We were sitting around idly the other night watching a Bushtucker Trial on I’m a Celebrity... and waiting for the adverts to come on, when all of a sudden the parallel paths of fantasy and reality took a ghastly wrong turning and became inextricably linked.
One minute a D-list celebrity was chomping on some of the less savoury parts of a camel.
The next moment, one of the supermarkets was trying to persuade us of the virtues of something called a Four-Bird Roast.
Now the Four-Bird Roast, it would appear, is going be the Big Thing this Christmas.
Imagine if you will (or even if you won’t) a tightly pressed sandwich of four different species of avian flesh; a Frankensteinian layer cake of formerly feathered protein.
Never mind the common-or-garden three-bird jobby offered by other supermarkets. This, we are asked to believe, is true celebrity fare: neatly packaged and ready to take pride of place on your very own festive table.
We aren’t told which particular birds have been sacrificed: turkey and chicken are natural shoe-ins, but what then? Duck, maybe, or goose? Swan hardly seems likely: auk, puffin, grebe or avocet even less so.
Sir David Attenborough would have a thing or two to say about that.
They’ve done a similar thing with razors, incidentally. There was a time you could only buy single blades. Then it was twin blades, then three, then four.
And these days no self-respecting fella would scrape his cheeks with anything less than a five-blader.
The logical conclusion will be a razor with so many blades that you’d have to be an Olympic weightlifter to get it anywhere near your face.
But once you got it up there, it would only take one delicate stroke to remove every last bit of stubble.
Back to those food ads, though. Because hot on the heels of the four-bird roast comes a new and rather disturbing promotion for Colman’s gravy paste.
In which a glossy brown, animated ox is squeezed from a tube, boogies around a kitchen table to the strains of I Like The Way (You Moo) and then leaps in to a gravy boat. From which it is promptly poured out on to a plate of meat and two veg.
Dear advertisers, please take note. We Brits don’t actually like to think to carefully about where our food comes from. Just as the Victorians covered up furniture legs with drapes to preserve their modesty, we like our comestibles to be presented attractively, but demurely.
And while we're at it, we'd rather our mince pies tasted like mince pies. And not like Christmas trees, whatever fancy-flavoured icing sugar Heston Blumenthal may be promoting this festive season.
That’s why we cringe at the thought of a Bushtucker Trial. That’s why the Four Bird Roast tweaks and pulls at the dust sheets that normally cover the murkier corners of our imaginations.
And that’s why – although you can find a statue of a merry-looking pig dressed as a chef outside every self-respecting pork butchers in France – when a bull starts dancing around on a British TV screen persuading us to eat it in the form of gravy, we get all rather squeamish and have to go for a little lie-down.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Guaranteed trouble
Sometimes it seems like the world in general, and your bit of it in particular, is out to get you.
This week is a prime example. So if you’ve started reading this blog in expectation of the usual frothy blend of dry humour, barbed witticisms and perceptive insights into 20th-century life then you are seriously advised to swallow your disappointment and stop reading right now.
Because sometimes one just has to have a bit of a grumble. And this is one of those times.
First off, Dixon Junior’s mobile phone wouldn’t turn on. We only bought it in March, so muggins here naïvely assumed that the first step might be to take it back to the Orange shop for repairs or replacement.
But shop assistant number one is having none of this. “Plug it into your computer, mate, and run the setup wizard.” What, even if the computer is an Apple Mac? “Yeah, it works for my sister.”
Maybe it does. But not for us. The phone stays resolutely stuck on the Orange logo.
Back to the Orange shop. Assistant number one lurks around looking guilty, while assistant number two does at least examine the phone, ascertains that it isn’t working, and directs us to the Orange helpdesk.
Who explain that because we bought the phone from that very same Orange shop more than six months ago, it is no longer covered by the Orange guarantee. Notwithstanding the fact that it’s an Orange-branded handset on an Orange contract.
All we can do, say the helpdesk, is send it back to the manufacturer. And here’s their phone number. At the other end of which, a dithery lady says go to our website.
This counts as progress, of sorts. Fill in an online form, pay £15, wait a few days, and a pre-paid Royal Mail special delivery envelope arrives to send the phone back in.
