Graffiti tagging

Graffiti Tagging

On Saturday, I had dinner with some old people and some not so old people We were talking about how ugly and dirty the Auckland trains and train stations are. They talked about the terrible graffiti that had been tagged.

I told them of the most famous graffiti “tagger”. In 1994, a Michael Fay, aged 18, with his teen aged friends tagged graffiti in Singapore. Michael, an American teenager who has arguably become Singapore's most famous -- or notorious -- prison inmate, not because he committed a hideous crime, but for a small petty misdemeanor, according to most of the civilized world but guilty to vandalism charges,

The student was sentenced March 3 to four months in jail, a $2,200 fine -- and six strokes of the cane. The story made headlines worldwide, people watched when the U.S. President Bill Clinton intervened and asked the Singapore government to waive the caning, which he called "excessive."

After losing an appeal against his sentence, Fay asked Singapore's President Ong Teng Cheong for clemency. On May 4, the government announced that the Cabinet had recommended to Ong that Fay's caning be reduced to four strokes as a gesture of respect for the American president.

I remember when I first arrived in New Zealand in the seventies, someone had tagged a big motorway bridge," Muldon is a pig." Muldon was the prime minister at that time. I was shocked, but now, I am immune.

When I go for walks, I see some newly painted fence or walls. Without doubt, the wall will be tagged.

The bathrooms of my shopping mall, St Lukes were given a new makeover. I went in yesterday to use it and to see how good was the makeover. As I sat inside a toilet stall which smelt of new paint, what do I see? Some one had already tagged it with "call me at _______ for a good F***" and other obscene words and sketches of various male anatomy. Boy! was I furious, no doubt I didn't pay for the new make over, but I shop here, and the profits the shops made from my purchases indirectly went for the makeover.


New Zealand herald

Graffiti pair drown in drain
New 8:58AM Monday January 21, 2008

SYDNEY - Two people who drowned in a flooded storm water drain in Sydney's east were were spraying graffiti on the walls at the time, police say.

Three people were inside the drain at Maroubra at about 5.30pm yesterday when it started to rain and the drain filled with water, trapping them inside.

The three were washed down the drain towards Lurline Bay, about a kilometre away, sparking a search by police on foot, PolAir and the Westpac rescue helicopter.

A 27-year-old Pennant Hills man escaped from the drain with help from nearby residents, but the bodies of a 25-year-old West Pennant Hills man and a 21-year-old St Peters woman were located inside the drain.

Officers later searching the drain found a bag of spray paint cans inside, police said.