All posts in category: Life

Save the planet…. but lose your mind

Why...

Is stupidity forgiven if it's environmentally acceptable? I accept plastic bags seem as indestructible as Donald Trump (and equally need to be done away with) but why in all that's holy am I not offered paper bags in UK supermarkets as an alternative. I either leave juggling unpacked groceries like I am auditioning for Cirque du Soleil or made to feel like I must sit on the naughty step as I have to pay for another plastic bag I don't want. On top of that staff from Safeways to Selfridges are getting very gun-shy at asking customers to pay for plastic bags that many want to now put over the check-out staff’s head!

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Congratulations on your forward planning! No one wants to buy a car, ‘Och Aye’ means ‘Nay’ and Tibet's treasure will rule the world!

Why...

Do Western Governments think no further than the next sound bite and company executives are unable to see past their annual bonus and the specifications on their next BMW? We need to understand that long-term planning is more than just remembering to set the TiVo or Skybox to record every episode of Homeland. Former Chairman of the People's Republic of China President Chou En Lai was asked once what he thought of the 1789 French Revolution. He replied "It's too early to say." Take cars. For my generation a car was aspirational on a number of levels. Along with total independence and the sheer exhilaration of driving was added the heady mix of sex and cool. We had no mobile phone, let alone Facebook, so you had to physically visit people in your car. When you did, normally the only chance of 'hooking up' was in the back seat, so 'the cooler the wheels, the sexier the heels'. My and millions of other's youth was full of parked cars that wobbled like jello and was why Lucifer had a bumper crop of souls from 1949- 1990. We gladly traded them for four wheels. Three generations drooled at the prospect of owning a car....and behind it all stood behemoths like Ford, General Motors and Chrysler down to (then) independents like Ferrari, Maserati, Lotus and Lamborghini. All employed a zillion people in their own businesses as well as the countless ancillaries from advertising agencies, tyre companies and design studios to the local gas station and body shops. Now everyone seems taken by surprise that the current generation are not really interested in cars; sales in the developed world are plummeting and we are heading towards automotive employment Armageddon. How could this be??????? A suggestion? Maybe something to do with the fact over the past twenty years successive Governments have made motoring as appetising as a waiter sneezing over a burger? All the fun and skill of driving has been replaced by mad costs, nannying computers and insane road planning. Roadworks stretch into the horizon and traffic police spend three hours investigating a mild knock of two cars in rush hour. Insurance companies treat kids with one minor infraction on their license as being as dangerous as Kim Jong Un with a migraine. George Orwell could not have imagined the level of surveillance, nor Creusus the level of tax on fuel and the Maquis de Sade would have quivered at the endless constriction of traffic jams. SPEED KILLS is flashed everywhere. Speed never killed anyone. Stopping does. The Government (and so mass media) took sex out of cars.......and are now panicking that no one wants to buy them. Did anyone for the teensiest moment think or say... "OK, environmentally we need to tighten things up, but maybe turning one of the largest employment sectors in the world into a pariah might make Mr. Magoo's short-sightedness look like 20/20 vision?"

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Ding Dong, can I purge your soul and dry clean your wallet?

February 18, 2016
Life Work
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Why...

Am I asked to give to a church which solemnly predicts the end of the world is nigh? No long term benefit for me, and clearly the money not much use to them! Last week my door bell rang and a young couple looked up at me all doe eyed youth. " Vous parlez Francais (you speak French)?" To which I replied in the affirmative (My mother was French). We live in a section of London with quite a few French families who have fled to escape President Hollande's financial guillotine and I assumed these two were lost and needed someone who spoke French who could help them find where their friends were. "Vous avez la paix. ...Are you at peace?" Nope, not lost tourists, but a couple of Jehovah's witnesses seeking to convert any escaped countrymen! That is really pushing hope well past the door of reasonable expectation. Successful proselytising in a foreign country but in your native tongue is as likely of being successful as a tap dancing oyster. "Un instant .. Wait a moment" I replied disappearing into the basement. I reappeared wearing a horned Devil's mask and holding a pitchfork, (taken from our Halloween party box). The young couple understood that I might be playing for the other team and left fast enough to make Usain Bolt blush.

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Don't talk on the phone while I am interrupting…….

Why...