After ten minutes of merriment with bubble wrap and sticky tape, the phone is securely packed and ready for a round-trip to Scotland.
Meanwhile, the postie delivers a little red card explaining that they couldn’t squeeze a parcel (unconnected to the phone saga) through the letter box, and would you kindly present yourself at the sorting office at the bottom end of town to pick it up.
A-ha, you think. Let’s kill two birds with one stone. Pick up one parcel, drop off the other.
So you negotiate SouthGate (aka Death Race 2011) without damage to self or suicidal pedestrians. Past the forlorn row of blue bikes and astonishingly – the only bit of good news in this sorry tale – find a parking space by the sorting office.
Collecting the undelivered parcel is a breeze. But dropping off the mobile? Forget it.
The Royal Mail office is quite happy to take the parcel, but they can’t provide a proof of posting. For that, you have to go to the Post Office in the middle of town.
Where you go. And you take a number. And you queue. And a nice Post Office lady tells you that you should have taken a different number.
And you lose... the will... to live...
This week is a prime example. So if you’ve started reading this blog in expectation of the usual frothy blend of dry humour, barbed witticisms and perceptive insights into 20th-century life then you are seriously advised to swallow your disappointment and stop reading right now.
Because sometimes one just has to have a bit of a grumble. And this is one of those times.
First off, Dixon Junior’s mobile phone wouldn’t turn on. We only bought it in March, so muggins here naïvely assumed that the first step might be to take it back to the Orange shop for repairs or replacement.
But shop assistant number one is having none of this. “Plug it into your computer, mate, and run the setup wizard.” What, even if the computer is an Apple Mac? “Yeah, it works for my sister.”
Maybe it does. But not for us. The phone stays resolutely stuck on the Orange logo.
Back to the Orange shop. Assistant number one lurks around looking guilty, while assistant number two does at least examine the phone, ascertains that it isn’t working, and directs us to the Orange helpdesk.
Who explain that because we bought the phone from that very same Orange shop more than six months ago, it is no longer covered by the Orange guarantee. Notwithstanding the fact that it’s an Orange-branded handset on an Orange contract.
All we can do, say the helpdesk, is send it back to the manufacturer. And here’s their phone number. At the other end of which, a dithery lady says go to our website.
This counts as progress, of sorts. Fill in an online form, pay £15, wait a few days, and a pre-paid Royal Mail special delivery envelope arrives to send the phone back in.
After ten minutes of merriment with bubble wrap and sticky tape, the phone is securely packed and ready for a round-trip to Scotland.
Meanwhile, the postie delivers a little red card explaining that they couldn’t squeeze a parcel (unconnected to the phone saga) through the letter box, and would you kindly present yourself at the sorting office at the bottom end of town to pick it up.
A-ha, you think. Let’s kill two birds with one stone. Pick up one parcel, drop off the other.
So you negotiate SouthGate (aka Death Race 2011) without damage to self or suicidal pedestrians. Past the forlorn row of blue bikes and astonishingly – the only bit of good news in this sorry tale – find a parking space by the sorting office.
Collecting the undelivered parcel is a breeze. But dropping off the mobile? Forget it.
The Royal Mail office is quite happy to take the parcel, but they can’t provide a proof of posting. For that, you have to go to the Post Office in the middle of town.
Where you go. And you take a number. And you queue. And a nice Post Office lady tells you that you should have taken a different number.
And you lose... the will... to live...
Thursday, November 10, 2011
To BT Infinity and beyond
It’s been high-tech à gogo at Dixon Towers.
Not just because of the long-promised arrival in our street of BT Infinity.
Which we will of course be getting as soon as possible, if only to stop the continuing battle over internet bandwidth between the four of us: Dixon Junior smiting sundry zombies, Viet Cong and Chechen terrorists on the Xbox 360; young Miss Dixon conducting an in-depth study of Japanese cartoon cuteness on YouTube; Mrs D downloading the complete works of Monteverdi; and self emailing the bank explaining how we intend to pay for all this technology.
