The writing on the wall

Scribbles for thought

Dec 16th 2004
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A FEW years ago, drivers on the M40 Oxford-to-London road were confronted with a question. Over
a metre high, and more than 30 metres long, the painted conundrum on a fence in the Chiltern Gap
was unavoidable: “Why do I do this every day?” Hundreds of thousands of people may have
pondered the question, if not the answer. During rush hour, it read like a rebuke to the commuter's
way of life: you may have a nice house and garden, but is it worth the time you spend in traffic? At
other times, the question seemed more reflective, as though a habitual vandal had experienced a
moment of self-doubt. Speculation ceased briefly in 2003, as anti-war messages crowded out the
graffito. But the query is now back, in lurid green and black. It has even been updated: “Why do I still
do this every day?”
Public scribblings are not always provocative—or, at least, not in a good way. There is little mystery
to the common species of vandalism that consists of stylised names written over and over again until
the author becomes bored or is caught. The purpose of that is simply self-advertisement; visibility is
its own reward. But any attempt to convey something deeper is bound to intrigue. The graffito is an
odd kind of writing—at once secretive and public, immediate and obscure. The impossibility of
knowing exactly when and why messages appear, or even what they are supposed to mean, can
turn even the most banal remarks into puzzles.

The practice of writing on walls is so universal that it almost qualifies as a human characteristic. It is
done everywhere from third-world villages to affluent cities. People were scratching their names in
plaster a century ago, as a visit to many old tourist sites will confirm (indeed, for sheer
destructiveness, the Victorians are hard to beat). Graffiti adorned 18th-century Parisian lavatories,
Graffiti may even be as old as writing itself. Excavations in and around the Athenian Agora have
turned up many pots with scribbled messages on them. Some of these are ancient—older than the
plays of Aristophanes, or “The Histories” of Herodotus. At the time they were inscribed, the alphabet
was so novel that the authors struggled to shape their letters. So what did the ancient Greeks do
with this extraordinary technology, which could freeze speech and carry it across vast distances?
Some asserted ownership (“Of Tharrios I am the cup”); others wrote shopping lists. Then, very
quickly, they worked out a use for writing that seems much more modern. The turning-point came
when someone picked up a knife and scratched on his pot: “Titas the Olympic victor is a lecherous
fellow.”

Enter, the bog-house collectors

It is only by chance that scrawlings endure. They have many enemies, from political authorities
concerned about the appearance of a neighbourhood to the corrosive effects of sun and rain.
Messages written on walls are usually preserved only when somebody photographs or writes about
them, thus transferring them to a flimsier but more enduring medium. For much of history, nobody
thought it necessary to do that. Then, in 1731, a pioneering collection of graffiti appeared in London.

“The Merry-Thought: or, the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany” was, as the title suggests,
obtained mostly from public lavatories—a favourite site of graffiti-writers through the ages. The
editor, who went by the pseudonym Hurlo Thrumbo, probably did not collect all the material himself,
but relied on a network of correspondents. His mission, as he described it, was to preserve morsels
of wit from the forces of cleanliness and philistinism.

A cleanly Landlord must have, forsooth, his Rooms new painted and white-wash'd every now and then,
without regarding in the least the Wit and Learning he is obliterating... But I may venture to say, That good
Things are not always respected as they ought to be.
This was something of a pose. To judge from dates appended to some of the graffiti in “The Merry-
Thought”, 18th-century landlords did not get round to obliterating messages more than once every
ten years or so. Some survived even longer. Several fashionable hands at the time sported “writing
rings”, which had diamonds or other stones set upside-down to allow easy cutting into glass. Graffiti
thus made might last for decades.

The resilience of graffiti in Hurlo Thrumbo's day enabled banter and backchat among writers. “When
full of Pence, I was expensive, And now I've none, I'm always pensive” wrote a sad philosophe on a
Romford window. The rhyme provoked a crafty reply: “Then be at no Expence, And you'll have no
Suspence.” Two sexist verses were answered by someone who clearly disapproved—a woman,
assumes the editor. “Immodest Words admit of no Defence;” she sniffed, “For Want of Decency is
want of Sense.”

