I was looking at the technology guardian bit
just now and they have a somewhat confusing
campaign promoting equality of opportunity in
terms of a range of rather trite wallpapers.

As copyright cannot be had on an idea, per
se, merely the expression of it, I was in turn
somewhat disheartened to note there was no
reproduction of inexpertly hand emulsioned
black paint filled in with permanent marker.

Then again, Adrian Mole hasn't been written
into any of the Summers of Love, thus far. So
maybe this explains it.

I kind of had Jon Ronson down as a gloss on
woodchip kind of childhood, or maybe one of
those original Victorian-era relief-embossed
prints which were put into the houses when
first built with the idea of encouraging some
painterly craft to bring them to life, and which
end up these days being washed over with
gloss more often than not. I don't know, I do
kind of get an impression of wood panels with
him, but maybe that's because he went to a
fairly traditional university. Otherwise, it would
depend what kind of Middle Class home he
grew up in I guess.

And none of the lovely quick expedience of
a stencilled border neither.

Obviously there are artists practising their
trades out there who will design and paint
a full wall-size mural.

Perhaps we can see some comment from
maybe Ms Williams or Ms Bennett on what
kinds of wallpaper were hung in their own
childhood homes.

Still, what an awfully nice impression it does
create of University Halls and cheap (-ish)
student rented gaffs. You'd've thought a still
from one of the good old sitcoms set in
rented accomodation (Rising Damp, George
and Mildred) or from a childhood home in
Grange Hill, say, might have been easy to
come by.

But also nice in some ways to know that
applications are discouraged from what we
might think of as the travelling classes as
well as from those who simply haven't been
able to face the prospect of Wimbledon for
a while and for whom even the slightest of
proximity to a television set might prove too
emotionally traumatic.

Perhaps we could have a feature in the
various cloned columns which pass for
Entertainment News in the tabloid sector
in which the compilers find the paper from
their childhood bedrooms and out-kitsch
one another.

But it's nice to know that murals of genuinely
well-composed glamour photography, as
opposed to cheap tawdry porn, are equally
unwelcome at Rusbridger Towers as they
might prove to be in Parsons Place.

G DAEB
COPYRIGHT (C) 2008 SIPSTON
--