Outside of my office block there are a couple of uncomfortable-looking, ugly, grey concrete benches that seem to have been provided for the sole purpose of giving the smokers somewhere to sit during their frequent company-sanctioned absences from work. Not being a smoker, I’ve never taken advantage of them, but now that the weather has warmed up a little, I thought I’d go and sun myself after lunch (and get skin-cancer at the same time I get lung-cancer from passive smoking…).
As I sat down, however, I make a startling discovery – they are not concrete at all! They are actually made of plastic that has been cunningly disguised to look exactly like moulded concrete! Well what an incredible breakthrough in technology! We are now able to make plastic that looks exactly like concrete, and is just as uncomfortable to sit on. Given the myriad shapes and forms that plastic can take, we could have had a shiny red bench, or a brown one in mock-wood, or even individual contoured seats that have a bit of give in them. But no, those nice men in the Polyolefins division (who, the plaque tells me, donated these monstrosities) saw fit to model them on the ‘classic’ council-estate-concrete blueprint. Well, what an awe-inspiring showcase of the division’s technological know-how. The VP must be so proud! Me, I’m going to order a set for the patio at home…
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