OMC *

OMC *

Prue Leith

set me off  by suggesting a day for  remembrance, personal things to remember, we don’t remember enough.   Speak for yourself..  Pixie Lott wanted us to wear green sweaters for Mental Health Day.   Difficult colour, you risk looking ill even if you aren’t.  We have formally remembered the anniversaries of Victory in Europe Day (said in full because I don’t think many remember what VE stands for) and one of the concentration camps – that I don’t remember which one is not disrespectful, it’s because they were all (and there far more of them than we know about) as repellently destructive as each other.   So sooner of later, some group will come up with New Hope Day and I shall scream.  Hence the title.

The percolator

died.  The innards which in any sensible pot of the same nature would be metal or glass were heavy duty plastic and wore out.  I bought two such percolators from Lakeland.   Made in China.  Still offered on the website with the thoughtful addendum “this product is no longer available.”  So why feature it?  

Investigating online replacement, new wheeze is miraculously cheap coffee pot with grossly inflated postage, or one of the behemoths who say of the same product “just the pot and lid” or show picture of the same product, in the same ad – pot, lid, diffuser and cap – and no way to verify which is accurate.

Am I the only person who recoils from a 36 or 72 hour deodorant? 

The skin is the biggest organ of the body and sweat is a necessary elimination of it.  Do people seriously believe only dirty people wash?  Or is soap and water now so expensive and washing so time consuming that you would rather seal your body for up to 3 days at a time?   That and synthetic clothing?  Oh dear.

Do you have to show me all the places you can spray the aforementioned   – down your knickers, under your bosom, between your legs, across your feet and back?  Anybody ever heard of allergy?  No thank you.

Does it make me laugh to watch men sniffing each other during some ball game, turned on by the “whoosh” ?   Perfumes in detergents in whatever form are a matter of personal taste.  I avoid them.   Just as Dove

may be a very good product but  I can’t stand the smell.

Is it amusing to watch a girl so ensnared by the killer cologne  some male person has sprayed down his trousers that, when she catches a whiff as he goes past in a darkened arena, she pursues him, nose to bum ?

Incontinence is a real problem and surprisingly common, but sympathy erodes with having  pads and pants explained to me  about every 12 minutes throughout a slow afternoon.   I always thought “letting it all hang out” sounded most uncomfortable. 

When the printer

had another seizure, AJ ordered the new one which was delivered by a charming man who brought it in at my request.  “Now I need you to do me a favour” I said.  He looked startled.  I took him by the hand and showed him the outgoing machine.  “Just promise me” I said “ that you will only  give this to someone you really don’t like.”  “Bad as that?” he asked.  “Twice what I paid for it in ink cartridges, paper waste and sheer inconvenience.”  Epson,  my only complaint against the John Lewis Partnership in 40 years as a customer.

Former PM John Major says that as a society we should have moved beyond prison.   Indeed.  Will is required. 

You remember Will ?  No not Shakespeare.  We have to commit time and money and choose between punishment and rehabilitation.  Prison services work hard to no clear end.

Manny tells me his Co -op in darkest Norfolk is entering the fourth week of depleted shelves.  So I hope we will examine the shattering fall in national production of essential food stuffs.  Yes, now – before it hits us.  Because it will (see Just in Case by Tim Lang, a report for the National Preparedness Commission on UK food security).   And back the farmers.

* OMC stands for Off My Chest.