I have noticed in Lausanne a lot of graffiti that consists only of the local postcode. I'm wondering whether this is common in any other parts of the country and whether anyone has any knowledge / theories as to why the kids think it is so cool.

I first noticed it in a park near where I used to live, where there would be '1004' painted onto or etched into some of the benches. I wondered if this was just one local 'gang' (if such things exist in Switzerland) who had chosen their postcode as their call sign. I've now moved to another area of town, and I've seen that around here '1018' is painted onto several buildings and structures.

The more I look, the more I see this in other places using the local postcode, it appears to be a widespread general phenomenon. Last weekend, we were taking a train into the Jura above Nyon and when we were stopped in the station of a very small town, I saw that someone had scratched into the station bench the local postcode and the name of the town.

To me, writing one's postcode doesn't seem to be particularly 'cool', particularly when it is done within the postcode area. Although it doesn't appear to be cool, it is possibly the most useful graffiti that I've ever seen. If you are lost in the city, you can at least know whether you have made it to the correct postcode, and it is helping me to learn what the postcode is for each area of the city. However, when I saw it in the small town, which would obviously only have one postcode, it really made me laugh, but they also included the name of the town in their graffiti which could be very useful to someone on the train who cannot see the station sign and is wondering where the train has stopped.

So, I'm hoping to hear about other people's knowledge of this. My encounters with it have only occurred in the French-speaking area of the country. Does it occur in the German-speaking part of the country, too; in other European countries? And also, can anyone expain why it is cool, or any history behind it?

I've seen the same thing around Basel. There is a giant 4147 (Aesch BL) in the park near my house. Occasionally different codes appear, but they are quickly errased, I guess it is a local pride thing?

I think that the phenomenon would make more sense to me if people were writing their postcodes in a region outside of their own postcode, but that is not the case as far as I have observed. Even so, I just feel that postcodes completely lack any cool-ness value and so are very poor candidates for this kind of thing.

I think that, as Termite suggests, it may reflect a much broader Swiss trait, in that the Swiss generally have more local pride than I am used to and are more local-centric (there must be a better word for this, but I don't know it). This is also reflected in the well-sustained local dialects and the semi-autonomy of the cantons, some of which are tiny compared to nearly all other regions in the world that have that much autonomy.

Insular?

America - Crips, MS13
England - Yardies
Switzerland - 8045, 4147 .......

It doesn't quite have the same ring to it does it

Those 4106ers from Therwil wont come on our patch when the see the size of our postcode!

well im still living in the 1800s

The only crap grafitti I've seen around Zürich which is memorable, is "Minus sign X", or:

-X

...and I see this a lot. It was even carved into the loo of one of the Treasure Hunt bars tonight.

Does anyone know what it means? Ideas so far:

- The character Dash-Ex from the TV show "Erie, Indiana" (send me a PM if you have this on video, DVD, bit torrent, etc) lives here and doesn't want to be forgotten.
- Someone or some group of people in this town are very much living the "straight X" lifestyle, meaning no smoking, no drinking, no drugs, no sex with strangers, in fact, well, in fact that could be me.

If anyone can tell me what this means, I'd be most ++

Read this in the news and thought of this tread...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6304345.stm

Ha! I am up over the 9400s, beat that!

I realise Swiss literacy in schools is affected by cultural differences and dialect influences, but I didn't realise it was soooo bad that these dropouts have to resort to numerals.

It's quite a simple answer really - those familiar with Hip-Hop in the States will note that various artists rep their area code: For example, I've lived in 714, 909, 213, 818, 202 and so on. It is simply mimicking that. They can't use area codes here because well - +44 just isn't as local as 8004.

I noticed some around where I live also. There seems to be one tag which is ubiquitous in 8003 ... 'Puber'. I'd like to know what this is about if anyone has a clue, my Swiss friends don't even know!

There's a big Puber (ahem) just up the hill from Bahnhof Stadelhofen and it makes me giggle every time I see it.

I've been curious about the Puber. I took a photo of it and emailed it to my Hungarian colleague Zoltan Puber, but he says it's not him