It’s a bit mystifying why some people from bosky Fairfield Park have complained about the arrival of the dark green BT street cabinets in their own area.
They’re pretty unobtrusive, they don’t make a noise and they don’t frighten the birds. Even better, with their promised 33Mbps download speeds, they look as though they’ll finally put an end to our incessant broadband bickering. Job done.
But the real technological revolution chez Dixon isn’t anything to do with the internet. It’s all about in-car entertainment.
In the good old days (if they ever actually existed – the memories are fading), we used to pass long car journeys with a friendly game of Pub Cricket.
We split the kids into two teams of one each, and got them to count the legs associated with the name of each pub we went past on their side of the road. Each leg scored one run.
Thus The Duke of York scored two runs. The Black Horse scored four. The George and Dragon scored six (assuming of course that dragons have four legs – there was some debate about that one).
The rules became more and more arcane. The Fox and Hounds scored an innings victory. The King’s Arms scored no runs at all because arms aren’t legs. And The Drunken Sailor scored a big fat duck because he was legless. Oh, the fun we had.
Sadly, as more and more roadside pubs closed and the children got older and cannier, Pub Cricket went the way of Musical Chairs and Pin the Tail on the Donkey.
But now we have an even better game: iPod Anagrams.
Last week we got a wonderful new gadget. You plug one end into your iPod and the other into the lighter socket and somehow it lets you play your tunes on the car radio.
As an added bonus, though, it also flashes up the track title and artist in the radio display.
Or at least it does for a couple of minutes. Then it gives up the unequal struggle and jumbles up all the letters, to the great hilarity of passengers and driver alike.
Thus is was that on a recent trip, Love Hangover by Diana Ross became Roana Loss singing Have Dingover. Motorway favourite Autobahn by electro-wizards Kraftwerk somehow transmogrified into Krautwahn by Aftoberk.
As for Rikki Don’t Lose That Number by Steely Dan? Well, let’s just say that it will shortly be appearing as a clue in The Times crossword.
Not just because of the long-promised arrival in our street of BT Infinity.
Which we will of course be getting as soon as possible, if only to stop the continuing battle over internet bandwidth between the four of us: Dixon Junior smiting sundry zombies, Viet Cong and Chechen terrorists on the Xbox 360; young Miss Dixon conducting an in-depth study of Japanese cartoon cuteness on YouTube; Mrs D downloading the complete works of Monteverdi; and self emailing the bank explaining how we intend to pay for all this technology.
It’s a bit mystifying why some people from bosky Fairfield Park have complained about the arrival of the dark green BT street cabinets in their own area.
They’re pretty unobtrusive, they don’t make a noise and they don’t frighten the birds. Even better, with their promised 33Mbps download speeds, they look as though they’ll finally put an end to our incessant broadband bickering. Job done.
But the real technological revolution chez Dixon isn’t anything to do with the internet. It’s all about in-car entertainment.
In the good old days (if they ever actually existed – the memories are fading), we used to pass long car journeys with a friendly game of Pub Cricket.
We split the kids into two teams of one each, and got them to count the legs associated with the name of each pub we went past on their side of the road. Each leg scored one run.
Thus The Duke of York scored two runs. The Black Horse scored four. The George and Dragon scored six (assuming of course that dragons have four legs – there was some debate about that one).
The rules became more and more arcane. The Fox and Hounds scored an innings victory. The King’s Arms scored no runs at all because arms aren’t legs. And The Drunken Sailor scored a big fat duck because he was legless. Oh, the fun we had.
Sadly, as more and more roadside pubs closed and the children got older and cannier, Pub Cricket went the way of Musical Chairs and Pin the Tail on the Donkey.
But now we have an even better game: iPod Anagrams.
Last week we got a wonderful new gadget. You plug one end into your iPod and the other into the lighter socket and somehow it lets you play your tunes on the car radio.
As an added bonus, though, it also flashes up the track title and artist in the radio display.
Or at least it does for a couple of minutes. Then it gives up the unequal struggle and jumbles up all the letters, to the great hilarity of passengers and driver alike.
