Not So Merry Christmas For Taggers

This Christmas, DO forget to add your name tag. That's the seasonal advice (reworded into the cheesy patter of a local newspaper) from the British Transport Police to graffiti fiends. London's railways are regularly spammed with spray paint. And it all gets much worse over the festive period, according to the BTP who have launched a crack-down.

"While most people are at home watching television and having Christmas dinner a small minority of people are going to be out there intent on causing criminal damage across the rail network. Our message is we're going to be out there, we're going to be looking for you, and there's a high risk you're going to be caught. The 21st Century is when everything changes, and you gotta be ready."

Well, again, we may have altered the last sentence a little.

Much as we regularly feature and even celebrate graffiti on this site, clamping down on railway vandalism is something we support. There is a big difference between a semi-artful stencil on the streets of Shoreditch (illegal though it may be) and an ugly series of tags on a tunnel wall that involve trespass and the resultant risk to passengers and train crews. That said, it's with mixed feelings that we contemplate the possible endgame for our old friend Tox.