Friday 17 August 2012

I don't get it


I like to think I’m relatively intelligent. I have been university educated. I can do some of the numbers problems on Countdown and can complete a Sudoku on medium setting in under fifteen minutes. But despite this, there are still lots of things about life which I just don’t understand. I spend lots of time pondering over the following things in particular.

Why, if they have the ability to make “no more tears” shampoo for kids, can’t they make everything “no more tears”? It’s not just kids that get sore eyes. When you think about it, there’s a lot of stuff that comes close to our eyes and it would make life so much easier if we didn’t have to remember to shut our eyes all the time. Having to shut our eyes is just inconvenient. Adults use shampoo, face wash, shower gel, to say nothing of makeup. I am constantly jabbing myself in the eye with a mascara wand, it stings like acid, and makes my eyes run so ruining my makeup and I have to start again. Why can’t they make mascara so that it doesn’t hurt your eyes? Don’t they know that you are meant to put it right next to your eye?

And while we’re on the subject of products, why does the colour on the box of hair colourant bear no actual resemblance to the colour it will turn out? We spend ages in the supermarket, craning our necks trying to match our own hair up to that “before and after” example photo, wasting an extra ten minutes that could be better spent doing something else. Like phoning an actual hairdresser and making an appointment. But it does mean we can dye our hair at random times of the day, it’s ten pm on a Wednesday night and I want to dye my hair, damn you, this time it might actually turn out brown instead of red. But don’t count on it. I am tempted to buy a red one next time in the hope it might actually turn out brown.

My mum brought down some Cadbury’s mini rolls down at the weekend. Now, I love my mum, she is brilliant, and I also love mini rolls, but my lovely mum does have a tendency of keeping food way, way after it’s use by date (to say nothing of best before, I remember we once found some custard powder in her cupboard that was a full 8 years past it’s best before, no wonder it never thickened up properly). So needless to say, when my mum generously donates to my food stores I always have a little look just to see whether or not it will still be at its “best” (and usually eat it anyway, I can’t afford to be choosy). The mini rolls were no longer in their multipack but each mini roll still had a “best before end” box and in the box was printed, “see main pack”. Why is there a blank box? And if they are going to go to the effort of including a blank box, and printing ”see main pack” why not just print the date?

Out of all the needless packaging we have in our society I think egg boxes are where we have it absolutely spot on. The boxes are recyclable, they protect the eggs for the most part, fit eggs of all sizes and the box sits neatly in the fridge or on the sideboard (depending on where you choose to keep your eggs). Why then, do new fridges still come with a plastic egg holder, encouraging people to do away with the only decent packaging there is? Does anyone really ever use that little egg holder? It doesn’t even fit all sizes of eggs, small ones drop through the holes and big ones poke out too high meaning they run the risk of being mashed up when you close the fridge door. I don’t get it. It would be far more helpful if my new fridge came with a beer can holder, so that the few beers I try to keep in my fridge in case Big Bro comes round are not rolling around all over the place, a spare bulb or a way to stop things getting frozen to the back of the fridge and going all manky. I think my new fridge was illuminated for about two weeks before it was plunged into darkness and I then lost the old bulb so my fridge will now be dark for ever more, meaning that it is a common occurrence for things to languish at the back, forgotten and fused to the frost.

Recycling. Urgh. Just when I have got my head around what I can and can’t put in the recycling bin I go and visit my mum and find that her recycling service takes completely different things to mine. Hers takes glass but no cardboard. Mine takes cardboard but not glass. If they have the facilities to recycle all this stuff why don’t they all just take everything? Surely my mum throwing a cardboard box away is just cancelling out the good I’m doing by recycling my cardboard box. To say nothing of glass (although admittedly I do make yearly embarrassing trips to the bottle bank, car weighed down with the weight, me muttering to people staring “this is a years worth ok?”, it would be far less embarrassing if the glass was just picked up kerbside).

Why does a single train ticket often cost more than a return? It’s basic maths.

Is it just me that finds these things irritatingly hard to understand?

Monday 13 August 2012

Jolly Good Show


I’m sure you’re all fully expecting me to write today’s post about the Olympics and the closing ceremony. How proud I am of our medal total. How the closing ceremony was a triumphant poke in the eye to all those who ever said English music was but a shadow in the limelight of the international music scene. How the Olympics just showed that everyone finally seems to agree that Britain is actually Great. And aren’t we all rather jolly pleased chaps and chapesses about how bally well the whole thing turned out? Well yes, that’s all true and I want to say all those things (and I want to say it in that posh fake English accent too). But what I really want to discuss is Brian May’s outfit.

Long coat tails billowing out behind him, hair billowing out above, to the sides, behind and beyond him, legs akimbo tearing up that axe, a British icon from the top of his bouffed to within an inch of his life head to the tip of his tapping toe. There is no mistaking Brian May in a crowd. And yes, he was performing, but you can guarantee his everyday, chilling out around the mansion, popping down to Tesco Metro for a pint of milk and a bottle of Head and Shoulders look isn’t that far from his stage outfit. But he can pull it off. Because he’s Brian May. And I am saddened to admit that if I actually saw someone walking down the street with that coat and that hair, I would wonder exactly what he had in his pockets, and try not to get too close, lest a stray three foot long grey hair got attached to my own coat (us long haired lot, we moult. A lot). There would be kids pointing, adults turning the other way and likely some young hooligan would throw an apple at his head for being a freak. Because really, as a nation, and maybe as a race in general, we are not very accepting of people looking different are we?

I couldn’t bear the ex’s “Dad” trainers. Absolutely despised them (yet he wore them tirelessly, surely just to piss me off). I would like to go out with someone with nice beat up All Stars or, er… yeah nice beat up All Stars please. Because to be fair on men (and most of them have dodgy fashion sense anyway) their options are limited; All Stars, Dad trainers or banana shoes (most men’s feet are massive anyway, why do they see the need to highlight and exaggerate it, are they scared they might fall over without an extra 6 inches of empty leather at the end of their toes?), and very little in between. I’d like to say that I would embrace any man for wearing something different, but it would be with a pursed lip and an upturned nose that I would grudgingly accepted the dad trainers and/or banana shoes back into my life.

But it works both ways. I know that I am being judged for what I wear, we all are. And I wish it wasn’t so. I would love to go out wearing Jessie J’s sequin leotard (actually if I’m really honest, and choosing my ultimate would-give-my-right-arm-to-be-able-to-actually-wear-in-the-street-without-getting-arrested-for-indecency-or-beaten-up-for-being-a-knob outfit, it would be Toy Story 3 Barbie’s electric blue leotard, skinny belt and stripey legwarmers combo – fashion genius) but only celebrities and/or performers are really allowed to dress like that, aren’t they?

Most of us, the 90% of us that are not incredibly brave or incredible famous, just want to fit in and rarely venture too far out of our fashion comfort zone.

But maybe we need to push the boundaries a bit, take a tip from our kids for instance. Son One went through a phase (all boys do) of refusing to wear anything except his Buzz Lightyear costume. Usually with a plastic fly swat as a rather bizarre accessory (which he would stick out of the trolley, purposely knocking over precarious displays of baked beans or swiping away an entire shelf of white sliced). He thought he looked cool. No, he didn’t think it, he knew it. Just like the celebs and just like those brave enough to step outside the fashion norm.

I wish we lived in a more forgiving and accepting society. I wish we didn’t judge people for what they wore. And I really, really wish I knew where I could get my hands on an adult size Barbie leotard, I think I would love it so much I would happily pop to Tescos in it, and let them chuck apples at me. At least I know I would look cool.