When it comes to the strangely similar graffiti attacks on Peter Slipper and Clive Palmer, says Ross Jones — it’s all in the I’s.
INVESTIGATIONS ARE BEASTS with a life of their own.
Going into them with any fixed idea, or point to prove, is like nailing one foot to the floor. You just go round in circles.
Here at Ashbygate HQ, we’ve been watching our investigators do a fair bit of circle work, but the odd upturned rock has revealed a juicy tidbit hiding from the light. Like slugs. Or slaters.
Sorry to disappoint, but this is not an Ashbygate investigation report. Talk to our lawyers.
With a bit of British all will be revealed ‒ and we note with excitement a glimmer of interest emerging in some outliers of the MSM ‒ but, in the meantime, here is a quiz.
What do these photographs have in common? Apart from being puerile graffiti that is. Banksy it’s not.
In the early hours of a warm Sunshine Coast morning in December 2011, at least two clowns, presumably with a load of Mai-Tais on board, decided it would be fun to graffiti Slipper’s office. So they hit it with spray cans. That’s a crime. They took their time but, as you can see, did not tax their imaginations.
Note the different cans? Either there was one graffitist with two cans and one ran out, or there were two operators. Our evidence indicates there were actually three criminals — one a cockatoo.
That journal of record, the Sunny Coast Daily, had other ideas and gave plenty of Coolum inches to:
A MYSTERIOUS blogger has claimed credit for Thursday night's graffiti attack on Peter Slipper's office.
Identifying himself only as Alan and blogging under the pseudonym "amitch98", the man wrote "I did this" before going onto describe himself as "a mature middle aged man who, like the rest of the Sunshine Coast, has had a gutful of Peter Sleeper".
Then PUP got hit late last month at his Sunny Coast Berchtesgaden. Unlike the member For Fisher, Clive has resources and, faster than you can say schnell, commanded his staff to clean up the eyesore.
Again, it is obvious at least two people were involved and, again, we will go three.
Have you got it? My dog thinks arseholes are the windows to the soul, but for primates it’s all in the eyes — or, in this case, the I’s.
Consider — it’s dark, who knows who’s around, bit pissed probably, would you bother to add a serif to the I? Me neither.
We confess to a bit of cheating here, having consulted a forensic handwriting chap, but once you look, it jumps out.
Looks like Alan/amitch98 and his/her mates, had a grudge against both the wee dog and the Member for Fisher. A crew with at least one member who had been involved with both.
That makes them unique.
Catch up on IA’s full Ashbygate investigation by clicking here.
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