I had a refreshing encounter with a plumber dude this morning.
Refreshing because (a) he was amenable to doing some work without the sharp intake of breath which normally accompanies a contractor’s commencement of laborious activity but mostly because (b) he whipped out an iPhone which quite frankly looked like it had been used to detonate a landmine.
The screen was cracked and fissured so much that activating any of the apps must have felt akin to caressing Bernard Cribbins’ whiskery jowls. There were paint spatters. There were oily skid marks. There were questionable potholes that may or may not have been caused by high impacts on the quantum scale. Of course, the allusion to Bernard Cribbins breaks down completely at this point.
It was a well used, possibly well loved, definitely not well looked after device.
And that pleased me.
It pleased me because the thought occurred that too often these days we lavish such love and status onto our electronic gadgetry that the merest hairline scratch on a touchscreen, the merest infinitesimal microdot of grit under a plasticoating and we have to head straight out to the vendor to buy a new one. A brand new one because the old one has now been sullied and besmirched. Part of the joy of having it and showing it off is showing it off in prime brand spanking new condition. The tiniest chip will render it second-rate and give it the appearance of being second-hand and, worse still, make it appear as if the device is nose-diving already off the cliff of contemporality and pitching itself useless-face first into the pit of obsolescence.
It was plain that what mattered to the plumber chappy was not the appearance of the device and, therefore not the status the device could confer onto him... but that the device still worked. It was functional. The touchscreen still worked. He could make still calls. Access his apps. Troll on Twitter. Download dodgy films from the internet.
In his own small way he was doing his bit for the environment (if not for the economy). He was, if not mending and making do, then at the very least just making do.
And this to me seems a good way to go. How many of us as we pass through life cast sneering glances and sneerier comments towards battered vehicles we see out and about on the roads? Battered computers being used? Battered bags carried around? Battered clothes being worn?
If they still work and are fit for purpose we should use them. They’ve gobbled up God knows how many of Earth’s resources just by being made. Let’s get our money’s worth before we buy yet more gadgetry and add to the resource debt that is currently mounting up against us.
Let’s use things up and wear them out. It is the highest honour we can afford anything that we create. To use a tool until it cannot be used anymore.
To this end then, despite the holes in the back of my underpants I am going to continue to wash and wear them. The front bit is fine. The hammock effect is uncompromised. I’m going to maintain their functional status for the long haul.
We shall go on together until the end. Or at least until my dangly bits go into freefall.
And I defy any of you to tell me I’m wrong.
Showing posts with label green. Show all posts
Showing posts with label green. Show all posts
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
The War Against Plants
There are plans afoot to remove all greenery from my household.
Shrubbery, foliage and photosynthesis have been designated public enemy status.
There are those – the powers who have come to be – who are working hard to turn the green and pleasant land of my living room into a desert. The windowsills, once a tropical paradise courtesy of B&Q, are already denuded. Deforestation is occurring at such an alarming rate I am thinking of launching a campaign on Facebook and asking Bono to perform a charity gig.
Yes. It’s that bad.
Our kittens – now at the feline teenager stage – have taken it upon themselves to munch, push, kick, pounce, harass, eat and slash every single plant organism we own to the point of death. Their favourite tactic is to turn themselves into a feline ballista. They launch themselves at the curtains, climb up and then, when they have reached optimum height and can guarantee that, with the help of gravity they can reach terminal velocity, they re-sheath their claws and freefall onto whatever hapless spider plant is basking innocently beneath them.
Should the triffids ever attack their nemesis is right here.
Were I to let Missy and Kiah loose in Brazil I fear the loggers would soon be out of a job and the rain forests would be out of existence. They would see Kew Gardens as a bit of light lunch.
Nothing we can do seems to stop them. Our carpets have had so much soil deposited onto them I could throw down seed potatoes and grow a decent crop for Christmas.
We’ve tried shouting, tapping their little nosey-wosies gently, even removing them bodily from the room.
They laugh in our faces. Or rather they stare at us without blinking, ears back and then carry on their carnage like we don’t exist. This, as you all know, is the cat equivalent of laughing.
So we are down to mechanical warfare.
Weapons of war. Something with a trigger.
A weapon of mass inundation.
