A Horticultural Stand Against Chelsea Tractors

Nowhere is the ungainly Porsche Cayenne in greater abundance than in Central London. It's time to fight back against these monstrosities—with black tulips!

London's Chelsea has, as opposed to New York's version, little to do with alternative forms of human sexuality and a lot to do with conspicuous displays of consumption. Chief amongst them is the public use of large cars, especially SUV's: hence the term Chelsea Tractor for these vehicles.

The typical Chelsea Tractor is the Range Rover. While Jeremy Clarkson has argued about its merits as the perfect city vehicle—citing "when you put money in a meter, you rent an entire parking bay, so you may as well use all of it"—such a monolithic hunk of a car is a rather poor choice for Central London's narrow and cramped streets.

More troublesome than even the Range Rover is the widespread use of Porsche Cayennes, for the simple fact that while Range Rovers are great looking cars with their butch British looks, the Cayenne is a eyesore. One night, a city has even displayed an example in stretch limo form, which I fortunately did not photograph, but you get the idea.

Aside from the eponymous tractors, another major feature of Chelsea is its floral diversity. Every square foot of land not covered with Range Rovers, Cayennes or buildings has flowers sprouting in lush abandon. Random street corner parks are covered in thick swaths of wildlife and restaurant windows are planted with masses of tulips.

Which are excellent weapons against Porsche Cayennes. One only needs a photographic lens with a mild zoom, a wide aperture and the focus set to as near as possible to blot every single Cayenne into an aesthetically pleasing smudge. Observe—and reproduce (90mm, f/2.4, focused to 0.9'), at will: