More stuff to give away. Sending a couple of books to biroco.com has spurred me on to further acts of altruism.
Buried beneath some Connect 4 pieces, inside a pen holder I made from clay when I was eleven, I found the key that opens doors at MI5.
I’ve been looking for it for months. Ever since I heard that Jessica could give it a good home. It’s over a year since we moved house, and I’m still unpacking boxes, still finding things that make me smile/frown. This one provides the links to memories that will keep me smiling all day.
Thanks must largely be paid to Tom. It was he who salvaged it from the empty shell of the old MI5 headquarters in London, during a foray into dereliction (PDF link) as part of his work at the Bartlett. Left behind in the empty shell that used to house the secrets of the Nations security, was a key to supplies that must have been crucial to the day to day life of any self respecting British intelligence officer; the tea cupboard. The description embossed on the copper plate key-ring, says that it belongs to ‘tea station 1901a’. Perhaps there were at least 1900 other tea stations. If you include the alphabetical variations A through Z, that makes a total of 49,426 tea stations. That’s a nice image – think of all the sugar cubes.
In a satisfying, circular fashion, this takes us back to biroco.com. Although I landed at Joel Biroco’s site via research into flash mobs, it was a story about keys and going places you’re not supposed to, that convinced me I’d finally found a web log worth bookmarking. Sadly (for us), he’s moved on to other projects now. Archives are still accessible though, here’s the link to the entry about keys.