Corbis Memento mori

Excrements of wit
Women could, and frequently did, answer men's graffiti in the early 18th century for the simple
reason that they used the same outhouses. These days, men write mostly for men and women for
women, with the result that distinct graffiti “languages” have emerged. Academics, who are
surprisingly interested in this sort of thing, have proved through laborious counting that men's writing
is copious and frequently hostile, whereas women's is sparser and more idealistic. In the 18th
century, though, the knowledge that their words would be read by the opposite sex seems to have
restrained men from some of the crudeness that they are prone to these days. Some were actually
romantic: “Dear charming lovely Nancy L—r, Thou art my only Toast, I swear”, wrote one love-struck
fellow.

Women could, and frequently did, answer men's graffiti in the early 18th century for the simple
reason that they used the same outhouses
Many of the musings in “The Merry-Thought” are, however, so familiar as to be virtually eternal. One
rhyme, from a London stall, mixes contempt for other people's writings with what a psychologist
would call anal fixation:

Hither I came in haste to sh-t,

But found such Excrements of Wit,
That I to shew my Skill in Verse,
Had scarcely Time to wipe my A--e.
Similar verses were recorded two centuries later by an American lexicographer, Allen Walker Read,
whose “Glossarial study of the low element in the English vocabulary” relied on material from
America's national parks. Such latrinalia are so unchanging, in fact, that folklorists call them
“traditional” or “trite”. Along with “cute-intellectual” and “tea-room trade” graffiti (“For a good time
meet here at 5 o'clock”), they account for most of what is written on lavatory walls—which is to say,
most of what is written on walls anywhere.

It takes a great controversy to distract graffiti-writers from the pressing concerns of love, defecation
and the fortunes of the local sporting team. When political and religious passions are touched off,
though, more urgent messages begin to appear on walls. Wars, dictatorships and rebellions produce
vast quantities of graffiti, and in more public places. The point of political propaganda is, after all, not
to offend and annoy people, but to influence them. At times of great agitation, writers take such risks
to ensure their messages are seen that bravado itself can become the point of the exercise.

That happened during the Palestinian intifada of 1987-93, when the walls of the occupied West
Bank were literally fought over. Gangs of youths crept out at night to paint rebellious and sometimes
witty slogans: “Prison is for relaxation, deportation policy is for tourism, throwing stones is exercise”.
Israeli soldiers swiftly blacked out the slogans, though few of them could read Arabic. Or they used
the threat of fines to coerce the owners of walls into doing their work, which brought an immediate
response from the local scribblers: “Don't paint over graffiti voluntarily. First warning!” Thanks to the
efforts made to suppress them, graffiti became so potent that they not only expressed, but actually
created, a sense of revolutionary solidarity. Walls became dispatches from which the uprising's
progress could be read.

...and deep questionsCorbis

No group, though, has used graffiti so freely as evangelical Christians. They, too, are fighting a war
(of a spiritual kind) and regard walls simply as things on which to spread the word. This is not
surprising, given the biblical emphasis on public writing. Belshazzar's fate was spelt out by a
mysterious hand writing in plaster, “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin” (“Counted and counted, weighed
and divided”). This message, as puzzling as the best graffiti, could only be interpreted by Daniel,
who thought it portended the division of his kingdom. That mere devotees ought to follow the divine
example is made clear in Deuteronomy, where they are twice instructed to write the ten
commandments on the gates and door frames of their houses.

That injunction has been keenly obeyed, though Christians have rarely stopped at the ten
commandments, or at their own homes. “It is good for us to have His law written everywhere,”
insisted the Protestant reformer Jean Calvin. Medieval and Renaissance churches were filled with
crude crosses and autographs, many of them carved into statues and paintings of saints. Such
alterations do not appear to have been frowned upon until recently. Between the 16th and 19th
centuries, 150 messages were inscribed into the wall paintings of one church in the Italian town of
Arborio. They are so carefully cut, and the subject matter so inoffensive, that they must have been
officially sanctioned.

In the 1970s, feminist reworkings of biblical texts were a favourite: “Three wise men—are you
serious?”
Christian messages these days are spray-painted on to walls in such a crude style that they appear
more inspired than planned—which is presumably the point. Testaments of faith have become so
common that they have spawned a kind of counter-scriptural mockery. London is especially popular
for such Rabelaisia. In the 1970s, feminist reworkings of biblical texts were a favourite: “Three wise
men—are you serious?” “The birth of a man who thinks he is a god is not such a rare event”.
Another example appeared on a wall in West Kensington a few years ago. A familiar testament of
faith had been altered by the addition of a single letter: “God so loved the world that he gave his only
Sony”.

