Graffiti

Back in the 1980’s there was a baffling popular series of books by, I think, Nigel Rees, about graffiti. This was not some collection of academic tomes explaining why people feel the urge to daub their thoughts, names or marks on the public landscape, like dogs marking their territory, but rather a collection of amusing thoughts or phrases that had been left on the world in marker pen and spray pen.

So they avoided the sort of low-rent low-brow stuff you might see in urban areas, such as ‘(insert minority group here)s out’ and instead recorded things like ‘beware the dreaded limbo dancer’. The graffiti was shown in a series of cartoons and illustrations, the phrase in question being recorded at the bottom of a toilet door in a gent’s toilet (for those unfamiliar with public loos, in certain styles of toilet the door does not fit flush to the floor, rather a gap of a few inches is left. This is either designed to prevent dossers spending the night curled up on the floor of a cosy cubical or facilitate the easy passage of toilet roll from one stall to another should need press, I never quite worked out which).

With the benefit of hindsight, one can speculate if the entire contents of the book was indeed the result of painstaking research, with Mr Rees wandering the toilets of the land with pad and pen in hand. My recollection of graffiti in public toilets in the 80’s is rather less ‘don’t throw cigarette butts in the urinal, it makes them soggy and difficult to light’ and rather more ‘young cock wanted, be here at three o’clock next Tuesday’.

Graffiti has changed for sure. What used to be a simple message, showing dedication to a football team or fascist cause became a colourful expression of territory with the advent of tagging, and then the use of stencils as vandals restyled (resprayed?) themselves as artists.

At its heart though, graffiti is still about defacing something, changing it and leaving a message. That’s why the endless repetitive tags are so boring, why the self regarding social comment of a tosser with a stencil and a spray can is so bland and why something like this, a speed sign near a school defaced with a stencilled grenade at least genuinely begs the question – why did whoever did this do this and do they know that behaviour like this resulted in paperback books about graffiti moving out of the ‘humour’ section of bookshops and becoming coffee table tomes sitting shrink wrapped in the ‘art’ area?

Drinking in the dark

What, apart from the temperature of the rain, differentiates summer in England from winter in England? One answer is possibly the increase in al-fresco drinking. Many alcoholic beverages seem designed to be consumed outdoors, this is possibly a result of their being adopted to make certain summer sporting events, notably tennis, bearable and to make certain other sports, such as cricket, even more enjoyable over a sustained period of spectating and drinking (drinking from eleven in the morning to seven in the evening over a five day period may be a ‘binge’ to the nanny state, but to anyone sitting watching a test match, it’s simply supporting your country). It also makes that other summer pursuit, talking to people about roadworks at barbeques, achievable.

Warm evenings mean that one is able to stay out and up when the sun has gone down. This means that one can finally press one’s collection of garden lighting, scented candles and so on into service, having the twin effect of giving enough light to drink by and drawing off any mosquitoes that have a taste for 20% proof O Negative.

After dark, any garden becomes a secret garden, and nothing adds a warm rosy glow like candlelight and booze. On a clear night one can sit underneath a canopy of stars (or, if you live in the city, a sort of fuzzy orange glow), fumbling for the last of the beer bottles swimming in the tub of tepid water that used to be a tub of ice like a poacher ticking trout.

Al fresco drinking also means that you can finally use that garden furniture that, hitherto, has either been hidden under the snow or stuck in the shed. Warning: a combination of comfortable garden furniture and making use of a blanket to eek out a few more minutes of nocturnal imbibing can result in you waking up with a start at three in the morning to be confronted by, depending on where you live, a puzzled fox or inquisitive deer.

G&P disclaimer on al-fresco drinking: if you drink cold white wine on a hot day while sat in an open space listening to songs in a foreign language, you are middle class. If you are drinking warm cider from a plastic bottle on a park bench listening to your companion muttering in an accent so thick it has actually crossed a linguistic line and become another language, you need to get up, get a bath and sort yourself out. Alternatively you are a teenager and you need to stop wearing so much eyeliner, stop texting and stop looking so bloody sullen.

Green and pleasant land

The sunny Spring and wet Summer may have played merry hell with the cricket schedule (although given the years of training that the ‘Test Match Special’ team have had in talking about just about anything other than cricket, they were perfectly placed to bring the same world-class professionalism to bear on the ground staff rushing on and off with the covers that they do with the batting and bowling and to make it just, if not more, exciting), but it’s turned the garden into a den of plump lusciousness. My lawn has never looked so lush, nor the plants so…much like an out-of-control hedgerow.

While Jeremy, my vine, is looking promising, the tomato plants (grown from grafts, which is the plant equivalent of adopting a child once they are old enough top drive and buy you a pint, so getting around all that tedious business of raising them) are positively blooming. They are now taller than me, leading to my erecting a Heath Robinsonesque framework of bamboo and garden twine, anchoring the plants and keeping them upright. This is tricky, as they are loaded with plump tomatoes.

