Something I Wrote in 1989

You can't have failed to notice the impending threat to certain flavours of British Crisps coming from Europe recently - it's certainly received enough publicity from the media.

If there's one thing guaranteed to arouse media, it's a threat to a British institution (like Lager, Sausages, and of course the great British Pound) from the Eurocrats.

But why are our great British crips on the Euro-hit list? Apparently certain flavours of crisp contain artificial sweeteners - the first reason given for the impending ban is that Crisps were accidentally omitted from a list of foods in which the EEC would allow artificial sweeteners.

Other reports claim that the ban is because such sweeteners could be harmful - the British crisp industry quickly retorted that you'd have to eat 18 bags a day to exceed danger levels.

However sensible, or crazy, this sounds, the media would have you believe that Britain is up in arms at the prospect of losing Prawn Cocktail crisps, amongst other flavours. "They stopped our lamb but they won't stop our crisps!", etc.. Tabloid hacks at The Sun desperately trying to find something to rhyme with the name of the Eurocrat who brought this all about so they can run a snappy front-page headline like "Up Yours Delors!"

Heaven knows how much worse the fuss would have been if crisps were produced by British Farmers!

Frankly, it's somewhat preposterous. Europeans threatening the "Great British Crisp" brought about a sense of Deja Vu in me... Remember Yes, Minister? If you do, then you'll remember the (ficticious) storyline whereby the "Great British Sausage" was under threat from the EEC.

Jim Hacker (the Minister) forced the EEC to back down and swept into public favour - and subsequently became Prime Minister.

Do you get the impression that the Great British Crisp Ban could be no more than a scam instigated by Conservative Central Office? After all - all voters like Prawn Cocktail crisps... No.. Surely not.


Oh, the conspiracy theories! Of course that was 1989, deep in the mistrustful era that only a decade of harsh Conservative government can foster in a rebellious young lad. More to the point, though, since this story was reported in newspapers, it's hard to say whether it was actually even remotely true. (Some web pages suggest that Prawn Cocktail and Spring Onion flavoured crisps were very briefly banned until some legislation was re-worded, but I can find no primary sources supporting this.) Proving that some things never go out of style, a similar story turned up more than a decade later in 2003 with a European threat to smokey bacon crisps, causing widespread hoo-hah, but I suspect that the the EU's rebuttal was too trifling a concern to be reported with equal prominence.

The email I won't end up sending

Dear Colleagues,

I wanted to send you a quick note to thank you for the lovely Christmas surprise that you left me.

Firstly, thank you for making completely new versions of the two programmes I subtitled before Christmas, without telling me. As you know, it's my job to put the subtitles on these programmes, which takes quite a long time, so it's always lovely to get a chance to throw away that work and repeat it for a second time.

Thank you also for making the new programme almost identical to the old one, except with numerous random timing and content changes throughout, thereby making it almost completely impossible to use any of the material I created for the old version. It's lovely to get a chance to repeat a complete day's work over again.

Thank you especially for making this such a nice surprise, by going, I am sure, to such special effort not to tell me that this was happening. Thank you also for only scheduling the new version where you knew I wouldn't see it, leaving the old version in the place where it should be, thereby ensuring that this wonderful surprise was not spoiled.

Thank you to the gods for arranging that I would only discover this late on the night before the programmes are broadcast, and coincidentally when our corporate network connection would be running at such a glacial pace that it would take me nearly four hours to retrieve these new versions of the programme onto my computer before I could even start working on them. Again.

Thank you too for timing this so that it would occur on a weekend, on my holiday, making sure that I get the maximum possible value from my time off by not having any opportunity to sleep on Saturday night so that I may instead enjoy those otherwise wasted hours by being awake. And working.

Coridally yours,

Humphrey Q Horsequarters

(OK, that last bit was a bit dramatic, but otherwise it's a terribly positive and and friendly email, wouldn't you say? Or is this what they call passive-agressive?)

Still, it's not so bad. It didn't take that long to fix it all in the end... :)

Observation

Reading this book by Tom Reynolds, and I notice that one of his “chapters” only has two paragraphs in it! You’d have thought that he could at least make the effort. What a slacker.

And one of his chapters is about him having his hair cut! Who’s going to be interested in that?

But if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me, with a deadline to meet and no ideas to fill it with. :)

The King Of Gift Tokens

This morning, The King of Gift Tokens hereby announces complete and full victory over the forces of WH Smith Nuisance Giftcard Fifteen Pounds.

Victory was swift, and brutal. Despite the incursion of the Giftcard some 15 months ago, the King was not in the slightest bit bothered by its presence and disregarded it in a regal manner. This morning, at a time of the King’s choosing, a comprehensive analysis and cross-referencing of assets was performed.

