I'll Send An SOS To The World

March 10, 2007 8:57 PM

Message In A Bottle. For ten years, Stuart Conway, who calls himself a "postman for emotions," has been providing a unique service. He "mails" other people's messages, collected via his website, by placing them in bottles and tossing them into the waters off Brighton Pier on the south coast of England. He's sent over 4000 missives so far, and helped launch other message-in-a-bottle services all over the world. Now his town council wants him to cease and desist. Via Nothing To Do With Arbroath.
posted by amyms (22 comments total)

Time in a Bottle.
posted by ericb at 9:08 PM on March 10, 2007

He could just switch to plastic. I'm sure they'd bitch about that too though.
posted by puke & cry at 9:08 PM on March 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

Sentimental litterbugs.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 9:15 PM on March 10, 2007

It's sort of interesting that he's using the internet to gather the messages, then sending them out into the physical world on actual paper in actual bottles. But of course, it is pollution... I reckon some percentage of the bottles have wound up in the bellies of whales and big fishes.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:28 PM on March 10, 2007

Little known & totally derailing fact: I went to elementary school with Jim Croce's son. I vividly remember watching him playing in the playground by himself because we all had heard that he had this famous musician dad who had died & none of us knew what to say. I actually felt guilty about that for years of my childhood.
posted by miss lynnster at 9:40 PM on March 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

And he grew up to become Bad Bad Leroy Brown...
posted by wendell at 10:05 PM on March 10, 2007

How can you cease and desist LOVE?

Shine on, you crazy diamond!
posted by grapefruitmoon at 10:24 PM on March 10, 2007 [2 favorites]

I am completely opposed to trying to force Conway to stop. His life's project is so romantic, and life is so damned cold and antiseptic as it is. This notion of sending messages by bottles has been with us for ages, even infiltrating the collective consciousness, as shown by a song from The Police, the 1999 Kevin Costner/Paul Newman film, and comic strips, as the ancient version of it often depicted in BC, by Johnny Hart. I say more power to Stuart Conway!
posted by RayOrama at 11:16 PM on March 10, 2007

While it is romantic, he has individually thrown 4000 glass bottles into the ocean and, through his actions, inspired others to do the same. I happen to agree with the town, Mr. Conway.. please recycle!
posted by purephase at 12:16 AM on March 11, 2007

He could send the messages in bottles on an enchantingly romantic journey to the recycling center.
posted by neckro23 at 12:28 AM on March 11, 2007

I have found two messages in bottles on the beach in Massachusetts. One was in a small plastic beverage container with plastic ribbon, pink with black polka-dots tied to the neck, bobbing in the waves at sunset. The note was from a third grade class in florida asking the finder to send a letter C/O the school. No response. School was over.
posted by longsleeves at 12:35 AM on March 11, 2007

I dunno about messages in a bottle. Whenever I walk on my local beach, I keep on finding messages in a condom.

Weirdly, the message is always the same physical expression of love.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:51 AM on March 11, 2007

Of all the things that are routinely put into the sea, messages in bottles seems the most benign. That said, recycle bottles, put the messages into very small vials made of post-consumer recycled glass, reduce the waste factor exponentially, make everyone happy.
posted by Dreama at 3:31 AM on March 11, 2007

Stuart Copeland?

Just send him the bill for the medical treatment of every child who cuts their foot on glass on the beach anywhere in the world.

Think of the cut-foot children!!

As it is a 'romantic' activity, why not simply origami the messages into the usual boat shape and be done?
posted by asok at 4:55 AM on March 11, 2007

Why not switch to one of them new-fangled RFID devices? Or a sound chip like in a Hallmark card. Then maybe a shark swallows it and they can chart migration patterns by the sound of "Why didn't we go to Mexico?"

There's a minute chance said shark could even kill the very person intended. They're being thrashed about and dragged under and the last thing they hear is "Why did you stop loving me? I tended your ferret."
posted by hal9k at 5:08 AM on March 11, 2007

This was one of the Guardian's Quotes of the Week yesterday, from a local town councillor:
We would suggest that Mr. Conway recycles his bottles and investigates some of the many other exciting ways to send messages overseas.
posted by Flashman at 5:36 AM on March 11, 2007

And what the hell is going on with that Daily Mail story? Halfway through it devolves into gibberish. Not 'string-up all the criminals, send the darkies back home' Daily Mail gibberish, but random words and sentence fragments:
It's cold and suede designed for and shingle, cold and gritty, for the evaporating Meanwhile, is having a nightmare
posted by Flashman at 5:40 AM on March 11, 2007

It's cold and suede designed for and shingle, cold and gritty, for the evaporating Meanwhile, is having a nightmare

Hmmm, reads like a typical block of "English" copy that one is likely to find emblazoned on the front window of a pachinko parlor, or printed on a shopping bag, or wherever a bit of exotic-looking foreign text is required to give that certain air of sophistication that businesses here in Japan often want to exude.

But "the Evaporating Meanwhile" is so the name of my next record.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:54 AM on March 11, 2007

The note was from a third grade class in florida asking the finder to send a letter C/O the school. No response. School was over.

What a dick.
posted by Kwantsar at 6:12 AM on March 11, 2007

(I think longsleeves meant that he/she sent a note to the school and didn't hear anything back.)
posted by lisa g at 6:42 PM on March 11, 2007

Of course. I retract the Spicoli.
posted by Kwantsar at 10:08 PM on March 12, 2007

Thanks lisa g, retraction duly noted Kwanstar.
posted by longsleeves at 9:13 PM on March 13, 2007