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Graffiti

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22:55 / 17.05.05

Travelling around today on a mini-bus with work, I spotted two pieces of graffiti, one a Banksy or Banksy style doorway piece, which had a whole Watchmen thing going on. The othere was in a pub in Camden which said "If you work for [some company name I can't remember] ask for a pay rise, oh and also see if you can find me a picture of a stoat driving a truck, Jim". A step up from the usual (but nonetheless classic) penis close to a singers mouth. Also Tooting station has a whole collection of graffiti pieces, one of them is very good, some of the others aren't so great. While working in Italy I noticed that graffiti seems more common (in Rome at least) - is there something more respectful because of the historical link of graffiti being used as a voice for the people in ancient times? So anyway, rather than start a thread in the art section about the artistic qualities of graffiti, and the social implications of its uses, I decided to chuck this in conversation with;

What was the last piece of graffiti you saw/read?

ANyone wanting to touch on the other areas, feel free.

23:06 / 17.05.05

I pass the four horsemen of the apocolypse almost everyday.

23:34 / 17.05.05

in shoreditch, a stencil: Advertising shits in your head.

In Rome there is more graffiti than London, because london is more uptight, has more people cleaning up all the time, more CCTVs, harsher sentences for graffiti artists, etc etc. I have been to Rome (2 years ago) and I was waiting for a train, and when it got there I couldnt stop laughing. I dont think there was a single spot that wasnt spray painted. And it was all good too.

In London there is a nice big graffiti-mural if you go up edgeware road where it turns into kilburn high road and keep going up.

Any other places in London with good graffiti I should see?

23:38 / 17.05.05

cheerful whistling permitted

high on a wall in an alley...

23:50 / 17.05.05

On what must be hundreds of locations on lightpoles, underpasses, and utility poles around my suburb, the three characters I [HEART] U, in bright red.

These have been up at least since I moved here, two years ago. The time and effort it took to put up so many tags must've been phenomenal. To my knowledge, town officials have never done anything to clean any of the graffiti away—and really, why would they? It's like downtown has been hit by a love-bomb: it puts a sly, conspiratorial grin on my face every time I go driving.

23:58 / 17.05.05

Near London Bridge tube, in what looks suspiciously like, erm, human fluid;

'I don't know if I really can marry Benny, after all.'

Signed by someone called 'Going back to Cali, frikkin' A !'

I'm sure it's a coincidence though.

00:14 / 18.05.05

Alex said:"in what looks suspiciously like, erm, human fluid"

Um, not to be dense, but, um, well, I guess I am sort of dense. By "human fluid" do you mean semen? That's what I figured it would mean, but it seems difficult to write all that in semen and to make it readable and all, which made me wonder if you meant some other human fluid, like blood.

alejandrodelloco

00:17 / 18.05.05

I've been putting up a stencil with this image:

I also saw one of BORF's latest ones on a sign over the beltway. (Washington, DC)

01:08 / 18.05.05

Blood.

06:52 / 18.05.05

Near my house under one of those Sky adverts with the tagline "what do you want to watch today?" someone had written in giant letters "Channel 4". But then upsettingly the hoarding got torn down.

lonely as a cloud...

07:06 / 18.05.05

On a wall I pass on my way home from work, someone had written in purple, over previous graffiti relating to the I.R.A. (note: this is in Dublin), "Nationalism is a myth". Which I found kind of sad and ironic, though I wholly agree with what I think the sentiment was...

09:42 / 18.05.05

This morning, the word "FAFUFA" on the side of a Londis caught my eye. It appeared as if someone had tried to remove the graffiti.

I wonder what a FAFUFA is. It sounds like an oddly-shaped exotic fruit.

11:00 / 18.05.05

We have 'Be Warned: The Future Doesn't Need Us' scrawled across some hoardings in front of a disused petrol station nearby.

I have a suspicion it's less profound than it first appears...

16:35 / 18.05.05

On the way home from work ,opposite the wax museum (dublin),
I used to see a billboard (for ?) with the "MORDEN AND FRAN SOCIETY FOR LOVE" painted over it in massive red letters.
The billboard lay down the side of a building of flats what I wondered was how they achieved this; ladders or possibly para-gliding. At the same time being touched by the sentiment, of course.

