Rituals of composition: the Chairman's desk

"He demanded from his underlings the strictest observance of infinitesimal minutiae.  For instance, every object on his desk had to be arranged each morning with meticulous exactitude.  The edges of the in-tray must be flush with those of the out-tray.  The silver calendar, turned for the day, two inches to the left of the clock.  Pencils, newly sharpened, and clean nibs in pen-holders.  The penwiper at right angles to the blotter, freshly filled.  Telephones and inter-communicator slightly staggered at an angle of, say, 22 degrees from the chair.  Envelope rack within easy reach without necessitating undue stretching, yet not so close that the elbow had to be unnaturally crooked.  If the softest of the three India rubbers was not found on the left-hand side of the row on the allotted tray and adjacent to the red (not blue) sealing wax, Sir Roderick's displeasure could be terrible."

Another Self   James Lees-Milne
(on the desk arrangement of Sir Roderick Jones, Chairman of Reuters)

Sunday, 23rd December, 1945

"I read an interesting article in which it said that only three hundred thousand less turkeys were available this year than in an ordinary pre-war year.  But where, in 1938, only one family in seven had turkey, either from choice or inability to pay for one, today almost everyone wanted bird, and were quite able to pay the price.

People are so afraid of letting anything 'get by them'.  Take fruit, for instance.  I feel sure the average working-class person hardly ever bothered to buy oranges except at Christmas, but now, as soon as it is rumoured there are oranges or apples on the way, everyone spends hours looking for them.  and I know, perfectly well, that before the war thousands and thousands of people never had one salad in the whole course of the year.  Whereas now they all seem to want salads."     B. Charles.

"11a.m. Norah came in to arrange about the feeding of Smut while we are away at Christmas, and I gave her one of my three-year calendars.
11.30 a.m.  Ida came in and brought me a box of chocolates. I gave her a calendar."  Herbert Brush.

Our Hidden Lives  The Remarkable Diaries of Post-war Britain  Simon Garfield

In the frame

"All in all, not a sound type.  Nunn drew a box round her name in the Horse of the Year Calendar.  He drew a scalloped edging round the box, then a box round the edging,  and a line of loops round the new box, and a box round the loops.   Then he surrounded the whole thing with a picture frame, and the picture frame with more boxing, scalloping, and loops, and the expanded version with another picture frame.  Leaning very close to see what he was doing, he began to shade in the gaps between alternate sets of borders.   One thing worried him as he worked.  He knew for sure from his long years of dealing with subversion that anyone who got up a petition was merely acting as a front for some more sinister figure who remained unidentified.  That was the man he really had to get at.  Nunn turned over the possible names in his head."

The Tin Men  Michael Frayn