BS: Good graffito

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: Leadfingers
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 09:53 AM

One I like was in a toilet of a Pub I gigged in WAY Back !!

"StarDate August 1978 - Beamed down for a slash but couldnt shake off the Klingons" .

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 09:26 AM

Rowan - more on Mr eternity including radio interview he gave in 1964

Valda Low's site Simply Australia is a wonderful resource for history & folklore

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 09:09 AM

Toilet humour eh !

It's no use standing on the seat,
The crabs in here can jump six feet.

eric

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: Splott Man
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 07:39 AM

There used to be in several locations around Richmond on Thames - "Cats like plain crisps"

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: Trevor
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 07:13 AM

Old one, on the bottom of a toilet door, just above the gap, 'Beware of the limbo dancers'.

One that's a bit crude but made me laugh 'Turds weighing more than three pounds should be lowered by hand.'

One more - '"I don't think so" said Descartes, and vanished'

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: Bainbo
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 06:47 AM

It might be better if you never find out these things, and they remain an enigma, but here's an article abou the authorship of "Far away is close at hand ..."

Far less cerebral is one which the comedian Ross Noble says he saw written in the dirt on the side of a van coming away from Dover: "Please overtake quietly - asylum seekers asleep inside."

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: John O'L
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 06:29 AM

On a toilet door at Sydney Uni many years ago:

"Death is the ultimate bludge"

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: The Walrus
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 05:27 AM

Seen on a public road through Bovington (tank training area) in Dorset
a road sign "Warning! Tanks Crossing" to which someone had added "And we're bigger than you" (not funny, but accurate).

Surely one of the more famous pieces of graffitti apopeared on a wall outside Paddington Station in letters three feet high:
"Far away is close at hand in images of elsewhere" - that was there for a few years. I believe the wall has since been demolished.

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 05:22 AM

There was that one someone painted in large letters on a railway wall not far from Paddington station, that so mazed the BR admen that they used it for their TV adverts in the 80s: "Far away is close at hand in images of elsewhere."

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: JennyO
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 04:17 AM

Oh yeah, another one comes to mind:

"I hate graffiti - I hate all Italians."

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: JennyO
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 04:12 AM

Yes, then there's the sign "Falling Rocks - Don't stop" and the answer to that one was, "No, they don't!"

Rowan - Mr Eternity, Arthur Stace, became really famous. He was born in 1884, grew up in the slums and had a hard life. In 1930 he "got religion" and decided it was his mission in life to write eternity on footpaths everywhere - story here. I remember seeing it lots of times in the early 60's. To keep his memory alive, I've seen it done on the Harbour Bridge in fireworks for the year 2000 celebrations on New Years Eve, and I've also seen it done in the sky. His style of writing it was always the same - quite distinct.

There was even a song written about him, by Jim Low - Mr Eternity - by Jim Low

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 03:37 AM

Rapaire, I no longer hang around ladies toilets since I stopped plumbing.

The best graffito I ever saw was quite famous in West Yorkshire, on a wall in All Saints Road just outside Bradford City centre, ' IT'S A MEAN OLD SCENE '

Bradford council demolished the wall to get rid of it.

It was immortalised by Pete Coe with a brilliant song called ' It's A Mean Old Scene '

eric

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: ad1943
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 03:24 AM

Arthur Stace wrote " Eternity" around Sydney in chalk and Douglas Stewart wrote a wonderful poem about Arthur Stace.


There was a bit of graffiti at Bondi which said:
" Work work work till you die...plenty more fish in the sea to fry"

Allen in OZ

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 03:03 AM

several examples I saw 25 years ago

3 words & a number on a boulder in Wooloomooloo, a harbourside suburb of inner Sydney, almost CBD. The site is now covered by a fancy block of apartments.

JOE 14
PAY UP

The other was being painted very neatly on the wall of the Indonesian consulate using a 2" brush which was wiped carefully on the tin. The writer had written MARCOS IS A when he was interrupted by a mohawk-wearing punk (this was the 70's).

