Made in UK - yes, really.

Many years ago, I bought two rose-pink vest tops at a now closed branch of Miss Selfridge. Actually, they were/are more like bodices with front and back “shaping" darts that allow the garment to “bloom” into a nice, female shape on top. Friend, I still have the tops, not as museum pieces but as good, wearable garments. They have lasted through countless wears and washes, and have never lost their stretch. The seams and darts have never pulled apart and the fine, looped trimming is still in place about the neck. The deep pink colour has barely faded and the labels are still readable, bearing the legend Made in UK. The condition of these vests cannot be a fluke because I have a pair of Miss Selfridge leggings bought a decade earlier still. Made of black lycra with a crushed-velvety pile, they have faded to dark purple over twenty years but are still wearable, never having lost their elasticity or ripped or torn. Again, they were Made in UK. To all of those folks who claim that British manufacturers cannot hold it together, that all of our manufacturing, machining and assembling is best done overseas, I join with the other MP (Mary Portas) in saying natch…unless “UK” means Upper Kazakhstan, of course.

Why are blue badges blue?

Last night, I watched a sliver of a BBC programme Parking Mad, documenting the endless angst experienced by the denizens of the capital in their quest to find parking spaces that don’t come with a health warning. In the main, the doc was good, attempting to show the story from all points of view; those of the drivers, wardens and adjudicators when fines are in question. However, I was left with the feeling that design issues could be making life difficult for all involved. There was one nice old gentleman who found himself with a £70 ticket when a traffic warden failed to spot a “blue badge” on his dashboard. Photographs taken of the car by the warden were indistinct, failing to reveal that the driver’s blue badge was not on display. For this reason, the adjudicator waived his fine and he went away happy. A numbskull, non-driver like me has a question: why does the blue badge have to be blue? After all, blue is a difficult colour to see through glass, even on the finest of days – what happens when it is raining or foggy? Why cannot the blue badge be red, or pink, or yellow, or even fluorescent orange? Authorities, over to you.