I've been pondering the Windows Live Hotmail ad that shows emails being sorted automatically into different folders. There's some girl called Kate and she's already sent us 15 separate messages with photos of her antics in Australia. When a 16th arrives - handily labelled with a kangaroo-related subject header - Hotmail makes the error of adding it to the 'Kate's's Aussie Photos' folder. My argument would be that there's a perfectly good, pre-existing folder called 'Recycle Bin'. And they'd be doing everyone a favour by diverting this young lady's emails directly there. There will be 43 more messages to follow, believe me, so we have to put a stop to her Antipodean deluge before it gets out of hand.
I've now studied the Special Constable poster in more detail (see blogs passim ) and can reveal the idea is even more complex and bizarre than I first thought. You'll recall that a Special is on some seedy looking street corner, just yards away from where a drug deal is in progress. He's keenly observing events and looks ready to take some kind of action. The copy says that Specials wear uniform and always have back-up. But this guy is on his own in plain clothes. Worrying. Perhaps he's off duty but just can't leave the policing thing alone? Once a part-time copper, always a part-time copper. But wait. There is back up. It comes in the form of the constable's own reflection in a puddle. If he took his eyes off the criminal activity for just a second and took the trouble to look down at his feet, he'd see that in Puddle Land, he is wearing a uniform and carrying a radio. There's enough material here to fill a semiotics seminar for a day. If I disco...
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