Yeah ok I confess!!! I LOVE graffiti. 

Well, not the modern sort that is simply vandalism but I quite appreciate the angular artistic Picasso sort adorning walls around the city.

I also find it interesting, as I drive along busy roads, that so often those who have a political message can’t spell…

I saw one across a road bridge that had been done with scant respect for damage to life and limb. Whoever did it would have had to hang upside down with a spray can in hand to declare that “FASHEST YUGOSLAVIA GET OUT OF”¦

I didn’t get to the end of the message but it did make me think about graffiti.

I have, over a long time, become a connoisseur when it comes to the writings on the walls of the world.

Not so much the crude ones, although some are just brilliant, like the one I will always remember seeing in the tiniest letters on the bottom of a toilet door.

It was necessary to lean right down to read it – and the tiny message informed me that I was now s*****g at an angle of 45 degrees. I confess it took me a couple of minutes of screaming laughter to recover, something which must have startled anyone in nearby cubicles.

It seems that inside everyone there lies a brilliant wit, suppressed to the point where the owner is reduced to shyly writing the message on out of the way walls before fleeing with pencil, paint brush or spray can in hand.

Way back in Melbourne there was a controversial statue called optimistically by its creator “Vault”. It was sort of several flat slabs leaning on each other and was bright yellow. I obviously wasn’t the only one that thought it looked like several slices of Kraft cheddar as someone wrote “I hate cheese” in black letters across it.

When I worked in the city, I became a real connoisseur of the writings on the walls.

Along one city lane I saw a painted message proclaiming that “Humpty Dumpty was pushed” and underneath in smaller letters in another hand was, “So what, Mona Lisa was framed.

Genius.

I also loved the one over an automatic hand dryer in a toilet that read, “press button for a 60 second policy speech from Jacinta Allen“.

Religion always seems to inspire graffiti that becomes a conversation. Under a message telling “Wogs GO HOME” was one that topped it simply saying “Jesus was a foreigner too“.

“Jesus is dead” written neatly on a wall had huge letters under it proclaiming “OH NO I’m NOT!“

But my absolute favourite, on a Catholic seminary, told to me by a priest friend was:

“and Jesus said to them who do you say that I am.” The reply was, “you are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning in our interpersonal relationships””¦. “And Jesus said”¦. What??“

I bet he did.

In a doctor’s surgery – “my fracture is not what it’s cracked up to be” … and – “I wouldn’t be paranoid if people didn’t pick on me” … in the art centre, “I’d give my right ear to be able to paint like Van Gogh” …

On a wall the city – “Cinderella married for money – she reaslly  ut her foot in it” …

Sign near a school “Drive safely don’t kill a child” … in texta and childlike writing – “yeah wait for a teacher“.

I admit it I am a lover graffiti of this type. It’s sad that some of the most brilliant wit is hidden away in dark alleys and behind toilet doors because laughter is so good for us and we need all the fun out of life we can get.

So, if you are one of those who have written, in alley ways or dunny doors – thankyou, there is at least one person in the world who really appreciates your work.