Monday 19 December 2016

Soft and proud


The inspriation for designers is having to deal with things which just don't do what they are supposed to, or if they do, do it so badly that you wish you had never tried.

You would think I had learned my lesson when I bought 10 kilos of 'universal potting compost' from the Pound Shop last Spring, wouldn't you? All Rachel Carson's predictions came true in the microcosm of our kitchen window box, just because I believed the Eastern Europeans who dug up a load of rubbish from a contaminated building site, then spent more on the packaging than they did on the contents.

An LED headset torch from the same shop at the same price. It never worked, and I couldn't be bothered to walk the 500 yards and go through the complicated procedure to get back my £1. Ditto the computer screen wet-wipes which I tried to clean this iMac with yesterday. They are wet enough to be unpleasant, but they don't remove the grime. They just smear it around from one place to the other. It's hard being a skinflint.

I began with post with the intention of not mentioning the 'C' word, but I've just come from Sarah's blog in which that word has never been mentioned at all as far as I can remember, but that is an easy feat if you live in Australia and not chilly, Christmas-obssessed Great Britain. Christmas isn't even a big deal in France, where the weather in the North is very similar to ours, if not identical. The big difference is that we had Charles Dickens and they had the Tale of Two Cities.

My car mechanic is on his way to Australia to visit his two sons who emigrated there recently, and he told me of his fears about eating a barbeque on the beach rather than a sweltered roast for Christmas. He has only gone on the strict condition that he is allowed to cook a turkey (or the closest animal he can find to one) for lunch, and his sons leapt at the opportunity to not cook on the day.

I was in Lidl two days ago, and found kangaroo steaks in their freezer cabinets. I toyed with the idea of buying some and serving them to the kids on the 24th, but I think they would never have forgiven me. I still get a lot of stick from Green-Eyes for forgetting the gravy for the sausage and mash one bonfire night about 10 years ago. 'You ARE kidding, aren't you?!'

In the first few paragrahs of Sarah's post, having met an old friend from years gone by, she comes up with the throw-away line, 'Her partner, wearing rubber thongs and weilding a rake, set fire to the bracken around the hut while we talked,' then carries on with the story without further comment about what seems to me to require a swift phone-call to two or three different emergency services.

I have always suspected that you have to be tough to live in rural Australia, but I mean, really.


For Sarah's sake, this is what a 'rubber thong' is to the rest of the world. I wondered why he was wearing two.

34 comments:

  1. I once bought a hammer from a French 'Pound Shop'. The head flew off as I lifted it to hit its first nail. When I asked for a refund the woman said "What do you expect for 10 Francs?". I replied that I expected a hammer with a secure head. She replaced it for me.

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    1. It is a horrible feeling when the handle of a hammer suddenly becomes light in mid-swing. The thing is to never look up.

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  2. Tom, thank you for the smiles and giggles that this post brought to me. In a little while I will be walking over to the neighborhood Post Office to send off Christmas parcels. The queue will be be serpentine, but there will be many eavesdropping opportunities.

    Best wishes.

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  3. The image is more than enough to make me feel faint without enquiring why that gear was necessary.

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    1. Maybe rubber thongs are something else in Oz, like leather chaps in the Wild West? I am beginnng to feel a bit giddy myself.

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    2. Calm down Weaver, thongs in Oz are flip flops.

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    3. Are they??? Now I find myself extremely disappointed. I had better let Sarah know what rubber thongs in the rest of the world are, so she may understand. It may have to involve tasteless photos from dubious websites - in fact it must.

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  4. I am glad you explained Sue - I was starting to feel queazy too :-)

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    1. Oh no, Now I have an image of you in a rubber thong and little else. My Christmas is becoming close to ruined.

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  5. You're buggered if the car won't start then.

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    1. Are you 5 posts behind, or is it me?

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    2. I cant be arsed to explain. You wrote the post, not me.

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    3. My memory is not as good as yours.

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    4. Your car mechanic is going to Australia - you said so in this post.

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    5. Sarah's post was sad. I wondered about the rubber thong but it didn't seem very significant by the time I got to the end. And she doesn't always get an internet signal on her island so replies to comments are probably a bit hit and miss.

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    6. Ah right. I see - on both counts. The internet connection never occurred to me.

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  6. Yeah, imagine setting fire to the ground - gives a new meaning to the idea of "down under", eh?

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    1. Gives a new meaning to 'bikini-line' too. Us tough Brits always shave using a lighter or a lit match, but not down under. That's asking for double, if not triple trouble.

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  7. I've just - at the risk of giving John a semi - posted up OUR idea of what a rubber thong is. I hope it is now all cleared up (especially in the Trelawnyd kitchen).

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  8. Question: Should I get mildly angry at people who put up posts and completely ignore comments about them?

    Is it a form of arrogance to ignore other's comments about your offering, as if they be pearls before swine?

    Cher is guilty. John Gray is guilty. Now Sarah is ignoring comments too. Should we take this personally? Have they taken our comments too personally?

    Anyway, it pisses me off and I find myself responding less and less on people's blogs who cannot be bothered to even acknowldge them. 'I'M TOO BUSY' is the usual excuse, but that - as we all know - is bollocks, especially if they say, 'I will try my hardest to respond to all of you - promise!'.

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    1. Oh, wait - I have just had an epiphany - maybe they just don't like us anymore! Now I am happy.

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    3. Sometimes life does take over and you just have not. Got time to reply.......fucking drama queen!

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    4. Don't worry - sometimes I get all insecure (and pissed.)

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  9. I'm just happy with the second photograph !!! XXXX

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    1. Yes, never mind the multicultural misunderstanding! We had something to look at. That's what counts.

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    2. I feel a little ill now. I keep thinking of Russell Crowe, or some other complete slob.

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  10. I also thought thongs, like in the second picture, and wondering why rubber? Until Sue explained.
    Greetings Maria x

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    1. Yes - it all makes boring sense now. Sometimes life is more interesting with mystery and misunderstandings.

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