Choose your words carefully

OK, so it’s a huge trend – still. Printed posters of slogans with a retro, self-improving feel in pretty colours. But is it just me or are these posters more than a little bossy in tone? I can see it looks beautiful – no one is more obsessed with mustard yellow accessories than me – but isn’t there something up with the logic of this Bold and Noble ‘Live Off The Land’ print? It’s £38, which if you actually were trying to live off the land, Good Life style, might seem a bit steep. You could buy twenty bags of mulch for that. (I made that up.)

Live off the land

Not to mention the now ubiquitous Keep Calm, the 21st century equivalent of a FCUK t-shirt. Whenever I see one I feel like I’m moments from being hectored into cooking with powdered egg by a member of the local WI.

KeepCalm&CarryOnPoster

There’s something a bit creepy about having words put in your mouth. Much better to get yourself something unique to you, as I demonstrate in my own word poster below. A headline taken from a paper that amused me at the time, I stuck it in a cheap frame and left it in a cupboard, until I stumbled on it years later and laughed for half an hour. It says ‘Police to monitor Notting Hill Carnival dressed as Rastafarians’. Maybe I should get it printed on a tea towel…

Police picture

8 Responses to “Choose your words carefully”

  1. Kate Cronk
    November 6, 2012 at 4:47 pm #

    ‘Police to monitor Notting Hill Carnival dressed as Rastafarians’ hahaha!

    I just discovered your blog, and after browsing backwards for about 20 mins, i’ve decided to do things properly and start from the beginning! It’s wonderful, i’m having lots of fun.

    • myfriendshouse
      November 6, 2012 at 5:47 pm #

      Wow Kate, how nice of you to say. I hope you’ve got a lot of time on your hands, we’re about to turn 3. That poster is My Friend’s and come to think of it, I haven’t seen it on her walls since she moved house.

  2. missruthie27
    February 21, 2013 at 11:21 am #

    ello! just read your ‘about’ n someone commented you were funny so I dutifully started at the beginning and the ‘Notting Hill police rasta’ statement had me laugh at loud so thanks for that n I’m now
    gonna get following you! from a fellow South Londoner interested in Interiors.

    • myfriendshouse
      February 22, 2013 at 10:00 am #

      Welcome Miss Ruthie and thanks for the flattery. That poster has been making me laugh for a decade – glad to share x

  3. Louise
    September 23, 2016 at 9:18 am #

    As a commentor above said, I stumbled across your blog whilst searches for inspiration for my first house purchase this year. I too decided to start from the beginning and here I am, I look forward to many stolen moments reading a page. Fantastic read and great writing! Cheers 🙂

    • myfriendshouse
      September 23, 2016 at 1:23 pm #

      Thanks Louise that’s so lovely! I wonder if we’re still into the same stuff – prob, only there’s def more pink now. x

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

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    […] unconnected update, in answer to a new reader who has just read and commented on our very first post. The homemade poster you were asking after now lives in the bathroom, above some photos of […]

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