Apropos of nothing, many years ago I used to live in a flat overlooking a particularly grim underpass that was a magnet for the local Graffiti Monkeys. There was rarely an evening that went past without a small cluster of them turning up along with cans of Special Brew, and occasionally a ghettoblaster, to put in a couple of hours of hard work expressing themselves all over the drab concrete. Of course, the local council would send a clean-up team down once every month or so dressed up in Ghostbusters outfits and armed with God-knows-what kind of carcinogenic chemicals to blast it all away. Thus kindly giving the Graffiti Monkeys a much appreciated fresh blank canvas.
Now I've nothing against Graffiti Monkeys in principle. After all, when I was their age I liked nothing better than to ride shopping trolleys at breakneck speed around King's Lynn town centre. An activity that most people would judge as being equally uncouth, and moreover lacking in any kind of artistic credibility whatsoever.
However, in practice, I found it strangely infuriating. Partly because I'm the kind of person who insists on having their windows permanently open whatever the weather, and the sickly-sweet aroma of fresh spray paint wafting up into my domain tended to make me retch. And partly because I find the sound of ball bearings rattling in a can to be peculiarly infuriating. I find it as irritatingly unbearable as the sound of fingernails scraping down a blackboard, or distant car alarms, or people using words like "synergy" or "leverage" with a straight face.
Anyhow, one evening I was walking through the underpass back home, and the usual suspects were there doing their thing, but they had now been unexpectedly joined by a very earnest, arty looking middle-aged chap clutching a dictaphone and with an oversize camera hanging around his neck. I can only assume he was some species of journalist, or art critic, or academic or whatever, who was trying for whatever reason to get down with the yoof. Although the yoof themselves didn't look as if they were taking the encounter particularly earnestly. Anyhow, as I trotted past, I overheard the following conversational gem:
Very Earnest Middle-Aged Chap with Oversize Camera, waving his arms towards a particularly lurid piece of daubing : I really LOVE that piece! Did one of you guys do that?
Random Graffiti Monkey: Yeah, dude. That's one of mine.
Very Earnest Middle-Aged Chap with Oversize Camera: It's really GREAT! How long did it take you to create?
Random Graffiti Monkey: Oh, about two or three joints...