They spoke briefly & the brush was handed over, jabbed into the tin, and pulled out dripping. I don't remember what the punk wrote, but it was something rude & the brush was dripping all over the wall.

tut tut, wot a mess

The brush was handed back, the owner wiped it carefully & continued A BAD MAN.

Unfortunately, the consulate folks cleaned it off the next day.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: Rowan
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 02:38 AM

While we're on Sydney graffiti, for years (and ending a few years ago now) you could be walking almost anywhere in and near the CBD and, in the most unexpected places, be confronted by a chalked "Eternity" in perfect copperplate script. The Sydneysiders among us will know the details and background of the author better than I as I was, at the time, from Melbourne.

The Bailleau Library at Melbourne Uni was built in 1958. Until 1967 the only graffiti I saw (restricting my dunny perambulations to the Gents) were;
1 on the inside of the lift (elevator to Americans) under the sign
"Self Closing Doors
Do Not Touch" was written
"Oh yes they do"
and, 2 scratched into the aluminium frame of the window of the Gents, was
"Ha! Mens sana in corpore sano."

Years ago I was driving the Sturt Highway to Adelaide from Wagga. At the intersection just south of Hay was a pair of roadhouses where I got petrol and went to the Gents for a number two. The toilets had just been repainted and the inside of the cubicle was sparkling clean and devoid of any marks except for, high up on the inside of the door,
"Zen"
Below this, in different writing, was
"How's the Harley?"

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: JennyO
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 02:14 AM

Rowan, I remember the homos and taboule graffiti. I've seen it too!

I saw some other graffiti on a wall a few years ago - from memory I think it was at Eastwood (in Sydney):

"Jesus saves --- at the Commonwealth Bank"


This one wasn't graffiti - it was an old ad, very faded, but back in the 6o's, I remember reading it many times from the train on a wall near one of the inner Sydney stations - somewhere around Newtown or Redfern. It said:

"What you eat today walks and talks tomorrow. Teagues Bread"

Any Sydneyites remember that one?

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: Joe_F
Date: 08 Jul 07 - 08:24 PM

Assholes have their uses.

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: ad1943
Date: 08 Jul 07 - 08:02 PM

In Sydney many years ago there was graffiti along the railway line near Newtown which read:

" The world is rooled by fools"


Allen in OZ

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: Bert
Date: 08 Jul 07 - 07:51 PM

Amo, Amas, A Mattress.

Found on the walls of a bathroom at the Inns of Court, London.

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: Rowan
Date: 08 Jul 07 - 07:16 PM

In Sydney many years ago there was a railway bridge that had a pair of graffiti that you'd best understand if you knew that there was a wave of eastern Mediterranean immigrants in the 60s and 70s who changed Oz eating habits for the better with items like humous, which had a very variable spelling.

On the bridge someone had written "God hates homos"
Below this, someone else had written "But she loves taboule"

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: curmudgeon
Date: 08 Jul 07 - 12:16 PM

From the men's room at the White Horse Pub in Greenwich Village, c. 1965:

"If Cunard Lines merged with Aer Lingus, it would be called..."

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 08 Jul 07 - 12:02 PM

The joke was originally - or at least in an earlier incarnation - "My mother made me a homosexual ... ", implying a MALE homosexual, thus being a play on a popluar notion in the field of psychology of the day ('40s-'60s), that an over-indulgent mother might inadvertantly "make" her son a homosexual. I don't think this notion was taken to apply to a girl-child "becoming" a lesbian (someone can correct me if I'm wrong). So, the earlier version of the joke had a little more punch.

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: Bert
Date: 08 Jul 07 - 12:01 PM

Another real old one -

"Martin Borman is the Queen Mother"

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Jul 07 - 11:50 AM

Eric, you hang out in women's restrooms much?

Subject: RE: BS: Good graffito
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Jul 07 - 11:04 AM

good...but old...

Subject: BS: Good graffito
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 08 Jul 07 - 10:34 AM

In a womens toilet someone had written " my mother made me a lesbian '

underneath was the reply, " if I send her the wool, will she make me one ? '

eric