Fake 151

Not so much an actual fake, more a project for a fake. It struck me the other day that there is nothing particularly clever about these planning notices put up by Epsom & Ewell Council. So the idea would be to fake one up, probably lifting the graphic top right from their website. The fake would be all about the erection of a ten storey block of luxury flats, artistically decked out in striped black mirror glass, replacing some old house and its Grade II listed boundary wall. Complete with a battery of micro wave aerials on the roof. Perhaps even a transmitter. The idea would be to be provocative without being ridiculous. Stick the thing up in some plausible spot in one of our leafy housing estates, hide behind a tree and then wait for the heritage gang to arrive and start frothing at the mouth.

As well as striking a balance between the provocative and the ridiculous, one would also need to have regard to the morality of the thing, the morality of gratuitously upsetting the heritage gang, some of whom are probably elderly with dodgy tickers. The morality of pushing the standard of public discourse even further down the drain.

One way around that one would be to post the thing just after midnight on the 31st March and then to take it down again at noon on the 1st April. One fails if no-one rose to the challenge in the interval. One might make a competition of it, with a fake for every ward of the borough. Prize to be awarded by someone suitable in TB. Or maybe one could persuade Mr. Wetherspoon to do the honours in the Assembly Rooms. At a guess, he would be good for such a stunt.

Another cop out might be to include some small print at the bottom of the fake explaining that it was all a joke, with the hope being that no-one would bother to read the small print before working themselves into a lather. Or perhaps some obviously silly contact address. Say in Donald Duck Heights or Truss Close.

PS: all of which reminds me of an IT type up north who had the bright idea, one dark night, of dressing up the Angel of the North in the strip of Leeds United. The story was that he did get visited by some commendably solemn police officers the next day, but that there never any further action. Perhaps they all retired to some neighbouring boozer instead.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/09/fake-150.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/09/to-beach.html. The source of the snap above.

Reference 3: https://www.leedsunited.com/.

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