venta | Beneath the words of wisdom and the slogans of despair, someone's gone and written "I'm Sorry" there

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Beneath the words of wisdom and the slogans of despair, someone's gone and written "I'm Sorry" there

For some years, the M40 has sported one of my favourite locations for graffiti. I'm not sure when I first noticed it - travelling on the coach from Oxford to London, or when I started driving, I imagine - but there it was, plastered across a fence just before the junction with the M25.

It's a pannelled fence and in childish writing, one letter per panel, it read "Why do I do this every day?". Further along, in block capitals, was possibly my all-time favourite graffito "EAT MORE PEAS!". I don't actually like peas, but something about being given dietary advice by a motorway fence appealed to me. Later someone added in glossy, white letters "Jesus, Prince of Strife".

Then a few years ago, it all changed. The question was replaced with the insistent "Why do I still do this every day?", in the same childish writing on a grass-green background. It obliterated the peas, and ate into the edge of Jesus.

For a long time, I thought it was sad. The persistent plea of a tired commuter, sick to death of the M40 but tied to a job that required it. Then I realised that actually, there must be thousands of such weary commuters, and only one with the time, energy and resources to lug a large quantity of paint up a hill and trumpet his (or her) dissatisfaction with the status quo. Maybe others had thought about it, but none had actually done it. The determination in itself transforms them from the humdrum commuter they claim to be.

The other week, though, it was all change again. A new slogan adorns the fence. In giant, bulgy 3D capitals it now reads "NEW TEAM SUPREME". I'm sure a different hand has been at work; maybe they're just announcing their claim of the fence. I look forward to developments.

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I never fail to think of that line when going from the A14 onto the M6 at the M6/M1/A14 junction, which for obvious reasons I used to do fairly often.

Also, I can't think of any songs the M6 is mentioned in apart from two by NMA. Something wrong there.

M6 South-bound roadside cafe on a wild, wet, and windy night ?

(Is that the one you meant, or is that a third ? I'm sure there's another that I can't think of.)

That's the one, yes. Family.

Ah. I've tracked down the idea that was hovering on the edge of my brain for a third. I'm wrong.

Incidentally, is the new album any cop ? I failed to notice its release, ordered it, and have been outwitted by the postal strike. I wasn't overwhelmed by Carnival, so am hoping for better.

Not bad. Not that different from Carnival, IMO. SOme nice stuff.

The real NMA find recently has been the two new songs on the BD3 EP, which are compulsory buys if you're a fan.

Ooh, no, not aware of them... I'll get on the case.

Good heavens, the M62 manages two songs that I can think of (It's Immaterial and Doves), and that's only 40 miles long.

I don't know the Doves one. What's it called?

'M62 Song', imaginatively enough. It's on The Last Broadcast.

The road isn't mentioned in the song lyrics, the closest reference being "Look into the stars as cars go by" - so I suppose it's possible that it actually refers to the M62 nebula...

Just found It's Immaterial on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6Nclc1693w). I've not heard it before.

I'm not sure how much mileage there is in a "songs which mention motorways" thread. Though I expect I'll spend the rest of the day trying to think of them.

I've got both the 7" and 12" versions (and one of their albums) - if you want to hear the longer version LMK, it's very cool indeed.

Great song that! I love the very simple vocal harmony in the chorus.

Erm... Bill Bragg did one about the A13, does that count? And there's 2-4-6-8 Motorway... I think that's me done now.

I'm not sure the A13 is a motorway :)

Though tonight I have to try and find time to listen to The Flat Earth, because I can't online find the text of Thomas Dolby's rant which he breaks into in White City. Something about the A55(?) being a fucking terrible road, before he starts waffling about undulating, ovulating countryside.

The English Motorway System by Black Box Recorder

"The English motorway system is beautiful and strange
It's been there forever, it's never going to change"

(as used as the epigraph of Park and Ride by Miranda Sawyer)

Aha, yes, of course. And also St Etienne 'Like a Motorway', how could I forget.

"She said her life
Was like a motorway --
Dull, grey and long --
'Til he came along."

Apologies for coming back to post on such an old thread (I was randomly browsing back through

venta's journal), especially with such a boring comment, but surely the M62 is in fact more like 85 miles long?

It goes all the way from Hull until it turns into the M60 just outside Manchester. Or indeed in the opposite direction:

http://www.toporoute.com/cgi-bin/getSavedRoute.cgi?routeKey=BFBAEJJAYKCUKNL

That'll teach me to believe what I hear in It's Immaterial song lyrics! I guess they must have meant it was 40 miles on it from Leeds to Manchester, or something.

(And yes, you definitely win some sort of prize, although I'm not sure quite what ;-)

Noooooooooooo! Have they painted over the old one?

Sadly, yes.

That's just wrong.

We should gather a gang and go and put it back.

No. We should gather a gang and put up something new. I don't think you can reinstate things like graffiti, it'd never be the same.

But what if that was not writen by a harrased commutor - but by somebody else mocking/attempting to awaken in them the sense of "why are you still doing this". Is that better or worse?

Worse, definitely. I'd considered that, but always thought they'd have asked "Why do *you* do this every day?".

Unless there trying to insert it into your brain in a subliminal way. I mean I immagine most people don't really read it. It's just part of the background so it sinks in. And then the thought "Why do you do this everyday" would be odd, and not you. But "why do I do this everyday" would be terrible....

Equally immagine how the guy that did it would feel. Every day - the reminder of the drudgery would appear - and he would ask him self "why do I do this everyday" and unless he's got a good reason "My poor sick child needs the medicine" it would be depressing...

