Whatever became of old Bill Stickers? I haven't seen a notice threatening him with prosecution for years. Did he emigrate in despair at this persecution, perhaps to go and live with his Dutch friend, Hertz Van Rentals?
Some people see notices as nothing more than square objects on the wall and never bother to read them, but in my view it pays to keep your eyes alert. I was walking through Clerys the other day when I was brought skidding to a halt. On a nearby counter stood a notice which read: "Taking photographs of hats is prohibited in this store."
What can this possibly mean? Have those darn hat fetishists been sneaking in again with a Polaroid camera hidden under their dirty raincoats? Are photographs of Clerys toques and turbans being traded in seedy pubs? ("Hey, buddy, can I interest you in a picture of a nice off-the-face straw?") I expect there's a perfectly rational explanation for this stern admonition, but if there is I don't want to know it. Leave me with my dreams.
And was there once really a sign on premises in D'Olier Street, Dublin, saying "Ears pierced while you wait", or was that just another urban myth? There certainly was one that read, "Ties narrowed/widened to fashionable width". (Ah, the vagaries of voguishness, and I have a selection of both widths to prove it.)
You might think that all these are just variants on the traditional Irish joke. But, no, you can be a world traveller and still not escape such surreal visions. I treasure a sign I once spotted in Bryant Park, a little vest-pocket oasis on West 42nd Street hard by the New York Public Library. It proclaimed the usual no-nos: "No drinking", "No littering", "No dogs", and so on. But also: "No sitting on newspapers."
Now, "No sitting on newspaper reporters" I can relate to, but really, is this the kind of thing Rudy Giuliani's zero-tolerance policy should have been wasting its time on? I happen to know that some people buy the New York Times, especially the big, fat Sunday edition, only because it provides most satisfactory upholstery between the bottom and the hard, unforgiving earth.
And not far away, on a platform of a subway station, was a sign that read baldly: "Mind your hat." Snatch-thieves at work on the IRT, BMT and IND? Making off with people's headgear so they can surreptitiously photograph them in the privacy of their brownstone, walk-up, cold-water apartments in Alphabet City? I could be prosaic and suggest that the column of air pushed ahead of the train in the tunnel probably created a hurricane that put titfers at risk, but I'd rather not. Better to just let the phrase hang in the air, pregnant with possibility.
Anyway, later intelligence tells me that these two Manhattan landmarks are now gone in the frenzy of refurbishment, and more's the pity.
And then, in the other hemisphere, there was that notice on the wall in a government building in India: "Gossiping offends all. Please avoid it now." That's what makes travel worthwhile. You don't get that sort of thing on the cursed Costas or in bleedin' Bodrum (though I did once see a supermarket in Malaga called Gaybo's).
But there are still consolations to be had at home if you keep your eyes open. At the entrance to Dun Laoghaire's spanking new marina a sign reads "Bertholders and guests only". Bertholders? Perhaps Bert-holders? I wonder which particular Bert you have to hold to get in there? Or could these alien people be disciples of the late German playwright, Brecht, a breed of literary Trekkies? No, on second thoughts it can't be him. He spelt his first name Bertolt.
However, and here the story really starts, I discovered after hours of patient research that there is a small town in North Dakota called Berthold, and its inhabitants are presumably called Bertholders. But that particular state of the Union is landlocked (are you still with me?), so not many Bertholders can be sailors, ploughing the Atlantic swell to splice the mainbrace with their Dun Laoghaire fellow-tars.
Still, the next time I'm near the marina I intend to listen for people calling merrily across the water as they breast the harbour bar: "Y'all hurry back an' see us again real soon, hear?" Or would that be more North Carolina? Possibly the marina means mere berth-holders. How boring if it does. Another illusion dashed.
Some years ago I was travelling through Schleswig-Holstein, as you do if you know where it is, when the train pulled into a small rural station. On the platform there was a sign saying "Gettorf". Being a biddable sort of cove, I picked up my bag and was about to comply when I realised this was the name of the station and not an instruction to passengers. Could I have dreamt that incident? No, I checked a map and there it was: "Gettorf". (It's not far from Wrist.)
You can't be too careful. Read everything twice.