We have accepted that it is now necessary to spray our cats with water whenever they do something naughty.
I feel a bit uneasy about it. It feels too much like water-boarding but really the only other option is the electric chair... and despite their destructive mischievousness we love them both to bits and don’t want to stamp down too hard on their feline rights.
And who knows?
Should a jet of cold water to the mush work without too much psychological damage we may even try it on the kids...
Shrubbery, foliage and photosynthesis have been designated public enemy status.
There are those – the powers who have come to be – who are working hard to turn the green and pleasant land of my living room into a desert. The windowsills, once a tropical paradise courtesy of B&Q, are already denuded. Deforestation is occurring at such an alarming rate I am thinking of launching a campaign on Facebook and asking Bono to perform a charity gig.
Yes. It’s that bad.
Our kittens – now at the feline teenager stage – have taken it upon themselves to munch, push, kick, pounce, harass, eat and slash every single plant organism we own to the point of death. Their favourite tactic is to turn themselves into a feline ballista. They launch themselves at the curtains, climb up and then, when they have reached optimum height and can guarantee that, with the help of gravity they can reach terminal velocity, they re-sheath their claws and freefall onto whatever hapless spider plant is basking innocently beneath them.
Should the triffids ever attack their nemesis is right here.
Were I to let Missy and Kiah loose in Brazil I fear the loggers would soon be out of a job and the rain forests would be out of existence. They would see Kew Gardens as a bit of light lunch.
Nothing we can do seems to stop them. Our carpets have had so much soil deposited onto them I could throw down seed potatoes and grow a decent crop for Christmas.
We’ve tried shouting, tapping their little nosey-wosies gently, even removing them bodily from the room.
They laugh in our faces. Or rather they stare at us without blinking, ears back and then carry on their carnage like we don’t exist. This, as you all know, is the cat equivalent of laughing.
So we are down to mechanical warfare.
Weapons of war. Something with a trigger.
A weapon of mass inundation.
We have accepted that it is now necessary to spray our cats with water whenever they do something naughty.
I feel a bit uneasy about it. It feels too much like water-boarding but really the only other option is the electric chair... and despite their destructive mischievousness we love them both to bits and don’t want to stamp down too hard on their feline rights.
And who knows?
Should a jet of cold water to the mush work without too much psychological damage we may even try it on the kids...
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Tossing My Bionic Caber
I’m a cheapskate.
No, really. I am.
I drink water at work so I don’t have to contribute to the tea kitty. Not only that, I buy a 1ltr bottle of water from the local newsagent, drink it, and then hijack the water cooler in the staffroom (paid for by one of the other operators who share my work’s building) and refill it from there every day after.
I tell you this as a precursor to the main subject of my post.
Because yesterday, it occurred to me that it was time for me to buy a new bottle of water. Not so much for the water but for the bottle. Because mine was starting to look green around the rim. Not only that, despite emptying it out and refilling it, I noticed that there was precipitate in it.
Small furry occurrences of matter that hung in suspension around the mid-point of the bottle.
So I decided that my immune system had been exercised enough and trotted off to acquire a new bottle of aqua vitae (narrowly avoiding Cap’n Jack Sparrow in the queue at the newsagents).
I settled on a bottle of Highland Spring.
I took it back to the office whereupon I was so bored by my surroundings that I distracted myself by reading the label on the bottle.
“Drawn from Organic Land”.
That is what it said under the product’s name. It’s obviously a major selling point, this organic land.
But what exactly is it?
See, I figured that all land is organic by default. Or is this a subtle way of telling me that Highland Spring Ltd haven’t just collected up the run-off from a landfill site to the northwest of Birmingham and bottled up the resulting sump?
What is non-organic land? Concrete? Plastic? Bacofoil? The main arena at the NEC? Are there whole fields comprised of polyester and Kevlar that I have missed on my many travels around this (not so green and pleasant) land?
Do these places feature natural springs whose water might be confused with that drawn from real, mud and soil, land? You know; old school terra firma, made the old fashioned way by nature and the slow laws of geology?
Because, given a choice, I’d quite like to try some “bionic water” (my phrase and, yes, I am going to copyright it) drawn from non-organic land. It’s the type of thing that could well turn somebody into Spiderman or Swamp Thing provided it contained the right amount of genetically modified contaminates and unintentional ingredient X’s.