Na, I think the sort of person who'd want to jerk others out of their commuting stupor by painting messages would write 'you'. Otherwise they'd feel involved in the commuting process, and it would taint their soul.

As for the guy who did it - he might be stuck in mindlesss drudgery, but every day he could think "Ha! But for one fantastic night I wallowed around in a gallon and a half of green emulsion and created that as my momunment!". I think it'd be inspirational.

I had also guessed that it was written by someone who didn't do it every day. I think a poll is in order.

Maybe the new graffiti is actually part of a bigger graffiti picture in which the two parties, NEW TEAM SUPREME and the other guy, paint over each other's graffiti every day, and the other guy has been driven to despair by having to redo his every day - and now he has fallen off the bridge and broken his leg, and NEW TEAM SUPREME stand unchallenged.

I'm rather fond of the old ones there too.

I love that graffiti, too. IIRC, there was a period between the original "Why do I do this every day" and the replacement, "Why do I still do this every day", during which there was no graffiti in that spot :-(

The reason I remember this is that

smiorgan texted me from the tube not long after the new one appeared to tell me it was back, because we had been sad when the original disappeared.

I love the "eat more peas" and "prince of strife" bits too, and I'm fairly sure they developed over time from some slightly different originals - I think "peas" might have been "peace" at one time, possibly in connection with "Jesus", but sadly I didn't make a note of the different ones although I remember seeing it change every time I went past for a period of several months.

I have to admit I alwyas thought of it in the more meta sense of "this" being painting a slogan on a fence. I guess I've never commuted down there or even driven down there in commuter sense. The only thing that I knew about the author was that he painted signs on a fence so that's what I assumed he was referring to. Though I did consider it unlikely that he painted it fresh every day....

Is Jsus still there, or has he been obliterated too?

(I'm sure you knew this already, but my current journal title "one in ten go mad - one in five cracks up" is taken from a graffito further down the road, the A40 around Ladbroke Grove.)

I didn't know that, no. I rarely go further along the M40 than Hanger Lane.

I think Jesus is gone, but the Prince of Strife remains. I'm sure there's a metaphor in there for today's society.

Hanger lane is waaay past the end of the M40. Have you been ignoring the speed restrictions around Northolt and through Ealing? This stretch is best at night when the Hoover Building is all lit up in green.

W

The other interesting M/A40 graffito is the Crow Aptok one, which has been there for at least 30 years to my knowledge and has never been satisfactorily explained...

The fence with the paint on will always be "the burning fence" in my mind [memories of 1976] and the cutting at J6 is "Chickenshit Gorge". All this newfangled paint stuff just doesn't cut it. ;-)

Explain, explain! I don't know who or what Crow Aptok is, in 1976 I was several hundred miles north of the fence (and less than a year old) and I don't remember the M40 before Watlington Cut was built...

Crow Aptok is an enigma shrouded in a riddle etc.

Heh. Ok, Crow Aptok is written on what used to be a bridge but is now just a random wall on the 'join' A40-M40 outside Oxford (used to be just A40 before the M40 was built). It has puzzled people for decades, but apparently has no meaning at all.

In 1976 the whole of the Chilterns was tinder-dry all year (1975 and 1976 droughts contributing hugely) and the fence spontaneously combusted on more than one occasion; once when we were stuck in an enormous traffic jam on the motorway. Scared the hell out of me, and alarmed my parents somewhat (as it then occurred to them that large parts of our village could go the same way if it didn't rain soon...).

As for Chickenshit Gorge - when the cutting was first made it was bright white chalk. In direct sunlight it was dazzling and dangerous to drivers from certain angles, and it also was prone to crumbling, and there were mini-landslides. So during the early 1970s they decided to spray it to encourage growth of lichen & mosses. The nearby chicken farms provided suitable organic material, and a nickname.

Having you around is an education :) I have commented that the cut seems less white and more mossed over than when I arrived in Oxford in '94. How recent is the chicken shittery ?

I've seen the Crow Aptok (now I've looked at the picture) but it had never occurred to me that it should be read as all one word. I just thought it was a 'Crow' and an 'AP-T' and an 'OK' which happened to be close to each other (and very unfaded).

It was still bright white in the earliest parts of my memory; I think the spraying started around 1974 but it was only occasional (it took up two lanes to do it, couldn't be done from closer) so it probably didn't start to go properly green-ish-grey from a distance until the 1990s. Before that it was white-with-patches. I don't think it's still sprayed, that probably stopped in the 1980s but don't quote me on it. Now if you can see any white at all it means there's been some disturbance.

The chalk pits at Chinnor (3 miles along the hill) are similarly starting to go grey but probably won't be green for another 20 years - the cement works only closed in the 1990s so the quarries are still quite white in direct sunlight. I don't know how long the (alkaline) pools will stay bright blue; the whiteness of the underlying chalk affects the colour, obviously. They make for an interesting view when walking in the area.

Don't you think the most likely explanation is that 'Crow Aptok' was some local band (maybe not even to Oxford but Aylesbury or somewhere) lost to the pre interweb history?

Entirely possible, but you'd think someone somewhere around the area would remember them, no?

But would they know it was a great mystery? See the alleged solution (after a long time) to the mystery of the 'Far away is close at hand in images of elsewhere' graffiti - http://www.ruthpadel.com/pages/imigery.htm

Um. I always assumed it was an obscure band, but I think you have a good point.

Perhaps they learned the hard way that this was not a good way of promoting their band, if nobody knew what the words were for.

Hehehe. I just assumed that mr "why do i do this" was referring to the acted of graffitiing the fence...

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Beneath the words of wisdom and the slogans of despair, someone's gone and written "I'm Sorry" there

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