The King’s imperial good self drew up a ‘wish list’ of books which he was thinking about reading. Futhermore he then proceeded to cross-check the prices of each of these books, in their various formats, across several key battlegrounds. Amazon, WH Smith, HMV, and Tesco.

A short while later the King identified two books which were cheaper at WH Smith than in any other store. Furthermore, the combined cost of these two books was exactly £15.01 – enough not only to secure free delivery of the analogue printed books by analogue Royal Mail King’s Postal Horses, but also to ensure that only the token sum of one New English Pee was payable from the King’s Treasury.

The value-for-money obtained was of the highest possible excellence. The Giftcard’s annihilation was complete and total. The King declares victory, and warns the remaining forces of Tesco (£28.73), M&S (£21.64), HMV (£25), and To-Be-Allocated (£20 and £5) that they too will be dealt with in the same ruthlessly excellent manner.

By Order Of The King,

This Day, Thursday 6th January 2011

Free Money Is Such A Nuisance

Free money is such a nuisance. Collect bonus points with every purchase, get so-much off when you spend such-and-such, and of course the ever-present menace of Gift Vouchers for proper shops that must be visited in person, or any websites which are not Amazon.co.uk.

A very strange part of my brain kicks in when it comes to things that ‘should be’ money, but aren’t. Gift vouchers, coupons, anything with a monetary value shown on them. Theoretically, sound as a pound. But often, not. So many strings attached! Such a nuisance to spend or redeem.

Somewhere in my coat pocket, I have £21.65 worth of assorted gift vouchers for Marks & Spencer. I have had them for a number of years, and despite many attempts, have never been able to find one single thing that I can spend them on. The one time I went into M&S recently (to buy a shirt and some proper trousers, because I’m all about being well-dressed,) I had forgotten to bring them with me. It was the ideal opportunity to use them, wasted. Now if I go back, I’ll be saddled with the desperation that I absolutely “must spend these today” but there probably won’t be anything that I really want, and anything I do want will probably be too expensive, once again shutting down the ‘buy’ reflex.

One of the £1 M&S vouchers indicates that it will be no good as of February 28th 2011, so the clock is ticking. The pressure really is quite intolerable. While writing this I have had a quick look through the M&S website. Not even one thing vaguely wantable. And my local store is even less good, since it demolished its electronics section, previously selling proper things which people actually want like telephones and radios and televisions and computers, and now selling stupid things like mugs and jugs and ladles.

I suppose I could go and buy another pair of trousers or something. But where’s the fun in that? I already have enough trouser. It’s not like I can wear more than one pair at once anyway. What point is there in having more than that?

I have a £15 giftcard to spend at WH Smith. Even this is a nuisance. WH Smith is wonderful, but it sells almost nothing I want, or at a price which isn’t hideous. Even this giftcard was itself a replacement for a long-since-discontinued ‘Clubcard’ collect-your-points kind of deal, which I had accrued some £14.97 worth of points on in the previous 12 years before the good people at WH decided that it was too much of a nuisance to bother with. So the one time I did manage to drag myself into a shop and eventually find something which I had just-about considered I could use the points on, the woman behind the till looked at me as if I were trying to pay with loose pebbles.

WH Smith giftcards run out after a certain amount of time. The card I had was issued.. hm, about 15 months ago. It might already have gone, I really can’t be certain. I’m going to have to check now. Hold on.. [Time passes] ... Ah, OK, apparently that’s good until September 2011. And in the last few days, WH Smith have rejigged their website so that I can spend it online instead of having to actually attend a store. Yay! But it’s not working at the moment. Bah.

Even infused with the knowledge that I can spend this surplus currency online, WH Smith’s website also has nothing that I want. I mean, they have some nice USB flash drives, but they’re about half the size and twice the price of ones I could get elsewhere. So using my precious, yet time-limited, voucher on that would be nothing other than a waste of money which I will have no part of. No sir.

And don’t even get me started on HMV.com vouchers. I have spent weeks looking around their site. There’s nothing I want, and even the things I could put up with are more expensive than anywhere else.

Thanks to my swift and astute selection of credit cards, I also have some ‘points’ which I can redeem by converting them into vouchers for anywhere except Amazon. This makes my life even worse. Should I turn them into vouchers for yet another shop that I don’t use? Should I convert them into HMV or WH Smith vouchers so that I my pre-existing useless vouchers have more buying power? Oh, what is a boy to do?

The whole thing is torture, and yes, I think that word is entirely appropriate, because I am sure that even international malfeasant types locked up in Guantanamo Bay would swiftly confess to anything in preference to visiting HMV.

If that weren’t bad enough, the nice little Co-op at the bottom of my road has now gotten in on the act, trying to give me free money. Every time I buy something, their till machine prints out a little voucher. “£2 off when you spend £20 or more. Valid until this time next week.”

