ medium in a public space.” They’re blogging too.

It’s 12 A4 pages pasted up alongside the typical band and club posters – and, although I used to have a radar for those things, I wonder how many people are tuned in? I’d be interested to see what, if any, reaction it got.

I often spot curious things in this window as I walk down Devonshire Street in Surry Hills.

It’s the shopfront of a design firm called Ascender, and this time it’s stocked with odd little felt patches bearing phrases related to Bjork’s old group, the Sugarcubes, like the songs ‘Mama’ and ‘Fucking In Rhythm and Sorrow’, ‘Blue Eyed Pop’, ‘Motor Crash’ and ‘Birthday’.

They blogged about it – you can see their back catalogue of window dressing there, too – though there’s not much by way of explanation.

These characters are on the back entrance to a Little Riley Street terrace, just up from Devonshire Street in Surry Hills.

A bird, a skater, a man holding a child, a cat. Simple stencils, painted in black on a yellow wall. More ‘house proud’ than ‘street art’.

The back fence in this neighbourhood typically faces dirt, rubbish and needles – which makes it an unexpected site for personal expression. But it’s also where people park their cars, have backyard barbecues and and handball matches.

The ultimate aspirational Surry Hills pad: home, family and… a good looking back fence.

This almost radioactively green tree popped up on Hayden Place, Surry Hills.

It’s winter, so an obvious time for a small but well proportioned green tree to appear on the street. The colour and consistency of the colour, as well as the shape, suggests a mushroom cloud, too. So not just winter, but a nuclear winter.