And that would be pretty cool, you must admit.
I could wreak havoc on the masses, not to mention the misses in my office. I’d have an excuse never to come into work again. I could become a crime fighter or even a master criminal. I could be on the telly every night.
Aqua vitae indeed.
It would also be a far more permanent and exciting way of alleviating my terminal boredom than by reading the label on a sodding water bottle.
No, really. I am.
I drink water at work so I don’t have to contribute to the tea kitty. Not only that, I buy a 1ltr bottle of water from the local newsagent, drink it, and then hijack the water cooler in the staffroom (paid for by one of the other operators who share my work’s building) and refill it from there every day after.
I tell you this as a precursor to the main subject of my post.
Because yesterday, it occurred to me that it was time for me to buy a new bottle of water. Not so much for the water but for the bottle. Because mine was starting to look green around the rim. Not only that, despite emptying it out and refilling it, I noticed that there was precipitate in it.
Small furry occurrences of matter that hung in suspension around the mid-point of the bottle.
So I decided that my immune system had been exercised enough and trotted off to acquire a new bottle of aqua vitae (narrowly avoiding Cap’n Jack Sparrow in the queue at the newsagents).
I settled on a bottle of Highland Spring.
I took it back to the office whereupon I was so bored by my surroundings that I distracted myself by reading the label on the bottle.
“Drawn from Organic Land”.
That is what it said under the product’s name. It’s obviously a major selling point, this organic land.
But what exactly is it?
See, I figured that all land is organic by default. Or is this a subtle way of telling me that Highland Spring Ltd haven’t just collected up the run-off from a landfill site to the northwest of Birmingham and bottled up the resulting sump?
What is non-organic land? Concrete? Plastic? Bacofoil? The main arena at the NEC? Are there whole fields comprised of polyester and Kevlar that I have missed on my many travels around this (not so green and pleasant) land?
Do these places feature natural springs whose water might be confused with that drawn from real, mud and soil, land? You know; old school terra firma, made the old fashioned way by nature and the slow laws of geology?
Because, given a choice, I’d quite like to try some “bionic water” (my phrase and, yes, I am going to copyright it) drawn from non-organic land. It’s the type of thing that could well turn somebody into Spiderman or Swamp Thing provided it contained the right amount of genetically modified contaminates and unintentional ingredient X’s.
And that would be pretty cool, you must admit.
I could wreak havoc on the masses, not to mention the misses in my office. I’d have an excuse never to come into work again. I could become a crime fighter or even a master criminal. I could be on the telly every night.
Aqua vitae indeed.
It would also be a far more permanent and exciting way of alleviating my terminal boredom than by reading the label on a sodding water bottle.
Friday, June 05, 2009
Squirrel Nutkin Must Die!
People of Great Britain!
Your country is in peril!
Your country needs you to rally round, gird your loins and perform exemplary duties on behalf of your noble Prince, God save him.
Yes, the call has gone out by the glorious Prince of Wales to rid the land of the grey menace. Forget swine flu. Forget improper use of the expenses system by our doughty MPs. The grey squirrel is threatening the livelihoods of our most respectable landowners.
“The greys are doing immense and increasing damage to hardwoods all over the country and threaten to compromise all our efforts to restore native woodlands...” said the Prince in a beautifully crafted letter to the CLA (that’s Country Land and Business Association to lower class people of unprivileged education).
The Prince – ever mindful of ecological issues – also raised the point that “wiping them out” might be the only way to preserve the red squirrel – the native denizen of these shores who, if it could choose its own colour, would surely be true blue. God save the Queen!
A short advertisement for Izal toilet paper will now follow this broadcast...
*****
So there you have it. A call to arms by Prince Charles no less.
Now, having bought my own house which comes replete with its own humungous garden I am technically a landowner. I might be stretching the point slightly but I bet I could get it to stand up in a court of law.
So I’m taking it as read that by Royal Decree I have been granted license to kill. Admittedly license to kill only grey squirrels but there’s enough of them around that I could make it a full time job. I mean, let’s be clear. The Prince is not suggesting we merely pop one or two of them off. He’s suggesting we wipe out the lot of them. Genocide. Total eradication.
