Creative Destruction

On my journey back the other day, I spotted some graffiti which left me perplexed. It appeared to be conveying some sort of a message but said message was not clear from the phrasing. The daubings ran thusly:-

"Snifflick it to fuck"

Not the clearest set of instructions that I've ever come across. I mean, for starters, I'm not sure exactly what they mean by "snifflicking". It does, however, sound somewhat unsavoury as practices go and quite possibly on the messy side. Secondly, the instruction is rather vague as to what the "it" is that we are being requested to "snifflick". I think it's a key consideration. If you're going to do some snifflicking, the object of said practice is bound to be important in weighing up your decision as to whether you will or not. And, lastly, is that a command to convince the object being snifflicked to begin copulating or is it more a demand to do the snifflicking really, really well (as in "snifflick the fuck out of it")? I guess we'll never know...

It has, however, reminded me of my favourite piece of vandalism (if it's possible to have such a thing). In the parade of shops round the corner from Ma and Pa's, there once was a small cafe. The name of establishment was emblazoned above the door in raised letters and read like so:-

"JEAN'S NOBLE ART CAFE"

Fairly unremarkable and not overly amusing in itself, I'm sure you'll agree. However, some jolly wag decided that the sign needed some livening up and, through the stealing of a certain letter combined with the snapping of the lower frond of an "E", the following legend was revealed to all:-

"JEAN'S NOB F ART CAFE"

Ah, the subtle genius of making shop names sweary. Our intrepid hooligan didn't stop there, however. Oh no, there was more to be done, thought he or she, and through the swapping round of a further two letters, we finally arrived at:-

"JEAN'S NOB F ART FACE"

OK, it may have been grammatically more satisfying if they'd stuck an extra comma in there to make it the mystifyingly vulgar and insulting answer to some unknown question ("Jean's nob, fart face") but still, kudos to them for a more inventive form of wanton destruction. Of course, the sad side of the story is the place went out of business as no one wants to eat at Jean's Nob Fart Face but it looked pretty funny so that's OK.

I'm not entirely sure that this post has a big payoff so I'll just let it peter out here...

That'll do.