Monday 9 August 2010

Day 63: Give peas a chance

The other day, me and my sister where driving round the M25 coming back from a jolly camping trip. On our journey we went under loads of bridges as you would expect, but there was one which particularly caught my eye. Someone had written on a bridge in white paint, 'give peas a chance.'

Now, I've seen the graffiti on this bridge before, but I've never really found myself pondering over it's meaning...

Does it mean, don't eat peas? Or set peas free...if that's what they meant they would definitely have a lot of squashed peas on the M25! Maybe it's an anti-motorway campaign?

If you were going to go to all the effort of vandalising a bridge on the busy M25 would you really write the words 'give peas a chance'? I don't think I would.

My point is (yes I AM going somewhere with this) that millions of people (maybe thousands) read that message every day as they drive to work, holiday or wherever and it seems to me it's not really achieving much.

I decided to do a bit of 'research' into this phrase and it turns out it's been used all over the place. Advertisement for allotment spaces, healthy living, eating hummus (chick peas)...apparently even Paul McCartney used to say it on tour with the Beetles!

So it would seem this phrase is saying something after all. But, maybe it's there for the sole purpose of entertaining drivers during the boredom that is the M25. It certainly worked on me. I saw it last Monday and I'm still thinking about it!

So, to conclude (finally) I've decided that this (still rather odd) graffiti is in fact full of creativity and has inspired this very blog entry. Don't get me wrong, I am in no way applauding vandalism, but it is a fun game to play in your head...what would YOU write on a massive bridge to entertain drivers (creatively I mean, no rude ones please)? How could you entertain the masses with your words?

Something to think about...

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