A mare's nest in the small print

A “mare’s nest” – ‘Originally in to have found (also spied) a mare’s nest: to imagine that one has discovered something wonderful, which in fact does not exist. Hence: an illusory discovery, esp. one that is much vaunted and betrays foolish credulity’ (OED). This was quite a difficult concept to photograph, so once more a little lateral thinking was required: Like a magnet, I was drawn to the sign because (a) I like signs. I think they tell us so much about contemporary life. (b) This was such an odd sign to find in the Borough of Westminster – a reasonably upmarket street, not near a pub and it’s the only sign of its kind I’ve seen; normally, we would expect to see an epidemic of any new sign. But the thing that intrigued me most was the small print ‘To report this ….’, followed by a phone number and email address. Having checked out the website, it is a “hotline” and, although it’s open seven days a week, it’s only open between 8.00 am and 8.00 pm. Now, I have never urinated in the street and I don’t intend to start now, but (and it’s a very big BUT) if I were, I would probably not be doing it during hotline hours, so I am now thinking of the person manning the hotline, who at 8.00 every morning, has to deal with the queue of “Angries of Westminster” waiting to get through to complain about the previous night’s micturating revellers. And the mare’s nest? To imagine that I had found a means of contacting Westminster council at any time of day or night, an illusion that does not exist. Admittedly, it’s arguable whether the ability to contact the council 24/7 could be described as “something wonderful”, but I think it’s the closest I can get to depicting today’s word of the day.