Sliding away from the touching, behind the toilet door of my secondary school scrawled in a blue marker was "Star date 20.45.88 no bog role. The Klingons have won again"

18:25 / 18.05.05

Spongebob Squarepants. On the side of a junior school.

21:51 / 04.06.05

Some more graffiti,
Be Warned the Future Doesn't Need, is up there is it the same one Doozy?

PicturesOnWalls

04:05 / 05.06.05

Two things, etched in cement....

One is "I [heart] Pie" and the other is my first name, properly spelled, in eight inch letters. I need to get photographs of both of those things....

04:58 / 05.06.05

On a bus stop, the other day;

'FLYBOY VOTED FOR U.K.I.P. !

IT WAS THE BEST DECISION AT THE TIME !

LOOK, IF THIS COUNTRY'S EVER GOING TO GET BACK ON IT'S FEET AGAIN...'

I don't mind telling you, dear Barbelith, that when I saw that, I shed a small tear.

Darumesten's second variety

08:04 / 05.06.05

Last piece of graffiti from a friend of mine ( photos taken with mobile camera so looks like crap .. )

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:59 / 05.06.05

Cistern- dunno if it's the same one as Doozy's talking about, but the "Be Warned..." graffiti on that site is near my house...

21:19 / 05.06.05

Yup, that's the 'Be Warned' graffiti I was talking about on that site - I feel touched by fame. Stoatie, you must live pretty near me which is slightly odd...Did you see when they closed the garage behind that hoarding, the guys stuck up a massive "Gone fishing..Forever!" sign? I wonder if they're behind the graffiti...

21:39 / 05.06.05

Thanks, curiousity sated.

paranoidwriter waves hello

22:45 / 05.06.05

Near my house, painted on a curb in simple red letters: "BE BETTER"

When I'm out and about I often take the small detour to see it, and the other day I had to laugh after I got annoyed because someone had parked in front of it.

My all time favourite toilet graffiti has to be this collaborative effort:

(In red pen) I f**ked your Mom
(In blue pen) Go home Dad, you're drunk.

The simple ones are the best.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

23:05 / 05.06.05

The walls of Barna are very garrolous. Seen on the side of a yellow post-box on Saturday night: leemos para saber que no estamos solos (we read to know that we are not alone).

23:25 / 05.06.05

"Restriction nucleases 4-eva"

That's by far the best thing I've ever seen written on a bathroom wall. I recognize a kindred spirit.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

23:36 / 05.06.05

[Almost, but not quite, entirely off topic] Is it really lame to contemplate taking up TEH STICKERAGE!1!! when you're 31, and your sole venture into street art has consisted of blacking out someone's teeth in an advertising poster whilst waiting for the Isle of Wight ferry when you were 7?[/OT]

paranoidwriter waves hello

23:49 / 05.06.05

It's more lame to think about it and NEVER do it.

Tryphena Absent

23:35 / 07.06.05

Would anyone object to moving this to Art, Fashion and Design? I think it would sit well there and grafitti is art too!

07:39 / 08.06.05

in debeauvoir somewhere:

free the krays

in big blue letters

and in shoreditch:

my other bike is your mom

13:54 / 08.06.05

"Hetero's go Homo!!" genuis

08:42 / 09.06.05

"the things you buy kill me"

just below gibson street, glasgow.
next to two big humanoid figures that look like their artist got interrupted.

i like the double meaning.

11:28 / 09.06.05

I still fondly recall 'Mum is a basterd' done in pencil in the shopping streets of Dundee suburb, Broughty Ferry.

She is if she took you shopping there, son.

14:08 / 09.06.05

On a bus stop along my morning route:

Next time, leave your name.

I'm enjoying wondering about this.

14:24 / 09.06.05

Around the corner from my flat:

This is hell and we can't leave.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:04 / 09.09.05

Today I saw the shittest graffiti ever.

In the first-floor toilets in our office, someone has written the name of the sodding company on the wall in biro. Now that's pretty shit. Unless they're trying to start a turf war with the other companies in the block- that'd be kind of cool.

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