Is it if I’m on a call, my beloved wife can occasionally mouth to me “Who is it? What do they want”? If I manage to answer those questions while at the same time still talking to the caller, she inevitably continues with, “Tell them this… that… or the other…” I end like a United Nations interpreter relaying messages between the two of them. however if I attempt to do the same thing to her, a raised finger of admonition accompanied by a glare that actually lowers the room temperature reminds me it's not a good idea.

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WHAT SIZES DOES STUPIDITY COME IN?

Why...

Are the numerics on sizing so bizarre? In my hand I am holding something that extra small is still 7 inches and extra extra large is 11 ½ inches. Nope, it’s not my gentleman’s sausage, (you all have brains like sewers) it’s a glove and refers to sizes. Do you actually know yours, let alone what it refers to? You’d think at least it might be to do with length from the longest fingertip to wrist? Nope. The number is the circumference of your fist…. which is why as I have long fingers, gloves always hang on my finger-tips and end halfway past my second knuckle joint like long johns ending at my knees. It leaves my wrists perfectly exposed to get frostbite. As far as I am concerned any idiot who says what I have on ‘fits like a glove’ means it sticks out in five places.

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These people charge like the Light Brigade…

Why...

Do I meekly accept additions or extra costs that are beyond the ridiculous? I have just returned from a business trip in Europe. In Germany, a one day charge in my room for Wi-Fi access was 35% of the room rate!! Dry cleaning and laundry at the same hotel meant after two washes I had paid for the price of my underpants! The owner of the subcontracted laundry service must also be a major launderer of cash. To add insult to injury I hired a Sat Nav with my car rental the next day in Italy. It was an old dilapidated Garmin that had not had any updates since Caesar built the roads. I found myself on the screen driving over fields when actually I was hurling along a new motorway. And the cost of renting this stone-age piece of technology cost more in a week than the machine itself! Airport Parking. Not being a fully qualified Codebreaker I am afraid deciphering airport tariffs are beyond me. Some are so complex you need Stephen Hawking sitting next to you to work out what a day’s parking actually costs. Download warnings. Whenever my iPad or iPhone gets a note from my operator to say I am near my limit when abroad, I simply turn them off. I have learnt to my cost that no matter if I agree to a new bundle of tariffs, put the thing in airport mode or just run it over with a tank, the phone and Pad still manage to ratchet up charges that soon become the size of a small nation's national debt.

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It's called Christmas, dummy!

Why...

Do a number of people apologise for the name Christmas? Happy Holidays, Season's Greetings, Compliments of the Season, etc. are all wishy washy phrases meaning 'I’m embarrassed or made to feel guilty if I say Merry Christmas’. I don't expect Diwali, Hannukah, Eid, Kwanzaa, Parinirvana to change their name, so why does Christmas have to? What possible offense does the celebration of the birth of a leader of one type of organised religion cause? The birth of a religious leader is a common celebration in many other religions and they cause me no offense. I am not a deeply religious person but that does not mean I don't enjoy the Christmas holidays. However I at least acknowledge the derivation and honour it by giving the holiday its real name. I am equally happy if lots of people from other creeds choose this moment to celebrate Peace on Earth and exchange presents, give to charity and the homeless; just let’s be honest about it.

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The Pre-nag. Conversation’s elegant skewer

Why...

Do we all leave ourselves so wide open to that most deadly of conversation assaults; the pre-nag? The pre-nag is a seemingly innocent question that no matter how you answer, the follow-up will get you. Let me demonstrate. When my wife asks innocently, “Brr, it’s a little chilly. Are you cold?” Whatever I reply, ‘yes’, ‘no’, or ‘a little bit’, I am screwed as the next line is “Did you leave the garden door open again after taking the dogs out?” This sin of course is something she has clearly already noted. Checkmate. Of course we both know I left the door open. But to prolong the ticking off, it is much more satisfying for my beloved to make me squirm a little first, knowing the initial question is a set up for the killer blow. My life is littered with pre-nags. “Have you heard from Bette-Anne?” When I have forgotten to give her the message that her friend has rung and has clearly rung again, spoken to my wife and told her I had failed to pass on the message. “Have you got your glasses?” when we are in the taxi, she having already picked them up from the table at the restaurant we were eating at: “Have you been recently been on Facebook?” when an old flame has contacted me.

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A pot of tea? Do you want that with first or second degree burns?

Why...

