I don’t care for street furniture. Or, to be precise, I don’t care for most of it. Too much of it clutters the view, litters the horizon, and speaks in the condescending tones of a nanny state. Much of it rusts in place, unloved and unexamined.
But there are exceptions.
Take the two modest signs on Cross Street in Barnes. They are hardly noticeable — unless, perhaps, you’re leaving the Brown Dog pub and glance to your right. Even then, you’d have to be looking.
I’ve been trying to work out why they please me.
Perhaps it’s their obscurity — half-hidden, almost apologetic in their presence.
Or perhaps it’s their quiet defiance of accuracy. One points to the Idle Hour, a pub that closed its doors back in 2016. The other gestures vaguely at a public footpath, though there are many in the area more deserving of mention.
Maybe that’s it. These signs aren’t bossy. They don’t instruct, warn or reprimand. They simply persist, gently out of date — a kind of local poetry in cast aluminium.