Roberts’ work photographing and researching the fading remains of advertising painted on walls (a.k.a. ghostsigns) often leads to interesting questions, such as ‘what is a beanfeast?’. The full text of this Highgate sign is ‘Catering for beanfeasts, parties & clubs’. Roberts goes on to explain that “However, beans in this case aren’t the baked variety, but the accounting type. A beanfeast is a party thrown by an employer if the end-of-year ‘bean counting’ has revealed a positive set of accounts. The modern equivalent would be the Christmas party and the deployment of ‘beans’ to pay for it.”

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