Now you see it...now you don't. Dias graffiti bites the dust in Thurso
An infamous piece of graffiti on a wall adjacent to River Thurso has finally disappeared thanks to the efforts of an anonymous local man.
The man, who preferred not to be named, said that the large letters, which spelled "DIAS" and included two exclamation marks, was a local eyesore and bad advert for the town.
"A couple of years ago, this graffiti appeared on the wall at the riverside in Thurso below O'Brien Construction's yard," said the Thurso resident.
"I’ve always thought it was an eyesore especially when tourists are walking up the river and they come across that – it’s not a good look and advertisement for the town. Anyway, I bought myself an industrial pressure washer a couple months ago, then had an idea and spoke to John O’Brien and he was happy for me and my pal to go ahead."
Opinions varied on the urban artwork with many locals condemning it while others saw it as an improvement on dull concrete and brightened the place up. Commenting on the matter last year, one social media user based in Caithness said: "Look back in history, many things found today that are considered interesting and exceptional were created by people just like this person.This is an art form, regardless of how you feel about it."
Graffiti with the Dias tag have appeared across the world with Aberdeen and Edinburgh having a proliferation of them and several variations of the artwork appearing across Caithness. Several Reddit users say the artist is South African with one adding that he is "very hated in the Scotland graffiti community, rightfully so".
The Thurso man who removed the tag said: "I will say this for the graffiti artists, the best of paint was used – it was a lot tougher to come off than what we thought. The machine was running at 3000psi, cost £70 in chemical and took four hours to do, but for us the end result is it looks a lot better."
He added that though he thought the graffiti was an eyesore he realised that "some people may beg to differ".
"[It's] supposed to have been young people from Germany [and] they spayed a few things up west – they probably did the NC500. The reason I don’t want named is I will probably be asked to get rid of other graffiti and to be honest I don’t have the time with my full-time job."