(personal underlines)
Our many signs of confusion
Am I the only one who feels stumped by public notices?
‘Buglers are operating in this area’ warns the Metropolitan Police sign, heralding the sound of trumpets perhaps. Aggravated burglary is often described as ‘a burglary gone wrong’, the planned effortless removal of domestic goods having met with some kind of ‘unforeseen’ opposition, the fireside poker taken up by the victim perhaps, or an XL Bully.
Venturing out in London has become a little daunting. I was startled on a recent tube journey to hear over the intercom that one should ‘beware of unforeseen spillages’. What, one wonders, are foreseen spillages? The explorer Wilfred Thesiger crossed the Arabian Peninsula with only a few small leather water skins; an ancient test for the Vestal Virgins’ chastity was to cross the Roman Forum with a sieve full of water without spilling a drop. How expectations have slipped.
Americans are reputed to be baffled by the signage on the Piccadilly line from Heathrow warning that ‘This train is for Cockfosters’. Many are driven, in alarm, to ‘alight’ at an earlier station. Warning notices now are posted as ‘advanced’ but then left there for weeks after the feared-for event has long faded into history. A simple ‘advance’ warning is indeed a paltry thing.
My Princeton-educated brother-in-law was much taken with the tube warning to telephone a designated number if the victim of sexual staring. The ensuing conversation, if the interlocutor picked up, might have fuelled Samuel Beckett’s dialogues. Nonetheless, as Sadiq assures us, ‘every journey matters’.
At my GPs’ surgery, as I stepped over a rough sleeper in the narthex, I observed two signs, the first letting one know that this was a ‘Yellow Fever Centre’ and the other that it was advisable to ‘check with your dealer, as some supplies are impure’. In the adjoining Mary Seacole Library, dedicated to her exploits in Scutari, is an offer of ‘Free Condoms’ as you leave with your improving tomes. At Dulles airport, Washington DC, undergoing ‘refurbishment’ Annenberg-style, an exculpatory sign begs the traveller to ‘Pardon Our Dust’, creating an almost teleological aura of finality.
When I was inter-railing as a youth, I spotted the pleasing French warnings ‘Ne Pas se pencher au dehors’ and further ‘Un train peut en cacher un autre’ so useful in the learning of this complex lingo and for the avoidance of decapitation. A recent French GCSE exam paper asked for translations of washing-labels (a close study of Les Fleurs du Mal is no longer required). One of my sons was anxious that he was accurate in rendering the label ‘Ne Pas Frotter’ as ‘Don’t Worry’.
Indeed, if one were sensitive to many of these injunctions, signs, and portents, one might hesitate to go out at all. It’s reassuring to recall P.T. Barnum, who, when his American Museum became overcrowded, displayed a sign reading ‘This Way to the Egress’. Visitors eagerly followed the sign, anxious to glimpse her. Instead, they found themselves abruptly in the open air, with a charge to re-enter.
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