SEMPER FLOREAT Tuesday. 24th March 1970 Registered at Brisbane for transmission by post as a periodical - Twenty cents Volume 40. No. 3 Tuesday, 24th March 1970 [ A MESSAGE IN THE A DAY IN THE For all your pharmaceutical and BOG—or DOES THE LIFE OF BERT toilet requirements: LAVATORY PLAY A AND REG Powell & Stewart MEANINGFUL ROLE Goodday Reg, how's the wife? I'm not married. Pharmacy IN YOUR LIFE How's your mother then? She's dead. Moggill Road, Taringa. Well, how's your girlfriend? Phone: 73252 COLIN BIRD. I'm a poofia. Well, have you got any brothen and Why don'tyouf-kckoffflt Ii seams to me that consistencv would really politics provide the best food for thought for would Prescriptions Called For, require that I write what I have to say here on some be gratittists. On the continent the common market favourite lavatory wall. That I elect to use this medium debate covers many a wall, although in France la Dispensed and Delivered. in preference to the other is not however to be toilette is so designed that scratchings on floors can taken as indicative of an assumption on my part that also be discovered by the vigilant collector. It was in Semper Floreat commands a wider reading public France that I first read what has now been turned RegJ Hey Bert, has your wife got big than does my sacred wall—my convenience is a into something of a popular joke. It was on a wall of popular one you understand—rather let it be known a hostel toilette perched on the Mont St. Michael tits? Use our Home Delivery Service Bert: / dunno. that as a liberal minded fellow, and hence having just above Monte Carlo and was apparently the work Phone 73252 respect for the equality of the sexes, I am taking into of an economist if not a linguist. His interpretation of Reg: Shit, Bert, you musta looked! account the fact that while a large percentage of the common market debate he summed up as Bert: She's pretty shy you know. female readers may never find their way into my 'De GAULLE; "A BAS LE POUND."—WILSON: latrine nevertheless there is indeed every chance that "UP YOUR FRANCS!". Reg: Even so, cobber, I mean to say! these pages will lind their way into both ladies and Though not a frequent visitor to Ladies lavs I am Bert: Listen Reg, what are you, some gentlemen's establishments and thus both ends may nevertheless always curious about the lady grafittists kind of pervert? be served, in Our midst, t travelled with one some time ago who To my complaint then which is, in a manner of admitted that although she was never one to lake the • • • • speaking chiefly a matter of literary criticism: As I initiative she could however, seldom resist the write this I must confess I am in a state of deep shock, temptation of contering a trite slogan which went Hey Bert, get a load of these two long-haired Agents for: having just paid my first visit in five years to a latrine against her grain. I discovered all this one day at Mt. poofias just walked in. on the premises of the University of Queensland Lavinia some six miles out of Colombo when she Why? Commonwealth Savings Bank Union. As is my want whilst catering to my need, I emerged from the Loo as she delicately called it with Medical Benefits Fund shot a perfunctory but professional grance at the something in her smug look which suggested a little Jceze you know why? grafitti on the walls around me. My primary purpose mote than the usual satisfaction had been gained by No why? Helena Rubinstein was well nigh exhausted 'ere I had properly grasped the visit. On interrogation she admitted lo penning Tweed Cosmetics the complete fact that there was nought on the walls a message. She had, so it transpired, been con­ save smut and private and thus meaningless fronted in the loo by a line which offended all her City Council Rates & Electricity messages. better instincts, it was the slogan DOWN WITH TH E To a man who has faced up to some of the most PILL: Maliciously she had retaliated by adding the Reg: Did you get a bit? endearing toilet walls, in establishments from Brigh­ post script, WITH OR WITHOUT WATER DAILY Bert: Bit of what? ton Pier to the Banks of the Nile and from Anne BED. On the whofe, however, I am told that Reg: Bit of you know what, Hathaway's to Sally's in Singapore, the deplorable Ladies Loos are not as colourful as mens, but this inability of the bogs of mine Auld Alma Mater to be might indeed reflect no more than the very practical Bert: What? What? reckoned among the great halls of grafitti