Thus is was that on a recent trip, Love Hangover by Diana Ross became Roana Loss singing Have Dingover. Motorway favourite Autobahn by electro-wizards Kraftwerk somehow transmogrified into Krautwahn by Aftoberk.
As for Rikki Don’t Lose That Number by Steely Dan? Well, let’s just say that it will shortly be appearing as a clue in The Times crossword.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Give me a home where the wallabies roam
Apologies again to any readers who headed down to Avon Street car park to see for themselves the evidence – in the shape of a large poster – that Tesco was transporting the city of Bath 100 miles east to London.
Unfortunately events moved on: almost overnight, it seemed, a new poster advertising oven chips had gone up on the same site.
More grist to the conspiracy theorists’ mill, you may think. And you’d probably be right.
For now, though, Bath is still comfortably ensconced in its niche in the heart of North East Somerset.
Where, it appears, even stranger things are afoot. For reports have reached the Bath Chronicle newsroom from an impeccable source (one of the chaps in advertising) that wallabies have been seen roaming the rolling hills of Saltford.
Yes, you read that right. Wallabies. Australian marsupials. With pouches. Quite good at boxing. But not as good as kangaroos.
There should be a joke about that. “What’s the difference between a wallaby and a kangaroo?”
But there isn’t.
A joke, that is. Not a difference.
Funny, though. You can drive the winding lanes of B&NES for weeks on end without seeing anything more exotic than the occasional dead badger, and then all of a sudden, out hops an antipodean anomaly.
Start to do some research and you’ll soon wish you hadn’t. There are at least 44 species of wallaby, ranging in alphabetical order from the Agile Wallaby to the Yellow-Footed Rock-Wallaby by way of the Dusky Pademelon and the Gray Dorcopsis. Although those last two sound more like impostors than proper macropods.
You couldn’t make this sort of thing up. Well you could, actually, and no-one would be any the wiser.
But it’s true, all true. Small mobs* of wallabies do indeed roam this green and pleasant land. They’ve been reported from as far afield as Loch Lomond, the Peak District and even the fields around Gatwick Airport.
They escape from zoos or are released from private collections, and have no trouble surviving in a climate very similar to that of their native Tasmania.
Dig deeper into the world of the wallaby and you’ll find companies that sell them as pets or as self-propelled lawnmowers.
One such firm will even supply a trained reindeer (£1250, no VAT), with its own harness and sledge. But before you can buy one, you need to get a certificate from DEFRA confirming that you have far more money than sense.
The mind begins to boggle. How long can it be before clusters* of antelopes churn the hallowed turf below the Royal Crescent? How long before stands* of flamingoes circle the skies above the Pump Room before alighting pinkly and gracefully beside the Roman Baths?
Surely it can only be a matter of time before Bath becomes one gigantic wildlife park.
Then again, maybe it already is.
* All collective nouns have been checked by the management.
Unfortunately events moved on: almost overnight, it seemed, a new poster advertising oven chips had gone up on the same site.
More grist to the conspiracy theorists’ mill, you may think. And you’d probably be right.
For now, though, Bath is still comfortably ensconced in its niche in the heart of North East Somerset.
Where, it appears, even stranger things are afoot. For reports have reached the Bath Chronicle newsroom from an impeccable source (one of the chaps in advertising) that wallabies have been seen roaming the rolling hills of Saltford.
Yes, you read that right. Wallabies. Australian marsupials. With pouches. Quite good at boxing. But not as good as kangaroos.
There should be a joke about that. “What’s the difference between a wallaby and a kangaroo?”
But there isn’t.
A joke, that is. Not a difference.
Funny, though. You can drive the winding lanes of B&NES for weeks on end without seeing anything more exotic than the occasional dead badger, and then all of a sudden, out hops an antipodean anomaly.
Start to do some research and you’ll soon wish you hadn’t. There are at least 44 species of wallaby, ranging in alphabetical order from the Agile Wallaby to the Yellow-Footed Rock-Wallaby by way of the Dusky Pademelon and the Gray Dorcopsis. Although those last two sound more like impostors than proper macropods.
You couldn’t make this sort of thing up. Well you could, actually, and no-one would be any the wiser.
