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

[venta]

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.

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

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. ;-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

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...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Crow Aptok is an enigma shrouded in a riddle etc.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

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.

[venta.livejournal.com]

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).

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

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.

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

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?

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

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

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

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.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

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.