A Very English Sign

[steepholm]

Outside the Folk House, off Bristol's Park St., where last night I watched my friend John Dougherty and his a cappella group Original Sing, there is a small courtyard with benches and tables, where customers can eat. By the entrance there is a sign that reads:

Please do not eat food in this courtyard that has not been purchased from the Folk House.

Underneath, in letters just as large, is printed:

Please do not put us in the awkward position of having to ask you to stop.

That, of course, is the greater crime.

Comments

[jadelennox]

I have never seen a sign more English.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Not quite the same situation, but:

I was hotel liaison for a small convention held twice in the same hotel, two years apart. After the relaxed and easy negotiations of the first con, when the hotel was very new, we found ourselves enmeshed the second time with rules and regulations presumably engendered by bad behavior from intervening groups.

Among these was an extra fee to be imposed if they needed to clean up after outside food in the public area. (Which was technically prohibited both times, but they weren't going to enforce that strictly.) This put us in the awkward position of having to ask our members to eat neatly. In the end the fine was imposed anyway, and we came to the conclusion that if we'd come back a third time - and you can begin to guess why we did not - we would just assume the fine as a regular expense and not try to be petty enforcers.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Oh, the exquisite social agony implicit in that sign!