“Suffled how it gush from its source of the woods of Tepelana”  

Notice on a bottle of Albanian mineral water

Each year in the Toppled Bollard, Corby, the crème of East Midlands advertising industry gather together to review the best notices, signs and announcements that have been seen throughout the year.     The winner gets the George W award for incomprehensibilitude.  

My close friend Billy “The Dog” McGraw had the not inconsiderable audience in the Bollard rolling in the proverbials with his Bangkok favourite, “Do not bring solicitors into the hotel bedrooms”, while Bobby “The Monk” Cleeverhouse countered with that old favourite from the Champs Elysées, “Please leave your values at the front desk.”   The Monk didn’t win this year, not so much because we had all heard it before, but rather because most of us felt we had already adopted it as a central tenet of our lives.  

One interesting new entry from our ever attentive hostess at the Bollard, Jennie Mongetti-Williams, involved the automatic message which emanates from the only international phone point in Zeblusk, capital of Kazakhstan.   On dialling home to her husband at the Bollard to check that he was heating the gazpacho to the right temperature she repeatedly gained the message, “This number does not exist, but she may be lying.”    

Carrie O’Bramovich from Dudleheim, Umbberfelt, Dawkins won over many voters with her picture of a road-side notice in the middle of Ohio proclaiming, “Make the pie higher”, but Sue McCullough’s entry from the ladies’ loo in the UN building in Kabul (“Diplomacy means saying ‘nice doggie’ until you find a big enough brick”) was disqualified on the grounds that it should have been entered in the graffiti competition earlier in the year.  

However to my total amazement and utter pleasure, for the first time ever I won a Toppled Bollard award.  My entry of the year was a solitary sign in a hotel lift in southern Spain.   Where I expected information on the maximum number of permitted persons, along with what to do in the event of a fire, the lift offered the single statement, “Thank you for your comprehension.”      How true.  How very true.  

Tony Attwood  

PS:  My job (believe it or not) is to ensure that our customers gain ever higher response rates in their shared mailings.   I don’t always get it right, but quite often customers tell me I do.     If you would like to know how, give me a call on my direct line: 01536 399 013.   And please remember not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.    (As we were told in a ski-resort hotel somewhere in darkest Austria).