But it’s true, all true. Small mobs* of wallabies do indeed roam this green and pleasant land. They’ve been reported from as far afield as Loch Lomond, the Peak District and even the fields around Gatwick Airport.
They escape from zoos or are released from private collections, and have no trouble surviving in a climate very similar to that of their native Tasmania.
Dig deeper into the world of the wallaby and you’ll find companies that sell them as pets or as self-propelled lawnmowers.
One such firm will even supply a trained reindeer (£1250, no VAT), with its own harness and sledge. But before you can buy one, you need to get a certificate from DEFRA confirming that you have far more money than sense.
The mind begins to boggle. How long can it be before clusters* of antelopes churn the hallowed turf below the Royal Crescent? How long before stands* of flamingoes circle the skies above the Pump Room before alighting pinkly and gracefully beside the Roman Baths?
Surely it can only be a matter of time before Bath becomes one gigantic wildlife park.
Then again, maybe it already is.
* All collective nouns have been checked by the management.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
The Avon Street conspiracy
Sooner or later, like it or not, you have to go to Bristol.
Maybe you develop an uncontrollable urge to queue for half an hour or more to buy Swedish flat-pack furniture in a low-ceilinged warehouse that reeks of meatballs.
Maybe you want to test your cultural credentials by trying to spot a Banksy among all the other graffiti.
Or maybe you just took a wrong turning at the Hicks Gate roundabout and found yourself inexorably sucked in.
No matter. Whether it’s fate or fortune that draws you to the sprawling metropolis on Bath’s doorstep, once you’re there you know you’re there.
Because on every other billboard, it seems, is a poster advertising a well-known supermarket chain that doesn’t have a major outlet in Bath.
An advert which states, in no uncertain terms: “The Big Price Drop on Bristol’s Shopping List.”
For better or worse, for richer or poorer, when you see a poster like that you can be pretty much certain that you are. Indeed. In Bristol.
Struggle back to Bath with your Nordic kitchen units or your shattered dreams – or both – and all those certainties crumble to dust.
Because - or at least until yesterday - right next to the exit from Avon Street multi-storey car park was a similar poster advertising the same supermarket. But there’s one subtle difference. Because this poster said: “The Big Price Drop on London’s Shopping List.”
Now hang on a cotton-picking minute. London? London? What’s going on here?
Well, Tesco (oops) is certainly a powerful organisation.
But surely even Tesco (oops again) can’t have got its hands on some transdimensional wormhole generator that rips Avon Street car park, the jewel in Bath’s architectural crown, from its noble setting between a neglected river and a dreary coach park and drops it 100 miles east in The Big Smoke?
No, there’s more to it than that.
That poster was the visible tip of the iceberg, a deep and insidious conspiracy created by big business, the council and the powerful Heritage Lobby to confuse Bathonians, tourists and taxi drivers alike into believing that they’re not in Bath any more.
And why would they want to do that, you might ask? Well any number of reasons, really. But to go into them here would be to expose oneself to unwanted attention from the conspirators themselves.
Suffice to say that there’s more to that drilling project next to Thermae Bath Spa than meets the eye.
Plus the fact that the original poster was replaced by an advert for chips on the very day this article originally appeared in the The Bath Chronicle.
Enough said: a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat.
If anyone has the slightest idea what’s going on down there at Avon Street, please keep it to yourself. Don’t write in, don’t email, don’t call. Because the less we know about it, the safer we’ll all be.
And if you’re one of those people who prefers to believe in cock-up rather than conspiracy (perhaps you think the poster is just a mistake), then sleep easily while you can.
But remember: truth will out.
Maybe you develop an uncontrollable urge to queue for half an hour or more to buy Swedish flat-pack furniture in a low-ceilinged warehouse that reeks of meatballs.
Maybe you want to test your cultural credentials by trying to spot a Banksy among all the other graffiti.
Or maybe you just took a wrong turning at the Hicks Gate roundabout and found yourself inexorably sucked in.
No matter. Whether it’s fate or fortune that draws you to the sprawling metropolis on Bath’s doorstep, once you’re there you know you’re there.