has come point that men standing against a wall may find the Reg: Bert, you don't know what's what. as no mean blow to the most holy memories of my opportunity far more within reach than their fairer Bert: That's what I asked you: What? H counterparts under less favourable circumstances, youth. Contrary to popular thinking, lavatory walls What? do have a purpose beyond that of merely providing a for after all grafitti must be placed on the walls within modicum of privacy to the user. Such walls have been the normal span on time allowed for the primary variously used for spreading laughter, carrying satire purpose. One doesn't just stand in one of those or serious social comment or even theological chal­ places writing away for the sake ol writing that is lenge, thus engaging the mind on more worthy definitely against the code. projects that the purely functional business in hand: So you see, al! in all there is quite a lot to grafitti, Outerwear A mind confronted with 'AYN F)AN 0 IS A LATENT and although you may not be one of the miserable SEMPER CONTEST:— FEMALE' can hardly be concerned with piddling sloths who perpetrated the rubbish on the Union matters. wall which shocked me so, nevertheless some of the Write your own "Bert and Reg" Some ot the best graffiti come from walls inscribed guilt is yours from the point of view ol a sin of omis­ and submit it for publication in * 214 Moggill Road, Taringa members of the armed forces many of whom are not sion. Something must be done to improve the satisfied with merely chalking up their own thoughts standard of Union grafitti and it is up to everyone to Semper. Prize is a bottle of beer * Cnr. Hawken Drive & but who often take issue with earlier messages left give ol his best. The present all time low standard by some anonymous grafittist: a memorable instance typified in 'Tom Beasley plays with chickens genhals' for every winning entry published. Central Avenue, St. Lucia. of this to be found in the back room ol a popular clip simply must go. After all I don't know Tom Beasley nor joint in Hong Kong's red light district 'The Cave Bar' do I wish to, nor am 1 concerned with the private where some unknown American has posed the perversions of a complete stranger, and for that question 'WHY AREN'T THE SMUG BRITS matter it has scarcely even occurred to me that FIGHTING IN VIET NAM 7' to which a servant of chickens do have genitals, I am sure they do but it is Phone: 713645 Her most Britannic Ma;osty has scrawled under- in any event irrelevant, and the slogan as a whole is neath-'BECAUSE THE VIET CONG HAVEN'T unfunny and pointless. Student humour has provided INVITED US', In a similar mood on the wall of the some of the best grafitti on record. I personally like the 'Officer's Only' latrine at a mess occupied at the sort of protest against childhood as instanced by time by a Gurkha regiment stationed on the Red University of London Unions "MARY POPPINS A/Hrs: 7 5384 China border I noted the quip—MAO PLAYS IS A JUNKIE' (Gentlemen's toilette in the Union MONOPOLY—which for its brevity and fine cutting Bar first floor Union Building, Malet Street), in a edge reminds me also of the somewhat racist line^ similar vein was 'CHICKEN LITTLE WAS RIGHT' JAMES BALDWIN EATS WATERMELON- —slightly esoteric as one must know that particular which appears bold in an all negro bar on the Kow- story about the sky falling. At London's Slade there h loon peninsula. was the highly creditable art Grafitti of a round Cherub's bottom under which the artist had printed The religious debate has found a new front too. EDITOR'S NOTE: A quick survey by I PAINT WHAT I FEEL Which Incidentally reminds TESSA Though not entirely original some thoughtful stu­ me of one cruel item on a lavatory wall one hundred Semper of the University toilets only served dent of metaphysics had started a series in the Gents yards from Madrid's Prsdo. I had spent a detightful to confirm the charges laid above about LADIES' HAIRDRESSING at London's Piccadilly tube station with GOD IS day with El Greco, Verlasque^ and Goya and was standards of graffiti on this Campus - the DEAD; followed by GOD IS NIETSCHE; then playing the Hemingway bit with Pernods in the only noteworthy effort was found above the 23A Station Road, Irtdooroopllly, ZARATHUSTRA IS DEAD: and sundry other afternoon at a sidewalk cafe between the Prado and Gents urinal In the Library, viz: 'THE attempts at explanation which culminated In a later Brisbane, Qld., 4068.