Is enjoying tea time now an obstacle course filled with things that want to kill us or poison us? Firstly take the stainless steel teapot so beloved by British Rail and tea rooms full of characters from an Agatha Christie thriller? Where do we start? Well, the steel perfectly transmits the heat to the handle, so it’s bloody hot. In addition this handle so close to the pot you can hardly hold it. Brilliant! Even with a napkin wrapped round the handle to prevent baked fingers, my knuckles still brush against the pot giving me the first set of burns. The second set follow soon after as I drop the damn pot with a yell, blowing on my burnt knuckles. The spilled tea then obligingly runs along the table into my lap causing more burns on a very delicate part of the anatomy. After hobbling off to the bathroom to put a cold compress on my nether regions, the waitress cleans up the mess and returns with yet another hand-grenade of tea.

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If it’s cheap…it will last a lifetime

Why...

Do I have drawers full of cheap reading glasses yet empty Persol, Gucci and Porsche glasses cases?

It seems to be a rule of life when you buy an expensive version along with a few cheap ones on the side, the cheap one sticks to your life like chewing gum to fur, but in an instant the expensive version is lost.

In the kitchen the potato peeler I use was bought from a street urchin in Vietnam years ago but the fancy Alessi one my wife gave me in my stocking for Christmas fell into the waste disposal on Boxing Day.

I cannot begin to count the number of Fox’s umbrellas, Cartier fountain pens, Ray Ban sunglasses, AKG earphones, or fancy schmanzy watches I have lost over the years. However as I sit at my desk there is a biro dated 2006 in front of me, my desk drawer has endless cheap Apple earphones and my car has an umbrella I bought in Hong Kong during a down-pour for HK$1 in 2002. There is even a ten year old Swatch on my wrist.

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Is Progress overrated?

October 8, 2015
Life
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Why...

Do we still use outdated things? I used to think the business card would go the same way as the Beastie Boys, the cheque book and New Coca-Cola….. However whilst the three I mentioned are pretty well dead and buried I found myself ordering new business cards. It seems so strange that in a paperless world, with the only thing written on a piece of paper are all your passwords (and that’s f&*cked up if you think about it), why do we still persist in handing over a rectangle of cardboard? I suppose it’s giving a physical thing that underlines the fact you have actually met the person. It’s also a chance to make an impression with the card having a clever design or fancy shape. You know as soon as the person is in the tube or taxi leaving the meeting they will enter the details in their phone and throw the card away…..and yet I just recoil when I meet someone and they simply say, “Give me your email and I’ll send over my details.” It’s a synthetic introduction and you just think the relationship will equally be as false. Which is also why I am not sure sex robots will catch on!

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Who you gonna call♫…NOT the Weatherman

Why...

Do we bother with weather forecasts? If ever a group of people would starve to death if they were paid on performance it’s the weathermen. In the UK the forecast is either… ‘Sunny with cloudy spells and occasional rain’. Well excuse me, but apart from adding a plague of locusts and blizzards that describes every kind of possible permutation you can get. That’s not a weather forecast, that’s weather hedge betting. It covers all the bases and is as much use as a rubber hammer Or You download an app with an hour by hour breakdown that changes more often than Miley Cyrus at an MTV Award ceremony. Earlier this month I was going to Goodwood for their annual three day extravaganza of classic cars and racing called the Goodwood Revival. It lasted from a Friday to Sunday. On Thursday there were dire predictions of fire and brimstone (OK rain) all day Saturday and Sunday but Friday would be fine. Needless to say it rained Friday evening but was sunny for the rest of the week-end. I would do better peering at the entrails of a chicken than use App mumbo-jumbo! How is it that a small island that could be carpeted in an afternoon has such unpredictable weather but when you go to Europe or the United States weather over vast distances can be predicted with reasonable success? Predicting weather is essential to sailors so how we ever became a seafaring nation is beyond me. Perhaps that’s why they took along a parrot to listen to what it had to say? I am told that you can convert cricket chirps to degrees Fahrenheit by counting the number of chirrups in 14 seconds then adding 40 to get the temperature! Either of those animals seem more reliable than depending on some presenter with bad hair and worse clothes pointing at a chart that will be as close to the truth as a candidate’s promises if elected President.

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Does your hairdresser’s own hairstyle frighten you?

Why...

Do so many of the top hairdressers have hairstyles that are better suited to Halloween Night? And who cuts and styles their hair? I used to wonder if it was students let loose on their teacher, but then would a plastic surgeon use his face as a student’s first experiment? Nope….. so it must be a conscious decision. Yikes!

