...but is it art?

I'm not really an advocate of graffiti. For the most part it is ugly and disfiguring. I appreciate the stuff that people seem to have put some time or thought into. No one gives a monkeys if Sharon loves Kevin '4 eva' in a public toilet. In fact, I'd rather not know. I do have rather a lot of respect for 'DEAN' whoever he may be. His name features regularly on the track side of the train journey from Victoria Station to Brighton Station. Usually in some bizarre death-defying location and once, to my delight, on a massive metal box on top of a hill in a field in the middle of darkest Sussex.

I saw the best piece of graffiti yesterday in the park. There's a little canal thing that the path crosses over several times. On one of the bridges someone had chalked, "TROLL UNDERNEATH - BEWARE!" I thought that was brilliant, and it wasn't even disgustingly rude. (The type that usually amuses me!) Seeing the phrase "I shat in your mum's mouth" on the back of the chair in front of me on the train once made me laugh so much that the people around me were staring. Horribly rude, I know. But a 'your mum' insult amuses me to start with and this was the creme de la creme...

I also enjoy a good 'grubby white van' graffiti, especially as it is non-permanent and the person driving the van is for the most part unaware of it. "I thought I was white" and "I wish my wife was this dirty!" are two of the classics of this style. When I was driving up to Scotland, I saw one that rather flew in the face of all the dirt-based humour that seem to form the basis of white van graffiti. It proclaimed "I DO BUMS, I DO" and this mix of simplicity, rural dialect and randomness cracked all of us in the car up horribly to the extent of losing control of the wheel and endangering our lives. It would have been a good way to go though.