Decades past, my boarding school used to use pink plastic mugs.
It became a fad to swipe these from the dining room for personal use. Then it became a fad to place these mugs in obvious yet silly places - even to photograph them. One such was photographed hooked on the spear of the Boadicea statue on Westminster Bridge.
My own contribution was one placed about 30' in the middle of a quadrangle, with an insulated powerline threaded through the handle!
I just cut through the bottom of the plastic handle, climbed up, clipped it over the line, then 'buzzed' it along.
I went back for a reunion about three years after and it was still there!
This reminds me of some silly mug-related tomfoolery I was involved in a few years ago.
I worked for a computer manufacturer on their sales floor, and with a group of similar aged chaps. At that time we were all keen to progress up the corporate ladder so were invariably the first to arrive each morning looking keen as mustard. But such an early start required copious quantities of caffeine, and resultantly we took it in turns to make the first 'brew' of the day whilst the others got on with the morning tasks. As you would imagine, we all had our own mugs - the usual golfing / footballing / foul-mouthed type mugs commonly associated with young men. Mine was from a certain football team (who will remain nameless).
I don't recall specifically how or why it started, but it became a frequent occurrence for the person making the brew to place the filled mugs in the most strategically difficult places - so that we had to embark on 'rescue' missions each morning to retrieve our first brew. Initially, this was confined to the ample space of the sales floor, but over time, it spilled over onto the manufacturing floor and eventually into the car-park.
After a particularly trying morning of attempting to rescue my mug from the top of the strip light in our store room I decided that the ante had to be upped. So the following morning, after placing most of the mugs in the usual, awkward spots, I took one of my colleague's mugs, out of our office, up the road and placed it in the reception area of a very friendly neighbouring company - telling the receptionist that she could expect someone along later in the day to fetch it. I think it was around 2pm when I finally admitted where I had stashed it and my colleague went and collected an extremely cold mug of coffee.
Several days later, whilst I was conducting my usual morning search for my brew, one of my work mates admitted that they hadn't seen my mug that morning and therefore hadn't made me a coffee. Reluctantly I believed him, although still did a quick tour of the usual locations just to make sure. Alas, it was not to be found and so I had to make do with one of the chipped and stained 'corporate' type mugs wedged in the back of the kitchen cabinet.
Skip ahead a couple of weeks, and I settled down in our board room for a video call with one of our suppliers in Taiwan. After the usual overly pleasant introductions, he innocently enquired about a recent 'return' he'd received from us and what he should do with it - before pulling out, on screen, my bloody mug!!!
I'm happy to report that the mug was returned to me, safe and sound, several weeks later and even after 15 years is still perfectly functional.
I'm even happier to report that I no longer need to hunt for my morning coffee. And that I don't work for that company anymore.