It’s rather a shocking clarion call from our fuddy-duddy Goon loving Prince.
But what I want to know it: is he going to put his money where his murderous mouth is?
Is he going to supply me with the arms to carry out this mission? Hand me an antique musket emblazoned with the Windsor family crest and a bag full of lead balls? Buy me an AK-47 from Ebay replete with newly minted Russian ammo? Or just park a lorry load of cyanide outside my front door where the kids can gain easy access to it?
‘Cos I’m really not fussy.
Hell, I’d even give it a go with a bow and arrow.
I mean this is Prince Charles asking after all. Future King of England and all that...
But I do have one small concern. Where does it all end?
I mean, we murder the grey squirrel today... fine. Do we butcher the mink tomorrow? Do we move onto flora after that – start napalming great swathes of Japanese knotweed and floating pennywort? Because they shouldn’t really be here in the UK either.
Where does it all end? Or, perhaps more pertinently, how far could it be taken?
Hmm.
Puritanism of any kind is never a good thing. It inevitably leads to bloodshed. Or am I just reading far too much into it?
Monday, June 30, 2008
Faith In Human Nature
A few months ago I reported on a monumental act of misfeasance.
Back in February somebody stole our green recycling bin that had been newly delivered to our house by the local authority. I had to go to the police (as directed by said local authority) and fill out various reports before we could be allocated a brand new one.
All this on top of some petty thief’s criminal attempts to foil my magnificent recycling plans was too much to bear. I suffered apoplexy, hysteria and gout and was hospitalized for several months. I suffered hallucinations and wrote them down as blog entries. I was not a well bunny.
Imagine the horror then of returning home at the end of last week to find that our general refuse bin (black this time) had also been snatched.
It was gone. Just gone. Left out for the refuse team who were due to empty it that day and then stolen in the prime of its life.
In the space of a second I was on the edge of full mental collapse.
One bin goes missing and you feel – despite the annoyance – OK, just kids messing about, some drunken a-hole having a laugh as he wends his way home. But two... suddenly it feels like a vendetta. Siege mentality sets in. The hatches are battened and the big guns wheeled out.
Xenophobia and misanthropy leap to the fore. Who was it? Who was it? Is this the start of a hate campaign? Are they going to steal our car trailer next? It was our Polish neighbours, I’m sure of it. It has to be! They speak with a funny accent and own three cars... it has to be them! Or it’s the chavs up the road. Of course! All that bling... it’s a telltale sign. They’ve got our bin hidden in the boot of their bright blue BMW...
By nightfall I had drafted a scathing blog, written letters to the editor of the local rag and dictated a letter to the chief exec of the council. I even considered writing to Boris Johnson but managed to reel the wavering line of my sanity back in before I crossed that point of no return.
Imagine my surprise then when, next morning, our black bin was mysteriously back on our doorstep. They’ve all got addresses on you see and some kind soul, finding it perhaps abandoned and enfeebled by the roadside had taken the trouble to return it to the family who loved it most dearly.
Oh joy.
What can I say? I felt a mite foolish. All that ranting and raving. All that class war mongering. All for nothing.
My faith in human nature has been totally restored. There are good people out there.
So God bless you, every single one of you. I shall think of you all every time I stuff a full refuse sack into my newly returned black bin.
I shall keep this country clean for you.
There is a corner of a foreign landfill that will be forever England.
Back in February somebody stole our green recycling bin that had been newly delivered to our house by the local authority. I had to go to the police (as directed by said local authority) and fill out various reports before we could be allocated a brand new one.
All this on top of some petty thief’s criminal attempts to foil my magnificent recycling plans was too much to bear. I suffered apoplexy, hysteria and gout and was hospitalized for several months. I suffered hallucinations and wrote them down as blog entries. I was not a well bunny.
Imagine the horror then of returning home at the end of last week to find that our general refuse bin (black this time) had also been snatched.
It was gone. Just gone. Left out for the refuse team who were due to empty it that day and then stolen in the prime of its life.
In the space of a second I was on the edge of full mental collapse.
One bin goes missing and you feel – despite the annoyance – OK, just kids messing about, some drunken a-hole having a laugh as he wends his way home. But two... suddenly it feels like a vendetta. Siege mentality sets in. The hatches are battened and the big guns wheeled out.