On top of my blind trust that a stylist can cut hair normally, (despite the evidence on his or her head to the contrary), nearly every time my hair was cut, it was cut too short. Surely even Haircutting for Dummies must suggest hairdressers should undercut not overcut hair so the customer comes back sooner? My current salon however are perfect….. (I know they read the blog)!

For a cutter, I suppose, their job has a satisfying finality to it. It’s not like a customer can look at the reflection and go:

“Nah, I liked it better before, can you collect up all those hairs and re-attach them.” Maybe that’s why they are supremely confident.

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Keep it simple, stupid

Why...

Do we associate quality with complexity? 95% of mobile phone users understand about 10% of their phones’ capabilities. Does any manufacturer seriously believe we are going to read the handbook (or should I say download it). These things make ‘The Lord of the Rings’ seem like a postcard.

Friends are more useful than a manual and a darn site quicker. We kick ourselves of course but most of their tips are at least helpful. Did you know if you’ve just typed a long sentence and accidentally deleted it on your iPhone, you can give it a shake to bring up the undo/redo button? OK, of course you did, but I didn’t. The point is this useful tip is hidden in a tsunami of useless information.

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Welcome, have a nice day…but I loathe you

Why...

Are we so angry that London is overrun by young Arab men this time of year, squirting their bling-bling hypercars up and down Park Lane? Well, of course it’s because these glitzy tourists have more money than us, have a different culture and so we don’t understand them….Does that sound familiar? Think a bit next time you go somewhere remote on holiday as to how you behave and be thankful most locals treat you with such patience and respect! They must feel just the same as many Londoners do now and yet smile when they see you, not grit their teeth!

It is so easy to cause offense without thinking, even in cultures of similar backgrounds to our own.

I once waited in line at Le Louvre, when in front of me stood an elderly American couple. He was wearing trousers with checks big enough to play chess on and she had hair dye the colour of condemned veal.

"Can you tell us where the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Venus de Milo, and the Mona Lisa are?" they asked the ticket lady without attempting a single word in French.

Obviously a frequently asked question, the girl pulled out a map and tracing the path they needed to take explained:

"You go up the staircase to the Greek section, there is the Winged Victory then turn right….through the lobby on to the Roman section to see The Venus de Milo….then come back to the staircase and go two floors to the greats masters…. turn left, turn right, walk the entire corridor to finally get to a small room….et voilá, the Mona Lisa."

"Gee Harry, " said the exasperated women, "why don’t these French just put ‘em all in one room. Be much simpler."

And you wonder why you don’t always feel the love of your host country.

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I know what colour knickers you have on...

Why...

Are we allowing drones, those wretched electronic insects, to proliferate practically unchecked? If I climb a tree and start photographing my neighbour as she sunbathes in the nude or hang upside down from a balcony and film the honeymoon couple in the suite below, I expect arrest, lawsuits and bad language to be hurled in equal measure. Yet some halfwit can pop into any branch of Electronic’n’Computershit’R’us and buy an 'eye in the sky' by simply shoving over a credit card (something that took far more scrutiny to obtain than the drone). When first introduced by the U.S. military, I must admit to a frisson of smug satisfaction at the West's ingenuity. A drone, sent by a bloke with a buzz cut in a bunker in Nebraska, could deliver a missile right through Mr. Terrorist’s front door, whether he’s in Timbuktu or Al Ramadi. How’s that for special delivery! Now it seems our privacy and safety is the target; these things follow dogs in the park, boats at sea and even joy riders in stolen cars. The accident waiting to happen (such as a multi-car pileup or worse...an airline crash) is patiently hovering in the corner.

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Smile and say cheese… But, ♫...hey, you, ♫ get off of my cloud…

Why...

Do we take photos we never really intend to keep? It was reported that during 1990 we took 57 billion photos; for 2015 it’s estimated we will take one trillion! In fact 10% of all photos ever taken were in the last twelve months; every two minutes we take more photos than the entire first 80 years of photography…but of what? And where are they? Well three trillion are on some cloud, to be stored forever and rarely viewed. But what the hell is the cloud? Will the sun come along one day and burn it away? In the 1970’s a questionnaire asked if there was a fire and you could save one thing, most chose their photograph album. Yet now we entrust those cherished memories to some electronic jiggery-pokery none of us understand. If the cloud ever disappears so will our past.

