‘Apelles the chamberlain ate here most agreeably and had a shag at the same time’.
When excavating the Roman ruins at Herculaneum, archaeologists found the above bit of waggery scrawled on a tavern wall, along with a lot of other crude and/or witty graffiti to boot. Which all goes to prove that graffiti have been around for a long time.
I’ve always enjoyed a bit of cod philosophy that someone’s taken the trouble to inscribe.
Favourites of mine include ‘beware of homosexual limbo dancers’ (at the foot of a toilet cubicle door), and ‘drinking Border Ales is like making love in a punt; it’s fucking close to water’ (on a urinal wall in Wales). And who couldn’t appreciate the legendary ‘Kilroy was here’, to which was added ‘Heisenberg might have been’?.
Oh for the good old days, when graffitists knew their place and largely confined their observations on life to bog walls, contributing something for the rest of us to enjoy while taking a dump.
Nowadays we seem to have an ‘angry brigade’ of very chippy, charmless cunts who scribble their anti-social bile anywhere. Recent examples I’ve spotted on the side of buildings include the amusing ‘Burn the Police’ and ‘Free Housing for All’ (seems like a sound economic model). I also enjoyed ‘All Coppers are Barstards (sic)’, and the hilarious ‘Covid-19 = Capitalism: LO’ (??).
It’s cold and heartless. Where’s the wit or the irony?
Even worse, given the advent of aerosol sprays, graffiti has become a nasty, wide-spread mess. ‘Community artists’ think they’re enhancing the local environment by spraying their gruesome ‘logos’ about. Then you’ve got the Picasso wannabees who deface any bit of wall space with their crazy, lurid murals.
I don’t know, maybe I’m getting old, but I don’t recall graffiti ever being so pervasive, so in your face, as it is now. It used to be a bit of fun. Now it’s just a cretinous eyesore. Fuck it, and the vandals responsible for it.
Nominated by: Ron Knee
Eamon Holmes and his pigeon toes