Because on every other billboard, it seems, is a poster advertising a well-known supermarket chain that doesn’t have a major outlet in Bath.
An advert which states, in no uncertain terms: “The Big Price Drop on Bristol’s Shopping List.”
For better or worse, for richer or poorer, when you see a poster like that you can be pretty much certain that you are. Indeed. In Bristol.
Struggle back to Bath with your Nordic kitchen units or your shattered dreams – or both – and all those certainties crumble to dust.
Because - or at least until yesterday - right next to the exit from Avon Street multi-storey car park was a similar poster advertising the same supermarket. But there’s one subtle difference. Because this poster said: “The Big Price Drop on London’s Shopping List.”
 |
| Tesco advert, October 19 2011 |
Now hang on a cotton-picking minute. London? London? What’s going on here?
Well, Tesco (oops) is certainly a powerful organisation.
But surely even Tesco (oops again) can’t have got its hands on some transdimensional wormhole generator that rips Avon Street car park, the jewel in Bath’s architectural crown, from its noble setting between a neglected river and a dreary coach park and drops it 100 miles east in The Big Smoke?
No, there’s more to it than that.
That poster was the visible tip of the iceberg, a deep and insidious conspiracy created by big business, the council and the powerful Heritage Lobby to confuse Bathonians, tourists and taxi drivers alike into believing that they’re not in Bath any more.
And why would they want to do that, you might ask? Well any number of reasons, really. But to go into them here would be to expose oneself to unwanted attention from the conspirators themselves.
Suffice to say that there’s more to that drilling project next to Thermae Bath Spa than meets the eye.
 |
| Chip advert, October 20 2011. Spooky. |
Enough said: a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat.
If anyone has the slightest idea what’s going on down there at Avon Street, please keep it to yourself. Don’t write in, don’t email, don’t call. Because the less we know about it, the safer we’ll all be.
And if you’re one of those people who prefers to believe in cock-up rather than conspiracy (perhaps you think the poster is just a mistake), then sleep easily while you can.
But remember: truth will out.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Serious one. NAS want to start B&NES autism group
Email received from the National Autistic Society, slightly edited. I've left out email addresses to deter spammers:
- The BANES Link and The National Autistic Society (NAS) have worked together to arrange an Autism Meeting for B&NES on 24th October 2011 at The Guildhall, Bath. The meeting will be held between 2pm and 4pm and you are free to come and go within this time
- We want to listen to and gather the views and experiences of adults with Asperger/Autism Spectrum conditions, and their families and carers, who live in and/or use Health and Social Care Services in Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES).
- The information will be recorded by NAS and put into a report and sent to the B&NES Adult Autism Partnership Group. The information that you give will be used to provide feedback to the professionals and people who make decisions on planning for future services for people with Autism.
- Alternatively, please write to:
- Marina Parrett, The National Autistic Society, Church House, Church Road, Filton, Bristol BS34 7BD
- NAS would also like to facilitate the setting up of a B&NES Autism Group to continue the work started at the October 24th Autism Meeting.
- The aim of the group would be to discuss the views and experiences of people with Autism/Asperger syndrome and their families, living in the area, in order to develop appropriate Health and Adult Social Care services in response.
- If you are interested in being part of an ongoing group, please speak to Diana Elliott or Marina Parrett at the meeting or contact Diana Elliott on Tel: 07825 227026 or Marina Parrett on Tel: 01179 748425 or 07770 687009
Sunday, sweary Sunday
A couple of weeks ago in his blog and in the Bath Chronicle, editor Sam Holliday asked a very pertinent question: Are you a Downton or a Spook?
Do you devote your Sunday evening TV viewing to the trials and tribulations of a family of English aristocrats as they tough it out through the First World War without mussing up their make-up; or do you settle down with a nice cup of cocoa and a spy-related plotline so complicated it makes Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy look like Janet and John – The Early Years?
Or indeed, are you one of those people who recognises that the whole toffs v spies debate represents a false dichotomy, and decides to watch Fry’s Planet Word instead?
If you plumped for Stephen Fry last Sunday, you could well have ended up spluttering into your Horlicks. Because the programme was all about swearing.