I put the growth down to their being grafts, regular watering, regular feeding and the blood of the odd stray cat.

I have a variety of plants, one grows traditional plump red toms, the other cherry tomatoes and yet another yellow tomatoes – and just out of interest how the hell know when they are ripe?

Ripening visibly are the grapes on Jeremy. They are turning from green to black and this year there’s a better than even chance that I will actually be able to harvest them. Previously, they have ripened and provided a feast for the local squirrels (or, as the Daily Mail would describe them, immigrants) but this year the cat population appears to have reached the tipping point where they have kept the grape guzzling critters at bay.

So this could be the year for wine. At last. This could be the year where the romance of wine making – throwing a load of fruit and chemicals into a plastic bucket, keeping it warm and hoping to Christ that it doesn’t explode or rot or result in the neighbours dobbing you in as brewing up a chemical attack – could result in something drinkable or at least the sort of thing that will remove stubborn stains.

What’s required, of course, is a decent name. Vin something and, in expectation of the taste, the front runner is Vin Diesel. I rather like Vin Shed also, or is that Vin Petit Chatau, or plain old Vin Shitoh! That said, why bother with any poncy French merde at all – I rather like ‘shedwine’, it hints of the exotic, a taste of porn and creosote.

Pop up fun

There are, I have read (in the trendier left leaning newspapers and magazines that I do not of course buy, but find in the better class of train carriage or clap clinic waiting room), about pop up restaurants.

Pop up restaurants are not, it would appear, giant three dimensional cookbooks with seating for thirty and a turbulent chef hidden in the index, but rather restaurants in unusual places. Disappointingly, what is considered ‘unusual’ in these circumstances is anywhere well ventilated, spacious and in a trendy postcode.

When I hear ‘pop up restaurant’, I have certain expectations. I want to open doors to the most unusual places, I want to open the door to trap three of a public lavvie and find a candlelit table, two chairs and a hot plate there, or be climbing a tree, mountain or loft ladder and find a place at the top renowned for doing interesting things with ducks.

Of course, for those of us in the real world, we have known about pop up restaurants for years. They are layby cafes and they serve up the very best in greasy baps and tea.

Why though, draw the line at pop up restaurants? I rather like the idea of pop up libraries, swimming pools (okay, ambitious that one), cinemas (already being done through mobile cinemas), film studios (the next logical step) and, already here, pop up theatre in the form of site-specific theatre…but site specific theatre that you’d actually want to see – for instance you slip into your chair at your check-out for a nine hour shift and next to you is played out not some bloody monologue about feminist bar codes, but rather a feel-good musical rom-com! With lasers. And sequins.

Read, and hear, all about it

Now that we have a bit of distance from the ‘phone hacking scandal, it’s clear to see that the whole bloody disgraceful affair is even worse than anyone thought. The thing was like one of those news shots of a natural disaster, such as a flood, you start out focusing on one bloke on the roof of his house and pull back to eventually reveal that shitty water stretches from horizon to horizon. Such a toxic lake has engulfed News International.

Back when the News Of The World phone hacking scandal engulfed people in film and television, the public took the suffering of glamorous people with a pinch of salt or stardust. The second, and I mean the second, it transpired they had hacked the ‘phone of Milly Dowler, you could almost sense a mood of national disgust. Like a mass tequila burp.

The players in the pantomime, NI execs, lined up to be castigated. What was interesting is that while the Murdochs and Rebecca Brooks-Wade have power, money and influence, nobody seems to envy them, and this is not just because they are now about as popular as meningitis, but rather because despite working in, despite actually being, the media, they lack glamour. More than that, they have reverse glamour. They are successful in the same way that Sauron was successful in Lord of the Rings. Undoubtedly powerful, but not someone you’d admire, and prone to torturing hobbits. And RBW looks like Lady Macbeth. A dragged-up Lady Macbeth from an all-tranny production, but Lady Macbeth all the same.

What was fascinating was that when news broke that David Cameron had had dinner at Christmas with RBW and Jeremy Clarkson, the response was not ‘how fabulous’ but rather ‘that’s the winning entry in the ‘name the dinner party from hell’ competition’.

In a desperate effort to deflect attention away from the phone-hacking scum at News International, News International have mounted a spirited ‘they’re all at it defense’ in the apparent belief that guilt is somehow diminished if shared. They want to see any enquiry widened to take in all the media (i.e. their competition too).

Will this include local press? Do they want to see the editor of the Titchwell Gazette giving evidence? That should be a hoot, perhaps that will allow the profession to restore some confidence and pride in the profession by explaining the art of gathering confidential information by propping up the bar at the Sheep Worrier's Arms like a traditional journo.