Aaargh! I can’t not use this voucher, because it’s £2 of free money. The Co-op is where I shop anyway, so it’s not like I’m really spending money I don’t need to. The Co-op has lots of things that I can use and would buy – just not right away. Not within the next 7 days. I have enough coffee and toilet rolls and kitchen towel from the last lot of these vouchers I spent my way through. And Co-op coffee is unnecessarily expensive anyway.

So I have to plan my shopping carefully. For best results I have to spend JUST over £20 (not too much), but spend it wisely, and only on things I need and can use in the future. And really it should be on one of those excellent “buy one get one free” offers which are such good value and mean that I’m really getting the very best possible deal. Plus I have to be careful not to buy something which might be much more expensive in the Co-op than in, say, Tesco. I know mentally that 12 toilet rolls cost about £5, and that 150g of something that costs £1.87 in Tesco would cost about £2.75 in the 220g jars that they sell in the Co-op for £2.99. That difference is probably alright, depending on my mood.

This does all mean that I’m always idly pressing buttons on my mobile (in calculator mode) while browsing the shelves. I have got this down to a reasonable art now (barring unexpected mispricing or addition errors) and the last time I did it I came in with a basketful of shopping at exactly £20.04. I’ll be collecting my £2 discount now, please. Whoohoo!

And then the till prints out another identical voucher. “See you next week…”, it thinks, I am sure.

Introducing The Hardline, Volume One

(I hasten to add that this is not 'hardline-unfinished' which I referred to yesterday. This is different and new.)

During the course of my ‘professional’ employment, there was a time when I had a few people whose boss I, notionally, was. During that period I lost count of the number of emails I sent using the abrasive subject ‘Introducing The Hardline’. These emails were usually intended to put right that which had once went wrong – to outline new practices and procedures designed to lay out exactly what I wanted people to do, and how I wanted them to do it, in order to prevent whatever had just happened from ever happening again.

I do recall that most of the time, these emails were roundly ignored and never made even the slightest bit of difference, but it did at least make me feel like I was doing something like proper work and fulfilling the duties of a manager. I mean, I really was trying my best. Somewhere in the ‘Big Book Of Management’ there probably is a chapter entitled ‘Always reference obscure album titles in your email subject lines’, and while this was not necessarily my conscious intention in sending my ‘hardline’ emails, I do have to admit that there is a part of me which just loved the title of, if not the music on, the 1987 album “Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'arby”. There’s just something so terribly self-reverential about such a title, sounding like the product of a wildly out of control, super boosted-up ego. (You can see how it would therefore sound exactly like something I would say, and say often.)

Such egotripping was probably not Mr D’arby’s intention, I’m sure – just as the unintended implied threat of George Michael’s “Listen Without Prejudice... Volume One” suggests that listening in an incorrect manner will result in further and further volumes being sent to your door, like mail-order encyclopaedias, until you finally submit and behave more reasonably while operating your stereo equipment.

This is really all I have to say on the matter, so as blog posts go, this idea has come up a little short. That said, there is precedent for short writing, as not so long ago I chanced across a copy of “Blood, Sweat and Tea” by Tom Reynolds, a book which has no less than TWO HUNDRED AND SIX chapters, perhaps because they are mostly recycled blog posts. Just like my little blog, and the best-selling book which no doubt it will one day become.

I take this all to be a very good sign. And although I clearly have prior claim to - in fact, maybe even invented - the idea of turning a blog into an actual proper book (if we ignore Belle de Jour,) I am perfectly content to let that slide. It’s much easier to blaze a trail if someone has already set fire to most of the trees ahead of you. My style of writing is clearly in fashion, and I shall be off to Harper-Collins in the morning to collect my advance.

Another couple of hundred chapters and we should be good, I reckon.

Mechanically Recovered Meat

In seeking inspiration, I am looking through a cache of unpublished or briefly-published-and-then-deleted writings. I forgot that I was so tortured and prolific. One day, like Stanley Kubrick, I shall be gone, and then all my unpublished works will be discovered and exposed to the masses, quite against my explicit wishes. I'm not sure if that would be a good thing, so maybe I should at least publish them under my own volition. Or then again, maybe not. A quick survey reveals my inventory to include, but not be limited to, the following items:

cupid-withdrawn - in which I professed my attraction to Clare Balding. (And yes, I knew before I wrote it, but I still like her.)

footprints-unfinished - a throughly whiny post where I feel terribly sorry for myself and suspect that I only ever make people unhappy, using the wonderfully circular logic that there is no way for me to know whether this is the case, but if I imagine it then it's probably correct, and how does anyone deal with that kind of thing on their conscience. Blimey, what a basket case.

hardline-unfinished - I'm not sure why this says unfinished, as it seems to be the piece I wrote about the chap in the bowler hat who got buried in Bernard Cribbins' "'ole in the ground". Oh dear lord listen to me, I called it a "piece". Pass the ego.

iphone-technical - a loose rant about technological nuisances. Not entirely fascinating.

first-blog-entry-unused - quite a good first blog entry which I wrote for another place. Never went anywhere, and obviously would be out of place now as any post I make would not be the first one. To be kept to one side in case developments in time travel facilitate its reuse.

