Supercalligraphic

Having seen the picture above, you may well already be way ahead of me, but: bear with me and let me tell the tale. As the Persian poet and Sufi mystic Rumi might have put it, my bewilderment is the point, not your cleverness.

Down near the docks in Southampton there is a pedestrian underpass that goes beneath a busy dual-carriageway. It is narrow, dark, litter-strewn, and susceptible to flooding – for all I know, it may even be below sea-level – but it's the only convenient way to get from one side to the other without a major detour. Going through it a couple of weeks ago I was struck by this unusually elegant bit of graffiti at one end, which has a distinctly Arabic feel to it. Having passed a number of women in hijabs on the way, this seemed quite likely. Might it even be, to slightly paraphrase Paul Simon, the words of the Prophet written on a subway wall? I was curious about it and, although I realise calligraphic script is not always easy to read, I have an old friend whose Arabic is good, and thought it was worth a try. "Can you read the attached?" I asked in an email, sending him the photograph.

Now, to put it mildly, I am not a fan of most "tag" style graffiti. Frankly, it's moronically imitative at best, and makes a lot of ugly places even uglier. People might be delighted to discover a Banksy has appeared on their wall overnight, but few are equally as pleased to find some local kid has tagged their front door, like a cat peeing on a bush; even less so, I expect, when the target is that actual Banksy. It seems someone has only to put up a half-decent bit of wall-art for some little prick with a spray-can to scrawl their initials or wannabe gang-name over it. But I thought this one had a definite aesthetic appeal and, besides, it's nice to see a bit of diversity emerging in vandalism.

Anyway, my friend replied to my email, and the following dialogue ensued:

HE: Does it say "fuck" perhaps?
ME: I was thinking it was Arabic. Presumably not, then?
HE: No, doesn't look like Arabic to me. Where is it? Maybe it is the tag of a graffiti artist called Rich?
ME: It's in an underpass near the docks. Looking at it, you may well be right. And there was me thinking it meant something like "Bow down before the One God, crusaders dogs!" or "Ali is a bumboy"...

Which is only mildly humiliating: I mean, it does look Arabic, doesn't it? At least, it does to the untutored eye. What is more, I suspect it is meant to. So I thought I'd help out "Rich" (or "Fuck", "Puck", "Rilke", "Puch", or whatever handle this calligrapher goes by), and get my people on the case. First up, the tapestry team:

Not bad, guys, a nice bit of weaving, embroidery, and appliqué work there, and as a wall-hanging it definitely has a certain grungy authenticity: a perfect backdrop for a falafel-workshop video. But then who should drop by for a chat but Banksy himself and we ended up making a stencil that really hits the spot, even if it did involve tweaking the tag a bit:

"Awesome" is the word, I think. Of course, no sooner will we have installed it on a suitable wall, than some little prick with a spray-can will pass by...