Shine a light

In a fit of misguided horticultural enthusiasm as few years ago, I invested in a half dozen solar powered lanterns for the garden. I figured that we were at least five years away from genetically modifying plants to the extent that they would actually glow in the dark, so if I wanted garden lighting in the meantime, I had to get some hardware.

I have, on the whole, greatly enjoyed my little garden lanterns. I’m not sure whether they act as a deterrent for garden pests such as foxes, or whether the animals, instead of being driven away by the little circles of light, instead appreciate some lighting to see exactly where they are crapping, but it was fun at night to look out of the window and see the little twinkles (lights, not a slang term for foxes in the act of crapping).

A few summers of rain and winters of frost and snow took their toll however, and as of last autumn the solar panels were misted over and the rechargeable batteries denuded. My lanterns were nothing more than metal mushrooms sticking up from the edge of my lawn.

That was until a few weeks ago where, as a result no doubt of an unseasonably warm and sunny spring…one twinkled back into life. Excited beyond measure, I bought some fresh rechargeable batteries, gave the solar panels a wipe and awaited the result…which was a half dozen lanterns shining brightly.

That one lantern survived the winter is a very cheering thought, that all the rest did also makes me happier than anyone as raddled by wine and cheese as I has a right to be, but that I now have my lanterns back for the cost of a packet of batteries has me grinning every dusk as they wink on. It may be one step away from floodlighting the place like a goods marshalling yard but if it were up to me I’d have a dozen more of the things. As it is, I have restricted myself to the solar powered fairy lights that wind around my shed and which, in turn, my vine has wound around, so that come the evening it takes on the appearance of a plant glowing in the dark. Who needs GM?

Scooter Park

Off to the village school summer fete. I thought that it was a joke when I was informed that there was a bar there. In fact, it wasn’t true. There were two bars, one flogging Pimms and lemonade, the other doing a roaring trade in beers. These already very popular refreshment tents (nobody drinks like a parent, want to know why? Spend ten minutes in the company of a child who has access to haribo) became even more popular when the rain came on. Naturally, as the school fete was being held on an English summer’s day, the rain was biblical.

It was, on the whole, cathartic.

‘Wet play’ at school was something of a drag, playtime traditionally being the time where there would be a tremendous release of all that energy that had been pent up daydreaming through a maths class. Not being able to tear round the playground pretending to be a Spitfire and instead being confined to a classroom with two dozen other fusty kids who smelled mostly of kids parka, but in an enclosed space, watching the windows steam up, is hardly the sort of stuff that is going to make it into the pages of ‘First period at Chalet School’.

More like misery lit.

But standing in a school playground watching the deluge while drinking beer…ahhhhh, this was much more enjoyable. Suddenly it became clear why so many teachers drink, it’s not just because they have a shit job, it’s because they had a shit time at school the first time round and by encountering it all again but amiably hammered, certain ghosts are laid.


Many of the kids had obviously come on that popular kiddie form of transport, the scooter. I was particularly pleased to see them parked up near a rail in the schools scooter park, looking for all the world like tiny tot versions of cowboy horses tethered at the saloon rail.

What I really liked was that I noted the same number of scooters coming out of the fete as I noticed going in there. Scooter theft from schoolkids must be one of the lowest crimes, and typified by a fat chav bending the board of a scooter, shooting sparks from the pavement, as he tries to make off with it.

This must go beyond a simple social compact not to steal a kids’ toys, I think this has to symbolise a recognition about the sort of thing that happens to people in prison who are convicted of scooter theft. Nonces and peados are one thing but somebody who is banged up in Strangeways for stealing a scooter, possibly from a disabled kiddy, has invited a special kind of hell.

So, you can leave your scooter in confidence that the nonces, the peados and the scooter sniffers will not touch it, all you have to worry about is another kid making off with your bespoke Barbie pink or Action man Camoflage scooter when the temptation becomes too much.

Protest camping...Pramping?

Camping. It’s very popular, apparently. Of course, it’s always been popular with outdoorsy types, and poor people. But as the recession has bitten deeper, it’s also become popular with families who have worked out that the airport tax that it costs to get their three kids onto a flight to somewhere sunny will keep the parents in enough decent chardonnay to numb the pain of having to spend two weeks in a field with a dozen other families all coming to terms with the fact that in order to be able to help their kids with university fees, they are going to be spending less time sunning themselves and more time wondering why the shower block doesn’t have complimentary Molton Brown toiletries, and trying to out-do one another with barbeque marinades (my tip…lard, simple, elegant, and nothing says ‘campsite feast’ quite like the smell of frying lard).

By 2010, a holiday under canvas could be categorized thus:

Camping. Heavy canvas tents, featured in ‘Carry On’ movies, tents with a sense of history, the sorts of tents that the Empire pitched in jungles and artic wastes, the sort of tents a scout master was disgraced in, with guy ropes that are set like booby traps to trip the unwary. In recent years, advances in camping technology mean that entire tents are now made out of the same material that cagools used to be made out of, making them light, waterproof and ensuring that the inside of the tent usually has the same smell that the inside of a cagool.

