Packaged with care...

A few days’ ago, I received a telephone sales call. This time, it wasn’t anyone asking if I had a recent accident, or pleading to apply for the return of payment protection insurance, nor was it a power company promising mysteriously to “save you some money”. There wasn’t a Floridan holiday in sight, or a new conservatory nor a set of spanking-new, double-glazed windows. Nope, the caller on this occasion was enquiring about the efficacy of my computer care package…ah! Now, there’s a new phenomenon for me to take in: a computer care package. I assured the young lady that my computer was well cared for, thanks, and hung up. I meditated for a while, then I did a quick roll-over of Google to see what I had been missing and – lawksamussy! –ye gods! There are none so blind as those who do not see. For a sum of money, the computer owner can purchase a number of service hours, per month, from a company like Microsoft, to ensure the smooth running of their computer equipment. If you don’t use “your” hours one month, you can roll them on to next month, and so on and so forth. Like health care, there a different levels of care package, from the most basic computer maintenance to the more exclusive (read expensive) levels that include a removal service of old and broken computing equipment for recycling. One package, sold by Microsoft, even includes a power usage health check – now, we are getting into the realms of anthropomorphism. But don’t take my word for it. Check this link for more details. In the meantime, I scratch my head while I wonder what household god to sacrifice in the name of good, computer care – food, perhaps?

Railway to Heaven

Readers of this blog will know that I never was a motorist. On the contrary, I (mis)-spent my teenage years raging at the lack of train track and rolling stock to the remoter areas of the Emerald Isle – weird in a country that sells itself as a tourist paradise. Decades later, I learned of the Beeching Report, trotted out on March 27, 1963, which led eventually to the axing of more than one third of rail services in the UK. Fast forward to March 30, 2013. The volunteer-led Swanage Railway has just reopened the Bournemouth to Swanage line, the occasion marked by running a train. By 2015, the company aims to run a regular train service on that line, using the £1.47 million grant that it has been given. There is much more detail in the Guardian article that inspired this piece. Right now, I am growing all misty-eyed for a time and place that never was; a land where unobtrusive railway tracks wound around steep mountains, allowing awestruck passengers to enjoy vistas of sheep grazing amid ancient, ruined castles and flowers growing around picture-pretty cottages. With the progress of Beeching in reverse, maybe that vision will happen yet.

On Bathtime Battles and Being Cleopatra

It haunts my dreams both when I’m asleep and awake. It fills me with both rage and purpose, as I constantly seek chemical formulae to keep it at bay. I am talking of the purity of my bathroom enamel despoiled by that ring of dirt that will not go away. This is in spite of the friends and relatives who have given advice on how to vanquish it forever. Apparently, the only way never to have that ring around the bathtub is to wipe the scummy ring off the enamel with a cloth the moment you are finished bathing. Fine, if you are a practical creature who (a) prefers to shower anyway and (b) who has never entertained bath-time fantasies born of scented water, good soap and other ablutional indulgences. My favourite daydream is of being Cleopatra as I step from the tub and don my dressing robe – what better way to shatter it than wielding a scouring cloth doused with a dollop of elbow grease? I do not leave behind a colloquial tub of tepid water but a golden, Jacuzzi-like receptacle of asses’ milk or sparkling wine or some such exotic liquid. My fantasy lasts while I massage oil of roses (ergo body cream) into my poor, tired pelt, don clothing and breakfast on grapes and nectar (tea and toast, actually). Later, I do become more practical and focused as the mind switches into daytime mode – but by then it is too late. The ring has hardened into the familiar and stubborn beast, and the battle of the bath resumes.

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.

All I ever wanted to be.....

A week and a half ago, Lucy Mangan wrote volubly in the Guardian about a Christmas incident when she was a teenager where her father presented her and her sister each with a slice of hick chic all the way from Carolina when he was posted there for work. All in all, her description of the dressed-up lumber shirts had me in stitches (sic). However, funny as her column was, I could not touch base with Lucy – no one has ever presented me with a slice of backwoods’ bling. Next weekend, however, I squealed in empathy with Victoria Coren’s column in the Observer . Victoria gripes over how us women are supposed to appear at our most glamorous at the darkest, coldest, wettest or frostiest time of year, while the boys are permitted to stay snug as rug bugs in sensible suits and boots. Even as a child, I puzzled over the fashion spreads in December magazines; painted females in trip-me-up shoes and gold foil dresses that began somewhere just above the bosom and ended halfway down the thigh. In the time and place I spent my formative years, not even the average winter ensemble of wools and furry cottons prevented me from sporting the glorious accessory of a snuffly head cold on 25/12. No, I never was the fairy on top of the Christmas tree.

In memory of Jacintha Saldanha

When I heard of the telephone prank on the nurses at the King Edward VII hospital, I did not punch the air and laugh at the royals – no. Apparently, two well-paid broadcasters “down unda” had nothing better to do but attack hard-working, working-class people. In light of the latest news, I hope that they are proud of themselves and their fools’ project. Let me make one thing clear, I have no personal agenda in writing this. I have no ties with the medical profession, apart from having once had to spend a few days in hospital where I was very well cared for by the staff. They put up with my post-op groaning and moaning, grumbling and whingeing. Multiply that many times over, and I wonder why anyone, anywhere wants to nurse for a living. But still they do it. They put up with the hard labour and the low pay, the grumbling and groaning from people like me, the lifting and carrying, the phials of blood and other bodily fluids. In return, they are lampooned and trivialised, humbled and sent up in every possible way. A quick spot of Googling, and you can access millions of “naughty nurse” and “sexy nurse” outfits – yes, they are presented as sex maniacs, as well. How long will it take for us to see the truth, that the nurse is a highly-trained, hard-working professional? All I can do is extend my deepest sympathy to the family, friends and colleagues of the late Jacintha Saldanha.