Hospital Hush

This is from Dartmouth.   So "Hospital Quiet Please" is top of the pile of signs, and at the bottom of the pile "All HGV's".  That sure is a contradiction and a half.

Attention Do Touch

That's "Attention Do Touch", rather than "Attention Do Not Touch".  It's so easy to read in that not to that sentence given the number of times we see the do not touch message.

So hats off to the National Trust for these signs in a rather remote woodland walk at Ickworth Park in Suffolk.

NOTICE the beautiful wild flowers as you walk through the woods. Take pictures, smell them and enjoy your day.

ATTENTION You will need this to spot the abundance of wildlife in this area.

PLEASE DO TOUCH. the trees or even hug them.

Great the way those words like notice, attention, which are more often seen in a forbidding context are turned on their head here. Those headline words play to that forbidding sense to attract you, and then the twist dawns as you read on.  Then there's the positive encouragement to do things like photograph and touch, again words were more used to seeing in a dissuasive content.

Just fantastic.

Gas Gap Parking

So a no parking sign with a difference - a reason.  The power of why, if only implied.

Looks like the mini graffiti version might not have been so effective.  But it'a big brother seems to be doing the job.  

So there's a polite "Please", though a bit shouty in capitals, with some apparent teeth "by order" and in police blue, plus it's quite specific.  There's the implied why around access to gas meters, but also potentially some risk to them from parking up the kerb or entry/access to the vehicle.  There's probably some other implied incentive here around not wanting to park over a gas supply.....

Naughty Newspaper

So much does the Daily Express cost today?

Well 50p of course.  Hmmmm... that makes it 10p cheaper than the Daily Mail.  A classic switch of dimensions....the absolute cost (50p) with the relative cost (10p less than the Mail).  And that's relative to a competitor's newspaper, but why stop there.....at 50p that's £254,999.50p cheaper than an average house.

Source: Office for National Statistics House Price Index July 2013
Average mix-adjusted house prices in July 2013 stood at £255,000 in England.

Confidentiality Crisis

On leaving hospital as a visitor, this sign was adjacent to the door and targeted at staff... an Information Security Warning.

"Staff must not take patient or staff data out of the building unless:

- Authroised to do so

- It is carries in a zipped/locked bag or

- It is electronically tagged".

On closer inspection of the three bullet points it can raise some questions...whether all or only some of the three apply.  

1. "Authorised to do so" - that's clear enough and seems mandatory to comply.

2. "It is carried in a zipped/locked bag or" - it would appear that zipped/locked are alternatives which implies zipped or locked.  And there's now an explicit  "or" which relates the the third bullet point....

3. "It is electronically encrypted" - in which case it need not be in a zipped or locked bag.

So it would appear that bullet one would need to apply, but then only one of the second or third bullets points.  In reality the third bullet is really part of the second.  So the first bullet is about permission and the second about the mechanism....should only be two bullets really.

So we've checked....We have some papers in a zipped bag.  Phew.

Now having felt reassured that we are compliant we head for the car park where we find a very similar but subtly different Information Security Warning...

At this point the requirements are different....now it has to be a locked rather than permitting a zipped bag.....Oh dear, we've become non-complaint as we've walked across the car park.

Dirty Directions

Some rather dirty road signs. It does seem rather odd how road signs can be left to become so dirty. And especially those welcoming and twinning ones, naming the town you're entering often maybe with a flower bed too. That flower logic does try to create a positive sense, in the the spirit of "You don't get a second chance to make a first impression".  So it is surprising how many naming or welcoming signs can become so scruffy and unloved.  Here's a fascinating example of some road directions.  The Huntingdon one has been cleaned by not the others....Keeping signs clean is not such a big overhead...it's typically a simple and quick process. The real convincer in all of this is that drivers need to be and will be reading signs and so the number of views of passing motorists can be tremendous....that's lots of impressions left.