Politics and religion can even find their way into graffiti's favourite haunt, where they take on a
different and, often, more poisonous form. In the early 1970s American academics began collecting
political graffiti from the walls of university lavatories. Comparing notes, they were puzzled to find
that the vilest, most hateful epithets against blacks and gays were inscribed on the walls of
progressive institutions like Barnard, Columbia and Rutgers. At least 20% of all messages in one
study were homophobic, and 17% were anti-black. Equally oddly, though, conservative universities
in the American mid-west had hardly any offensive graffiti, and neither did all-white high schools or
bars.

Israelis vow vengeanceCorbis

That suggests walls cannot be read as though they are opinion polls. When views are
uncontroversial, they may not be written down at all, since neither taste nor law inhibits their
expression. The white toughs who hung out in neighbourhood bars 30 years ago might have happily
shouted insults such as “Go back to Africa, Nigger!” whereas a student at one liberal East Coast
college had to retreat to the men's room in order to say the same thing. He had to be alone—but not
completely alone, or there would have been no point in recording his little insult. Offensive messages
thrive when people feel their views have been suppressed by the forces of political correctness. The
lavatory wall is the manifesto of a counter-revolution that never comes.

Come back Kilroy, all is forgiven

Graffiti writing has always been more respectable than its enemies would admit. Before the era of
mass education—in most places, the 19th and 20th centuries—it must have been the preserve of
the middle and upper classes, because only their members were literate. The vulgar rhymes
anthologised in “The Merry-Thought” were scratched by men and women who could scan, and not
always just in one language: some wrote in Latin and French. In any event, it is known that some of
the writers were well-to-do, because they gave their titles. “Captain R.T.”, who wrote six lines in a
tavern near Hampton Court in 1710, was no commoner.

These days graffiti can be written by anyone. Literacy has become almost universal in the developed
world, and writing tools are cheap. Tagging—the repeated writing of names that became fashionable
in the 1970s and 1980s—is done by disreputable folk of all social classes, but it is associated with
the poor. So are the often beautiful murals that grace railway bridges and, on occasion, art galleries.
But there is a difference between these fairly novel types of graffiti and the traditional kind. People
who write their names simply want to assert their existence to others, whereas people who write
messages want to put a point across.
 Runic wisdom in OrkneyCorbis
The second attitude, of course, is typical of the most educated and confident segment of society.
That alone suggests today's scribblers may be more worthy than the graffiti they leave behind—just
as they were in the 18th century. It may be telling, too, that anti-war messages are so common:
pacifist views tend to be stronger among middle-class youth. Most suggestive of all is the decline of
graffiti. In the 1970s and 1980s cities were so full of the stuff that modern-day Hurlo Thrumbos filled
several compilations. But walls now contain fewer messages. That is partly because of more militant
scrubbing, but it is also because there is a new place where people can write anonymously, if they
have access to it: the internet. Type “bathroom humor” or “racist jokes” into a search engine, and it is
obvious where many of the offending writers have gone.

It may be that the habit of writing on walls is slowly being lost. A pity, if so: life would be neater
without graffiti, but it would also be less interesting. On the rare occasions when doodles survive for
a few centuries, they become a valuable record of past lives and, often, a tourist attraction. The
5,000-year-old chambered tomb of Maes Howe, in Orkney, is mostly famous for the runes left behind
by some 12th-century Vikings. Some of the messages are boastful: “These runes were carved by
the man most skilled in runes in the Western Ocean”. Others are whimsical. “Tholfr Kolsseinn's son
carved these runes high up”, reads one message close to the roof. There are statements of desire:
“Ingigerth is the most beautiful of women”—which would be more romantic if it were not carved next
to the image of a slavering dog. A dragon nearby has more charm.

But the most intriguing messages in Maes Howe are those about the burial chamber itself, and the
rumours of treasure that may have encouraged the raiders to break into it. One begins abruptly in
mid-sentence: “is to me said that treasure is here hidden very well”. Another is less hopeful: “It was
long ago that a great treasure was hidden here. Happy is he that might find that great treasure”.
Some of these messages seem to have been carved in 1153, when a group of Viking crusaders
stopped on their way back from Palestine. Others may have been left two years earlier, when,
according to the “Orkneyinga Saga”, two raiders took shelter in the tomb and went mad. The runes
may be honest records, revealing the hopes and frustrations of those who sought wealth on the
island. Or they may be spiteful messages intended to tease and confuse. As so often with graffiti, it
is impossible to say for sure.