Many things, however, remain unexplained. Considering the scale of the insult, why did the man who painted it choose to use the polite form 'M. Kahn' - as if he was writing a letter to his bank manager? Perhaps he didn't know Mr Kahn's first name (Micheal? Monty?), in which case he can't have known him very well - in which case it seems a bit much to go and paint definitive statements about his sexual orientation ten feet high on the North Circular.
And perhaps even more intriguing, why was M.Kahn himself (Morris? Matt?), no doubt a resident of the Funchley area and well able to contact the local borough council, content to leave the message there for over a decade? Is it possible that he wrote it himself? Which would suggest that the graffiti was not in fact an insult, but the biggest sex-advert in the world. Perhaps we'll never know.
Whatever it was that persuaded the council finally to paint over 'M. KAHN IS BENT', The Mary Whitehouse Experience is prepared to offer a large sum of money to any person or persons prepared to go back to the bridge, under cover of darkness, and paint on it the words 'M. KAHN IS STILL BENT'.
Follow up e-mail from Amanda B....
While studying criminal law, I think I found the answer to M khan being bent:-
DPP v Camplin [1978] A.C. 705 (House of Lords)
Lord Diplock:
"Camplin, who was 15 years of age, killed a middle-aged Pakistani, Mohammed Lal Khan, by splitting his
skull with a chapati pan...At the time the two of them were alone together in Khan's flat...According to the
story that he had told...Khan had buggered him in spite of his resistance and had then laughed at him.
Whereupon Camplin had lost his self-control and attacked Khan fatally with the chapati pan..."
Not so much M Khan is still bent, as M Khan is dead, methinks.