Wild camping, used to be called trespassing, different to camping because while it still takes place in a farmer’s field, there's no stand pipe in the corner, just a cattle trough. (Nearby salt lick likely to deter middle class families on low sodium diets).

Glamping, a recreation favoured by middle class parents who can no longer afford to take their children abroad or the even more expensive alternative: centre parcs. Glamping offers the promise of a stay in a decent B&B or a boutique hotel. This is, of course, complete bollocks as, even if you stay at a Travelodge, your stay is unlikely to feature you treading in cow-shit as you make your way to a stinking toilet block in the dead of night. A tent is a tent, deal with it, be honest with yourself and embrace camping – it’s easy, just strike up a conversation with your camp-site neighbour about your journey to the site, sustaining a conversation about the perils of this countrys’ A roads for three hours before drinking enough wine to allow you to sleep despite your wife’s muffled sobbing and your eldest child’s stubborn refusal to exit the car. At all.

Festival camping - does not really count. Camping is all about pitching your tent, fetching your water, cooking your dinner and brushing your teeth in a communal toilet block next to a bloke who you are pretty sure sneaks looks at your wife’s breasts when he thinks nobody’s looking. It’s also about waking at dawn in the countryside far from the cares and distractions of the pantomime that passes for real life and having a cup of tea in complete silence before the business of the day – a punch up with your lusting neighbour and trying to tempt your kid out of the car – begins. It is not spending ten seconds sproinging your pop-up tent into existence, hoisting one of those fluttery pennants above it so that you can find your way back, realizing that every other bugger has a pennant just like yours and so fixing your position using GPS on your smart phone, then going and getting wasted for three days, doing all your sleeping in hedges or the St John’s Ambulance recovery tent/chill out lounge.

Previously, those were your choices. Let me add another:

Pramping - protest camping.

The tented village on Parliament Square has been forced from the grass on to the pavement. This, I suppose, tests the convictions of the protesters as it's one thing to camp on grass, but a different proposition entirely to pitch your tent on paving slabs six inches away from a bloody big bus belching diesel fumes. Also, it's harder to dig a latrine pit through concrete. I have always been perversely proud of the peace camp outside parliament, when it was a single bloke but bloody hell, a whole village?

One can’t help but have the sneaking suspicion that while Brian Haw was a committed protestor who embodied much that was great about England – taking a stand, commitment to a cause he considered just, defiance of authority – and while his presence there was a living embodiment of the other great English values – tolerance and fair play (can you imagine a protestor trying that in North Korea, or Italy? At least when they turned the water cannon on it would put out the flames from the burning encampment), I can’t help but wonder if any of the other campers are not so much there to protest but rather saving on a hotel room and spending their money on tickets for Madam Tussauds and the Phantom of the Opera.

I walked past the other day and there were so many tents I was wondering if there was some sort of festival on.

Pramping is, I think, here to stay. And I’d like to see more of it. We have many gorgeous civic buildings in this country, seats of power crafted by Victorian architects. But what those tall towers, high windows and splendid cornices need to set them off is a little village of tents in primary colours outside each one. Pissed off with your council cutting libraries? Pramp! Annoyed that your parish council have chosen to ignore your plea for a bus shelter with a roof for the third year running? Pramp! And why draw the line at democratic institutions? Who the fuck organises ‘Britain in bloom’ and why has your village never won? Pramp! Camelot…every week you buy a ticket but have you ever won? Ever had a sniff? No? Pramp!

And as for the ticket prices at Glastonbury…actually, no, your protest would, I’m pretty sure, go unnoticed.

Say no more

They’re gone!

Is it a conscientious cleaner? Or is it a message. If so, what kind of message, a warning perhaps that this platform is no longer a safe place to trade cryptic confection communications?

Certainly some spook shuffling around in a wide brim hat and raincoat with the collar turned up, or a bummer, is a more likely bet than at railway employee with a rubbish bag and a spare half hour to beautify the station.

Or maybe I do the platform staff a disservice. The village station stop is by no means an inner city hub, where the litter consists mainly of sleeping tourists and tramps, so the errant crisp packet dancing in the breeze does rather stick out. I’m prepared to bet that the staff would leave the wrappers there as a temporary art installation until professional pride overcame art appreciation and they trashed the lot. At least they didn’t simply rearrange the lot to confuse the intended recipient.

I shall miss the colourful collection of wrappers. Not to the extent that I would want to add to them though, I am much more a folded fag packet sort of chap but I thought that in an age of communication saturation, where everyone is constantly communicating yet not really saying anything that it was interesting to see something that was public yet coded, highly visible yet narrowly understandable, and more letter than litter.