STD-withdrawn - a joyously naive post from Valentine's Day 2007 in which I wondered if the cold-like symptoms I had been experiencing could have been as a result of me putting something in my mouth which I bought on eBay but might have once been in someone else's mouth. (To spare any blushes I explained that I was talking, hypothetically, about boiled sweets, which gave the post its title, "Sweetily Transmitted Diseases".) But for whatever reason I thought better of it at the time. I can't imagine why.

tvgohome - a spoof TV programme schedule based almost entirely on Charlie Brooker's ex-website "TV Go Home". Not quite as funny as I thought it would turn out, which is probably why I didn't do anything with it. One or two moments of potential though.

ed-music - something I wrote for another place and didn't use, about memories of recorded music. Only about three paragraphs worth before it turned into notes of things to mention, including "the nice sweet shop by the park", "how I got the record player", and "upset in Woolworth's". Hm.

flip-reverse - a humorous piece (argh I said piece again) where I provided a proper English translation of the lyrics to "Flip Reverse", the (then) latest single from teenage rap group "Blazin' Squad." Hilarious, of course, but somewhat rumbunctious, and probably just baffling when presented several years out of context.

I'm sure there are one or two memories and notes amongst this lot which I can reuse some time this year.

Hey-ho. Three for three. More writing tomorrow!

IOU 1 Entry

So, fallen at the first hurdle. January 2nd came and went without even one entry. But to be fair it was Sunday, so that's probably some kind of excuse. And today was a bank holiday, so I was in church all day... right?

OK. While a lesser man would have considered their resolution to be broken by now, a text message from my blogging arch nemesis Emila Von Frauhausen has revealed that I am not alone in my quest for daily blogging. And since they have indicated that they are re-using old, already written (but previously unpublished) writings to fill their 'one a day' quota, it seems to me that if cheating is fair play, then a player be I. Wait, does that even make any sense?

If old writings can be repurposed then this is very good. (I'm sure I have some cringeworthy vintage material that I can dig up from my archives.) But in the meantime I have also decided that it is OK to write something retrospectively - for example, this entry being written late in the evening of January 3rd, and change the time on it so that it says January 2nd.

This way I am not exactly cheating - I am still filling my quota, just occasionally using 'IOUs' if something is not ready on time. Theoretically speaking this will allow me to reach December 31st 2011 and not have broken my resolution, even if I then have to spend the day writing a backlog of 360 entries all in one afternoon, like a kind of rolling stone that slowly gathers an unbearable weight of obligation when neglected.

I'm sure that would be only mildly more painful than pulling fantastic and genius copy out of nowhere one day at a time. Which, without really trying, I seem to have found myself having done. Oo, well done me. Two down, 363 to go.

I Must Blog All Year Long

I've taken to thinking that I have been awfully neglectful in not keeping my blog regularly updated. And so, with under an hour left of new year's day, I am reminded that a few days ago I considered that a good resolution to keep would be to "do a blog" each day, even if there was not much to talk about. Even if it was just "Boring. Worked. Ate. Slept." at a minimum. There's nobody who wouldn't enjoy that kind of quality writing, after all.

And so, therefore, I introduce my doubtless all-too-soon-to-be-broken resolution with this post. What larks, Pip!

Today was, in fact, not too bad. Despite it being new years day there were only a small amount of fireworks and hooting of horns by the local shipping at midnight. Later in the day, I was pleased to find that my preferred classy venue of choice (Argos) was open, and better still that it was not clogged up with people. So bought a moderately delayed Christmas gift and a new phone, and went on my way.

Er.. That's it. I'll try to do something more thrilling for tomorrow. :)

Word Up

Being a white-hot creative type, I decided to draw a picture of my blog. Of course I had a little help from a rather good website at Wordle.net so I can't truly claim all the credit, although I did make several important key choices as regards font and colour. Here's what Wordle makes of my recent posts: (You can click on either of these pictures to see them with more bigness.)

I also drew a picture of "the book" that I've been writing (i.e. recycling from old blog posts) which shows my rather more considerable range. I'm kind of taken by this one - it has a funny habit of actually making sense no matter which direction you read it in.