A little diversion

[Grommit]

Graffiti
Having watched a television programme recently which was examining the cave paintings of Neolithic man and presumably woman the thought occurred to me that really it could be described as graffiti.

Just imagine, having found himself a nice dry cave to live in, Neolithic man builds himself a fire to keep the place warm, goes out with his spear and a few mates to hunt down some poor dinosaur and drag it back to cook it only to find, when he gets back, that the fire has gone out and half a dozen teenage Neoliths have drawn animals all over his walls upsetting the whole Feng Shui of his cave. A few thousand years later, these drawings are drooled over by experts and viewed as a glimpse into the past

So how would they feel if the modern day graffiti artists entered their newly decorated barn conversions and used the spray paint cans to draw on the wall pictures of space rockets, baked bean cans and London Routemasters?

Every area in the UK has graffiti sprayed somewhere. Gawdy squirts of paint covering subway walls, derelict buildings, railway bridges and arches. We have one in our area who goes by the name of Fisto. Why Fisto I hear you ask. In an interview, when they caught him, he said that it was a mistake because he had found an unmarked wall and wanted to spray First on it, realised he had left out the R and added an O instead. I just wonder if it was a genuine mistake on his part or whether it is an indictment of the modern education system when, after 11 years of schooling, he was unable to spell First.

Thinking about spelling brings me to the ancient Egyptians, after all Graffiti almost looks like the name of an Egyptian Pharaoh. Their tombs and temples were covered in hieroglyphics and very difficult to decipher. A bird, wavy lines, a man with feathery hat stood sideways, a couple of pots and a boat, they are all are at the very top of pillars and run right down to the bottom. I suppose the ones at the bottom of the pillar could be called loweroglyphics.

It must have taken the stone mason ages to do them and imagine the despair if he missed a symbol out half way down and had to do it all again.

There is no reference in my book (Noddy’s First Book of Egyptian Symbols) to any graffiti in Ancient Egypt and I put that down to the fact that carrying a hammer and chisel about late at night and the noise made chipping away bits of stone would wake the Palace Guard and lead to a quick arrest. Paint was hard to get hold of as most of it was used to decorate the Pharaoh’s face or used on papyrus to advertise Mustapha’s Pizza Palace and Take Away and posted through any part of the Egyptian house that was open.

Finally, we do not seem to have moved very far from Ancient Egypt whose people wrote on walls and worshipped cats. Just look at Facebook.

[annie]

Another witty and clever piece of prose Derek than999

[wendy]

I entirely agree with you about facebook, lol

[maureenho]

It's so true what you say about facebook than999