Paint Jenga (It'll End in Tears...)

The reigning Epson 'Reprographics Princess' Helen Milroy with her wall of paint

The ever helpful Helen Milroy (33) runs our in-studio reprographics department, ably assisted by the equally helpful Lesley Harding (also 33).

To offer an even greater service to our students, Helen has decided to keep a stock of art materials in the office she shares with Lesley, which can be sold to students at those times when our faculty 'Artists' Materials Shop' is closed to the public.

Helen (a former Cumbrian shop-window display champion) has rediscovered her creative side and produced an outstanding window display of great originality, featuring a multicolour 'wall of paint' (see photo below).


4.5m and counting, the tower goes up and up...

Seduced by the vivacity of her primary coloured masterpiece, the building went on and on and the wall went up and up....

It is well known that once the height of a wall is greater than its width it officially becomes a tower and with a current altitude of 4.5m we can now report that Helen has become the proprietor of a 'tower of paint'.

Sadly, with no means of reaching paint stacked at the top of the tower, any paint purchased has to be (very) carefully removed from the lower rows in a technique reminiscent of the game 'Jenga'.

So far the structural integrity of the tower is intact but how long can this go on for?

Helen accepts that at some point the tower will topple and is quite happy to deal with the consequences. Lesley (whose desk sits directly below the tower) is less phlegmatic about the situation...

"It's b****y ridiculous", Ms. Harding is quoted as saying, adding; "I mean, it could go at any time. All we need is for an illustration student to come along and ask for two cadmium reds and she'll topple". The concerned Lesley added; "Now I know how the people of Herculaneum must have felt on August 24, AD 79 just before Vesuvius started erupting. I'm in a rainbow coloured volcano scenario and the consequences aren't worth contemplating!"

When/If the tower topples you'll be the first to know dear reader...