This is a London favourite, a classic piece of graffiti:

Ken Dodd's Dad's Dog's Dead

which has ended up as a band name, a web site name, plastered on tshirts, and all. It looks best on the wall, though, in gloriously plain white capital letters, stretched long and eating your brain, rattling around like a tongue twister for hours, echoing the rhythm of your walking pace.

Ken Dodd may be no one's favourite person. When the taxman caught up with him, no one felt sympathy. Dentists loathe him. The Diddy Men scared the hell out of all small children. But, there's something oddly pathetic about the death of his dad's dog, even if it is just a fiction of alliterative delight.

I once almost rented a flat, just because I would have to walk past this graffiti every morning on the way to work.

You can see the (original?) "Ken Dodd's Dad's Dog's Dead!" on White Hart Lane, near the stadium. It looks like it had been repainted. This is, to my knowledge, the only piece of "clever" 1970s graffiti that can actually be proved to exist. Nigel Rees used to get listeners to send in funny graffiti on some Radio 4 programme (Quote Unquote, etc.) in the 1970s and 80s, nearly all of which was obviously made up. By him.

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