Doors Of Perception
We’re in a bit of a state in our London office. We are being repainted outside, and at the same time we are having a large new office window installed. We chose the manufacturer from an ad in the Sunday Times, and work was due to start on Tuesday 22nd April. Today is May 2nd and they haven’t turned up yet. Builders came on the 22nd and went away immediately because we had “the wrong type of scaffolding” (it was corrected within six hours) and they didn’t come back for a week. I suspect the window hasn’t even been made yet.
Tony the painter however is brilliant. He and his mate arrived at 8:30 on Tuesday 22nd, and he’s still here. They spent the first five days solely in preparation, rubbing down the outside of the house. Then four thick coats of lush white sandtex. It looks succulent, probably the best it’s looked since it was built in 1883.
There was a sofa in the office which was surplus to requirements. So we called the council’s Large Object Disposal Service and they told us to put it in the front garden for collection. Then Von remembered the glass panelled doors which used to disfigure the dining room and drawing room. We had found replacement doors in a skip and had replaced them a decade ago. The glass panelled doors — a particularly revolting opaque bathroom glass — were relegated to the basement. “Let’s throw them away!” she suggested. So we added them to the council’s takeaway list.
Yesterday was Collection Day. The sofa disappeared, the doors remained. We rang the council. “Someone else could have taken your sofa,” they suggested. We called back to chase them later on. “Yes, we took the sofa,” they confirmed, “but your doors were too big.”
Too big? These are standard internal doors from a London terraced house. “What defines Too Big?” we asked. There was humming and hawing from the other end. “The maximum door size we can accept,” said the voice, “is six feet by two feet. ”
Six feet high. Both Von and I would have to duck going through a six foot doorframe. Nobody makes six foot doors. “What size are the doors in your office?” we asked. Six foot, came the reply. “That’s ludicrous,” we said. “We’d have to duck to get through every door.” “We’re all short in this office,” volunteered the voice.
So the doors remain in our front garden. Today a man came round and photographed them. Tony the painter didn’t mention if he was a particularly short man.
My famous Short Door Incident occurred many years ago when I went to see the science fiction writer Harlan Ellison at his home in Los Angeles. Mr Ellison is a gentleman of restricted growth, and the door openings in his house referenced this; we had to stoop to get through every one of them.
Except one. The door to his study was no more than a couple of feet high. The only way to get in was on hands and knees. Inside, Harlan sat in state on a high chair behind a massive desk on a plinth. It was quite a statement. I looked at this puzzle and remembered a similar situation had presented itself to a British Ambassador to a far distant Asian court in the nineteenth century.
I copied HMG’s solution, and entered the room backwards. The first sight Harlan had of me was my great wobbling arse in his face.
Fair play, he saw the funny side and laughed uproariously. We were pals immediately. Apparently no one had thought of that means of entry before.
May 4th, 2014 at 17:31
Shouldn’t it be ‘six feet’ not six foot?
May 5th, 2014 at 09:52
You’re probably correct, grammatically, but would you say “A six feet door” or “A six foot door”? A six feet door sounds wrong to me.
May 5th, 2014 at 10:37
A door, six feet?