Why we do it (if we do it), what effect it has on us, and whether it actually works.
There was some funny footage of Brian Blessed, swearmeister par excellence, sticking his hand in a tank full of iced water and turning the air blue.
And a clip of Malcolm Tucker from The Thick Of It going into four-letter meltdown at least showed that the BBC has its finger on the pulse of 21st-century discourse.
But Stephen Fry’s point, and it was a good one, was that the more you swear the less effective it becomes: the very occasional “Gadzooks” or “Odds Kittikins” dropped into one’s conversation is a heck of a lot more effective than an endless stream of filth if you really want to get your point across.
It’s all about communication, of course, and one problem today is choosing how to communicate, even with our nearest and dearest.
Picture if you will a blissful domestic scene: Mrs D is upstairs, doing something important on the computer.
Yours truly is in the kitchen, rustling up a light supper of toad in the hole with onion gravy.
Mrs D is starting to get hungry. But how should she best inquire about the arrival time of the sausage-and-battery comestibles?
By email, of course. The message is sent quickly and efficiently from the computer upstairs along BT’s sturdy copper wires (as long as no one’s nicked them), off to a mail server somewhere in Arizona, then via satellite to a second mail server in downtown Buenos Aires, and back via undersea cable and fibre optic switchgear to its final destination: the mobile device in the Dixon kitchen.
No need for shouting: the internet can take the strain. And anyway, you can’t hurry a toad in the hole.
Similarly when it’s time to call the kids to lay the table: rather than yelling up at them through a couple of floors, texting them in their bedrooms is so much more effective.
Soon there will come a time when all communication is electronic: we’ll have iPhones surgically implanted into our brains, and no one will speak face-to-face any more.
A nice thought, perhaps. But it won’t stop the swearing when you burn the toad in the hole.
Do you devote your Sunday evening TV viewing to the trials and tribulations of a family of English aristocrats as they tough it out through the First World War without mussing up their make-up; or do you settle down with a nice cup of cocoa and a spy-related plotline so complicated it makes Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy look like Janet and John – The Early Years?
Or indeed, are you one of those people who recognises that the whole toffs v spies debate represents a false dichotomy, and decides to watch Fry’s Planet Word instead?
If you plumped for Stephen Fry last Sunday, you could well have ended up spluttering into your Horlicks. Because the programme was all about swearing.
Why we do it (if we do it), what effect it has on us, and whether it actually works.
There was some funny footage of Brian Blessed, swearmeister par excellence, sticking his hand in a tank full of iced water and turning the air blue.
And a clip of Malcolm Tucker from The Thick Of It going into four-letter meltdown at least showed that the BBC has its finger on the pulse of 21st-century discourse.
But Stephen Fry’s point, and it was a good one, was that the more you swear the less effective it becomes: the very occasional “Gadzooks” or “Odds Kittikins” dropped into one’s conversation is a heck of a lot more effective than an endless stream of filth if you really want to get your point across.
It’s all about communication, of course, and one problem today is choosing how to communicate, even with our nearest and dearest.
Picture if you will a blissful domestic scene: Mrs D is upstairs, doing something important on the computer.
Yours truly is in the kitchen, rustling up a light supper of toad in the hole with onion gravy.
Mrs D is starting to get hungry. But how should she best inquire about the arrival time of the sausage-and-battery comestibles?
By email, of course. The message is sent quickly and efficiently from the computer upstairs along BT’s sturdy copper wires (as long as no one’s nicked them), off to a mail server somewhere in Arizona, then via satellite to a second mail server in downtown Buenos Aires, and back via undersea cable and fibre optic switchgear to its final destination: the mobile device in the Dixon kitchen.
No need for shouting: the internet can take the strain. And anyway, you can’t hurry a toad in the hole.
Similarly when it’s time to call the kids to lay the table: rather than yelling up at them through a couple of floors, texting them in their bedrooms is so much more effective.
Soon there will come a time when all communication is electronic: we’ll have iPhones surgically implanted into our brains, and no one will speak face-to-face any more.
A nice thought, perhaps. But it won’t stop the swearing when you burn the toad in the hole.
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