When I was in Runcorn last week, I spent a few minutes looking at the prints on display in the Brindley gallery.

Their website describes it thus:

17th Nov - 5th Jan 2008
Paul Peter Piech: Work from the archive

An internationally regarded printmaker, Paul Peter Piech gave voice to his strongly held beliefs through the medium of hand printed political posters. His work also reflects his love of jazz and poetry and references sources as diverse as Martin Luther King and Goethe.
A Touring Exhibition from The Regional Print Centre, Wrexham.

I particularly liked this poster on the right, but haven’t been able to identify who said it, certainly not Martin Luther king or Goethe. It is paraphrased here and there, but I haven’t found an accurate source yet. I haven’t been able to match the flag either, the Iraq flag has three stars but Arabic writing as well. I’m more inclined to think it may be an African (or Middle Eastern) country, especially with the Palm Trees, but a quick look around the Interweb hasn’t matched the flag or the quote. I nearly bought an exhibition catalogue but got distracted by a phone call.

Just in case you are viewing this without images, the words say:

“We are strong but not arrogant, modest but not weak”

A much better position than some of the vision/mission guff we see in Corporate shareholder statements. It also seems to be diametrically opposed to the current position of our Government and all of the mainstream political parties.

Why is the blogpost entitled “diverse posters?” Well, outside of the sanitised clinical environment of the gallery, the real world has posters of its own in Runcorn. I was amazed to see a warning notice on the door of a sub-station that the contents were protected by Smart Water. For the benefit of not-so-smart copper thieves, it is also protected by 11,000 volts which I would have thought was a much more effective deterrent- summary justice capital punishment. The other poster that surprised me was the one shown in the window of a work clothing shop, a particularly specific example of a no refunds policy. The shop also sold bric-a-brac; I picked up a handful of ReadersDigest triple CDs for £1 each. Cheshire isn’t all northern stockbrokers and Company Directors it would seem.