Digital storage has become like the ‘lock-up’ we keep furniture in. We hang onto this stuff in the belief that one day we will use the hideous mirror from Auntie Mary or look at that picture of a drunk in a sombrero in Malaga, mooning at the camera. Of course we never will... unless that young man becomes famous; then it’s who wants to pay?

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Dear Mr.Burglar.com….

Why...

In a world obsessed with security are we so crap at our own? I mean apart from the crass self-indulgence of Twitter and/or Facebook, do people really understand that when they post photos of themselves away on holiday every burglar in town says "Thank you, enjoy your break…while I break in?" Sat Nav's. Wonderful things. However when you register your details for ‘home’, maybe it’s not such a good idea to punch in your actual address? If your car gets stolen (especially if it’s something sleek, shiny and expensive) you have given the thief the added bonus of knowing where you live, usually with an electronic garage door opener in the glovebox. So maybe use a nasty neighbour's address close by you instead? Simple security. It’s ironic we are so cavalier on our own but in a crowd will all meekly take off our shoes at airports. At airport security we allow ourselves the indignity of being kneaded like dough despite the infinitesimally small chance of sharing a plane with someone sadly wanting to blow us through the doors of the next world! We hunch up at ATM’s furtively checking over our shoulder for anyone suspicious, yet gladly hand out the same details over the internet to just about anyone. In addition we guard our personal bank account numbers and codes like a poker player hiding his straight flush. However if we get a phone call from someone saying he is from the bank and need to change our security code due to a breach, we never question it. "Before we can proceed with the new code for our security process please first can you give me your current one." We spout down the phone every conceivable security detail known to man….saying thank you whilst doing it! The thank you is reciprocated by the thief you have just given your details to.

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I feel pretty, oh so pretty ......and I pity anyone who isn't me today. Tra-la-la

Why...

Do people laugh at fashion disasters walking down the street? Surely what's funny is the fact these misguided peacocks looked in the mirror before going out and said "Yes, this works."

I am not referring to people unlucky to have been cursed with legs like a billiard table, or who hit every branch of the ugly tree. I applaud people challenging our blinkered idea of beauty. The ones that worry me is anyone who is 'making a statement'. Let's be clear. That statement is "look at me, I am an utter twat."

The only thing worse than people dressed like an explosion in a clothing store, are fashion show commentators. Some stick insect model with a purse string pout, parades down the catwalk wearing a real beehive on her head, a dress made out of a bin liner and Cornish pasties for shoes. Nevertheless some expert says "Yes strange as this may seem, this is what we will all be wearing next summer." Egg on face …. is all they will be wearing.

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Was it good for you? Please, please tell me you love me.

Why...

Is it that any time I ring customer service, I immediately get sent a questionnaire asking if I enjoyed the experience?

The experience better be good or I simply won’t be a customer. How’s that for simple market research. Doh!

All these calls are recorded 'to serve me better' so why not listen to them rather than ask me, the customer, to do the retailer/service company’s job?

Most of the time I have to contact these people because I have a problem. A really good operator’s words can take the sting out of waiting hours to get through, so why undo all that warm fuzzy feeling by pestering me about an experience I would rather never have had in the first place! Having access to my email or sms (text) address should not be a short cut for companies’ customer research.

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All posts in category: Life

Save the planet…. but lose your mind

Why...

Congratulations on your forward planning! No one wants to buy a car, ‘Och Aye’ means ‘Nay’ and Tibet's treasure will rule the world!

Why...

Ding Dong, can I purge your soul and dry clean your wallet?

Why...

Don't talk on the phone while I am interrupting…….

Why...

WHAT SIZES DOES STUPIDITY COME IN?

Why...

These people charge like the Light Brigade…

Why...

It's called Christmas, dummy!

Why...

The Pre-nag. Conversation’s elegant skewer

Why...

A pot of tea? Do you want that with first or second degree burns?

Why...

If it’s cheap…it will last a lifetime

Why...

Is Progress overrated?

Why...

Who you gonna call♫…NOT the Weatherman

Why...

Does your hairdresser’s own hairstyle frighten you?

Why...

Keep it simple, stupid

Why...

Welcome, have a nice day…but I loathe you

Why...

I know what colour knickers you have on...

Why...

Smile and say cheese… But, ♫...hey, you, ♫ get off of my cloud…

Why...

Dear Mr.Burglar.com….

Why...

I feel pretty, oh so pretty ......and I pity anyone who isn't me today. Tra-la-la

Why...

Was it good for you? Please, please tell me you love me.

Why...