Profitable Plebs

Salisbury Cathedral, which was the site of multifarious public derelictions even in the good old days, is to make a new bid for the favour of Mammon with a guided tour of the building's graffiti. Poetically described as "whispered messages from the past", the carved scrawls and doodles are naturally unattributable and largely indecipherable, their origins and purposes having been comprehensively drowned out by the trumpeting of the wealthy entombed. In continuing accord with Christian values, the cathedral still finds the humbler folk more praiseworthy when they are dead and monetised rather than animate and troublesome. Visitors are not encouraged to make their own additions to the building's rich and vibrant heritage, as current attitudes have hardened from the easy tolerance of the old heresy-hunters and scold-bridlers: "Marks are often found in very public areas, suggesting they were both accepted and acceptable," by contrast to the present day, in which graffiti are neither accepted nor acceptable and therefore can be found only in private collections.