bulletin

Bulletin the head.
The bulletin is always coloured, almost all the colours of the rainbow one might say. It brings a bright shining beacon of happiness into our otherwise drab school lives. But you never really notice what the colour is. You have seen a bulletin pretty much every day of your school life, but what colours are they? And why are they different colours?

Colour is the most basic form of visual language. It speaks directly to our minds, bypassing our conscious minds and getting a direct line to our emotions. Hospitals are green and relaxing, also green is the complementary colour to the red of blood, so it reduces the eye strain from the visual tinnitus doctors see as they look away from a red bloody sight (this is true, I swear). You often hear of the green room on TV programs, where the guests relax before and after the show. Blue also is considered more relaxing and also has the effect of being a cool colour. In some of the large companies with brainiacs working for them (Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Bird's Eye) they actually reduce the air conditioning bill by tens of thousands a year in their large offices by painting the offices blue, thereby making the people feel cooler, even though they actually aren't.

These colour responses come from mankind's evolution, social memories passed unknowingly through the generations. Green is representative of trees, and the forest, a quiet place, full of bounteous food and fruit. Blue is the colour of the sea, calm, everlastingly relaxing. Yellow is the colour of the sun, happy. These colours are optical tai chi for the brain, relaxing it. Unfortunately, like tai chi chuan, there are darker sides to all the colours. The forest is full of bears and wolves and is, as such, scary. Green therefore should be the colour of anxiety. The sea is turbulent and dangerous, and always changing, so blue should be the colour of uncertainty and fear. The sun doesn't come out nearly often enough and when it does come out, we are angry at it for having taken so bloody long to do so, that yellow is now the colour of resentment. (As for the tai chi analogy, tai chi chuan means grand ultimate fist, and it is, beyond being a relaxing exercise, a lethal martial art. But the analogy falls apart here, because I think that that's a good thing.)

What I am saying is that far from being visual yoga, colour manipulation is in fact, more like subliminal messaging. I have spent the last four months compiling a database of the colours used in the bulletins, and have come up with a translation system. This translation system means that rather than actually reading the bulletin, since none of it is actually interesting, you can simply glance at it, and know at an instant what its contents are.

Green: Exams close so be calm. Calm. The world is good. The exams will bear the fruit of your forest of labour during the year. (See how good my analogies are?)
Blue: We are changing things about the school for no obvious reason, so be calm, calm, and relax. Stablility is the feeling invoked. Calm and stability. Mmmm. Feel the sea air. (That analogy is too good.)
Yellow: The news on this bulletin will piss you off, so be happy! Be happy dammit! The sun is shining, its not bad news, its really good news! No, really!
Orange: Term is coming to a close. Be happy. Invokes a feeling of evening and the day closing, but not yet actually being closed enough to excuse you from doing any work. So work happily.
Pink: Sorry, a description of this colour's purpose would make this page an obscene publication, suffice to say the school intends to control EVERY aspect of your life.

There are, however, a few more, that we don't see. These are the ones to be wary of. The fact that the school is trying to control our minds is alright, just so long as they keep it up. These less common colours are used only in emergencies, and are actually intended to screw up your day. So if you see one of these colours, pay it no heed, for it intends to injure your fragile brain:

Red: This bulletin is too nice. Be angry! Booze up and riot!
White: There are three, equally likely reasons for this: The first is that the receptionist is incompetent and has lost the paper; sign out now, they'll never notice. The second is that they've already blown the school budget on a musical and can no longer afford to pay the junior school to colour in pieces of paper. The third is that there is too much individualism in the school, and this must be countered by a public display of the most boring colour.
Stripes: This is the bulletin equivalent of the fire bell. Evacuate accordingly.
Purple: Right, this is the key. This is similar to stripes, but is the response to a nuclear threat. Evacuate to the nuclear bunker.

The nuclear bunker point is one worthy of expansion. Back in the cold war, the British government secretly chose the twenty top schools in the country and used tax money to furnish them all with nuclear bunkers (ours is down those steps that disappear off underground by the boy's toilets.) so that in the event of a nuclear attack, the nation's intellectual cream would survive. The size and existence of this bunker is the only reason why a tunnel was not built linking Sixth Form Central with the main school. However, the bunker is only big enough for four hundred people, and this space has been bagsied by the senior staff, the governors and their families. So the pupils will never actually be invited down there in an emergency. So, in the event of a nuclear attack by the Soviets, or Sadam, or the Taliban or any one of the million other nutters out there who could lob one our way, the purple notice paper will be circulated amongst the elite only, not the pupils. This unfortunate fact explains why you will never see a purple note paper.

Unless I'm wrong.

Which I might be.