Mugging muggins for a mug II

I had arrived at the eponymously named venue at around 11am. My first intention had been to get there at 9:30 but a rare streak of stinginess caused me to abandon the plan because bus fares are less after 9:30 (I am normally much too lazy to be a miser. Chasing pennies takes effort.) Needless to say I missed the 9:36 and 10:06 buses; I won't even mention the 9:27 and 9:57 that actually stop nearer to my house — 50 yards away — because that bus stop is a pole with no shelter or seating ... if I am going to have to wait I expect to do so in as much comfort as possible. Any doubts I might have clung to concerning whether or not I had chosen the right day, time, or place were dispelled as I rounded the corner to be faced by a young woman clutching a bunch of helium filled balloons all bearing the NHS logo. Artfully I dodged past her, sidestepped a leafleteer and ducked through the nearest double-width door into the cool interior of a converted baroque cinema foyer. A discreet gesture by a uniformed security guard directed me toward a table where I was greeted.

"Are you a member of the public?" A businesslike woman said with a reassuring smile of condescension. The subtext was obvious. My clothing comes mainly from charity stores; I pay about as much attention to haute couture as I do to Estonian arm-wrestling league tables. I can look smart, I often look scruffy, but I ceased aiming for chic after I saw myself described as statuesque in a chic suit. I can't explain why I found it annoying to be described for my height ahead of my choice of attire, it just pissed me off.

I told her which team I was with and while I signed in she pulled out a large plastic carrier bag — also emblazoned with the NHS logo ... isn't corporate hospitality marvelous! — and directed me to our allocated patch of floor space. It was in a corner and I would have taken an age to find it if I hadn't bumped into the boss who claimed to be on her way to check for late arrivals but admitted that she was also looking for an exit beyond which she could have a smoke. She aimed me in the right direction and I collected a nondescript coffee from a plastic pot. The cup and saucer were china. (My first choice of cup was dirty. In the twentyfirst century is it really so difficult to get things clean?)

I found my fellow volunteers huddled around our exhibition display board. It looked pretty good. It was artfully laid out and the elements all looked very professional; it is actually a challenge to produce crudeness these days with all the power of Microsoft wizards at everyone's disposal. I had done my share of gawping at the rival stands on my way through the room — there were more categories than an oscar ceremony so I couldn't actually tell which stands we were competing against — and our small but perfectly formed display did not look out of place. My own contribution was nicely positioned at eye level; I took rather too much pride in that, but as is usual with me, my trumpet remained spitless. So crudeness is dead and gone in the world of exhibitions in the third millenium. The passing of hand drawn posters is not actually worth boasting about. Unsophisticated can be charming, too.

The big problem with computer wizardry is that everything is mundanely reduced to a stereotyped conformity. Mastery of computer artist software is no mean feat; easier by far to let the approriate wizard perform the task and oh! how those wizards screw it up. They screw up because they make everything come out looking the same as everything else. What else might we expect when a task with an infinite number of possible results is reduced to a formulaic step by step process each consisting of the least number of choices the wizard's creator decided upon as indispensible? So, rustic charm has been banished; there was none on show where I was last Thursday. In place of sincere, gauche and naive there is nothing but glitzy uniformity. And yeah! There were even a few laptops hooked up to projectors putting out Power Point shows that their creators imagined were ground-breaking, if not breath-taking. If I'd had access to a fancy projector I would have made a rather jolly animated film for the occasion. It would have been wrily funny and original ... and would have taken a week to make so I couldn't be bothered to make it just for the sake of it, for only me to see.

There was one such Power Point display next door to us. I was endlessly mesmerised by it as it cycled around and around through its message made dull by its pedestrianism. I was fascinated because the projector was set up at an angle to the wall that team were using for want of a proper screen. The resulting image was a sideways trapezoid, taller to the right than on the left. The ratio (of left side to right) was close to the golden rectangle ratio (1:2^-²) which had an unidentifiable pleasingness of its own that distracted me from the overall message for a while. When I did look properly at the theme I was amused to see that it was about diet, obesity and modern portion sizes. A series of frames showed an old fashioned portion on the left and a super-sized modern one on the taller right hand side of the image. Was that the fragant aroma of serendipity I sniffed? Or had someone in the team had an original idea the better to warm over the stale, leftover-stewiness of a modern standard already well past its Best Before date? But how to ask?

What if that team were oblivious of their superb visual pun? Suppose they were constrained by simple structural limitations as to the arrangement of their bits and pieces. There being little else to do — Mr. and Mrs. Joe Public having taken a rain-cheque on this beanfeast (and thank you lord for making last Thursday so balmily springy[Sic]; rain would have forced the buggers inside in droves and the imitation apple juice and hydrogenated vegetable fat shortbread biscuits would have run out before ... well before they did) — I made as thorough a study of the stand in question as was possible without getting out a tape measure. I could spot no obvious reason for the angle of the projector. Annoyingly, I could also quite easily imagine a considerable number of quite sensible and logical possibilities for the status quo. Prime amongst those being the obvious: nobody actually noticed it. Of course I could just mosey over and ask one of them. I rehearsed the process mentally. No matter how I played out the scenario in my head it all ended with my sounding like a smart-arse.

Before we adjourned for the finger buffet we entertained a variety of passing dignitaries each of whom was as forgettable as the next. The most common feature they shared was the word senior buried somewhere within their overlong job-titles. The NHS logo was everywhere but doctors and nurses were as rare as rocking-horse dung ... actually that might be a good thing. It meant that for one day the service was free to operate with an understrength opposition of adminstrators. God alone knows how many lives were illicitly saved during those few hours. I suppose there was hell to pay on Friday morning though.... Anyway, the last person I met was a charming gentleman (and I use that word very sincerely) who, it transpired, was our very own most senior manager. Approachable and very warm, he was a down to earth person who seemed more at home with us plebs than joining the unseemly stampede that was just then getting underway ... but that is a whole other story!

Glad of a new mind to interact with, I chatted to him for a few moments about little of importance and we exchanged a few merry quips before deciding to broach with him my worry about that Power Point presentation (now into its four hundredth repetition!) next door to our own exhibit.

He turned to gaze at it for a moment and turned back to me.

"Good Lord!" He said. "That's rather deep. Do you really think they might have intended it?"

I shook my head smiling. "I haven't had the nerve to ask," I said.

"Yes, yes," he grinned back at me. "I see what you mean. Be a complete bummer if they hadn't intended it, eh!" He then roared with laughter. I love that kind of honesty.