Xenophobia and misanthropy leap to the fore. Who was it? Who was it? Is this the start of a hate campaign? Are they going to steal our car trailer next? It was our Polish neighbours, I’m sure of it. It has to be! They speak with a funny accent and own three cars... it has to be them! Or it’s the chavs up the road. Of course! All that bling... it’s a telltale sign. They’ve got our bin hidden in the boot of their bright blue BMW...
By nightfall I had drafted a scathing blog, written letters to the editor of the local rag and dictated a letter to the chief exec of the council. I even considered writing to Boris Johnson but managed to reel the wavering line of my sanity back in before I crossed that point of no return.
Imagine my surprise then when, next morning, our black bin was mysteriously back on our doorstep. They’ve all got addresses on you see and some kind soul, finding it perhaps abandoned and enfeebled by the roadside had taken the trouble to return it to the family who loved it most dearly.
Oh joy.
What can I say? I felt a mite foolish. All that ranting and raving. All that class war mongering. All for nothing.
My faith in human nature has been totally restored. There are good people out there.
So God bless you, every single one of you. I shall think of you all every time I stuff a full refuse sack into my newly returned black bin.
I shall keep this country clean for you.
There is a corner of a foreign landfill that will be forever England.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Bin Thief
I realize that this event in no way compares to happenings elsewhere over the weekend – oil rig bomb threats and fires in Camden, etc – but it has riled me nonetheless.
Last Thursday the local council delivered to all its district householders green bins for the recycling of garden waste. Karen and I were pleased because (a) we like to think we’re pretty green minded anyway and (b) we’ve got a shedload of chopped brambles and cuttings that need disposing of.
Late Thursday night – within hours of the bin being delivered – it was stolen by a zealous gardener of unknown identity... though I believe in this case this particular Monty Don favoured certain varieties of hop as opposed to hyacinths and hollyhocks.
The next morning, on finding I’d been the victim of a bin-napping, I was rather gobsmacked and more than a little annoyed. Everybody in the entire town is getting a bin. Everybody! So why go to all that trouble to nick one?
To make it worse I naturally rang the council, explained what had happened and requested a replacement bin if at all possible. I was told it was indeed possible but they could only replace the bin provided I gave them a police crime incident number first.
Yes.
I had to ring the police, ask them to halt all their ongoing murder enquiries, report that my new bin was stolen, get a crime number from the disbelieving police officer and then ring the council straight back with it.
Aside: ringing the police took two attempts as the first time I rang I was told they were all at lunch and could I please ring back after 2pm?
Oh how I love the country England is turning into.
I hope the life of whoever has stolen our bin provides them with enough crap for them to make good use of it.
I am now off to the doctors. I woke up with an eye infection today – gummy eye and blurred vision.
I am not in a good mood.
Last Thursday the local council delivered to all its district householders green bins for the recycling of garden waste. Karen and I were pleased because (a) we like to think we’re pretty green minded anyway and (b) we’ve got a shedload of chopped brambles and cuttings that need disposing of.
Late Thursday night – within hours of the bin being delivered – it was stolen by a zealous gardener of unknown identity... though I believe in this case this particular Monty Don favoured certain varieties of hop as opposed to hyacinths and hollyhocks.
The next morning, on finding I’d been the victim of a bin-napping, I was rather gobsmacked and more than a little annoyed. Everybody in the entire town is getting a bin. Everybody! So why go to all that trouble to nick one?
To make it worse I naturally rang the council, explained what had happened and requested a replacement bin if at all possible. I was told it was indeed possible but they could only replace the bin provided I gave them a police crime incident number first.
Yes.
I had to ring the police, ask them to halt all their ongoing murder enquiries, report that my new bin was stolen, get a crime number from the disbelieving police officer and then ring the council straight back with it.
Aside: ringing the police took two attempts as the first time I rang I was told they were all at lunch and could I please ring back after 2pm?
Oh how I love the country England is turning into.
I hope the life of whoever has stolen our bin provides them with enough crap for them to make good use of it.
I am now off to the doctors. I woke up with an eye infection today – gummy eye and blurred vision.
I am not in a good mood.
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