The first advert on British television was for Gibbs SR toothpaste. This simple statement came to mind when I was wandering down the aisles full of toothpastes, toothbrushes and other dental products. I seem to remember that our toothbrushes were colour coded when I was a kid, but the design tended to be just about exactly the same year after year. There was no excitement when buying a new toothbrush: it was a chore. Toothpaste was the same all the time with the excitement of the first striped one, which was, of course, deemed far too frivolous to be bought on a regular basis.
As both my parents smoked there was always a tin of Eucryl smokers’ tooth powder. Now that I’ve written that brand name I realise that it is the first time that I’ve ever actually written it down in my life.
I wonder how many other things – products, people, places, foods – that are as familiar as a flannel, but which we have never written down?
There was toothpaste which was bought from time to time: Euthymol. This was, as I remember it, a pink colour and tasted absolutely vile. It was bought on the principle that anything which tasted that disgusting must be doing you some good: the degree of unpalatability being in direct proportion to its efficacy. The same principle was used in the use of TCP as a disinfectant for those childish cuts and grazes. It hurt so it worked.
Nowadays the idea of no pain no gain in products is almost lost from the market place. The only product in which physical discomfort is a selling point is in a certain brand of mouthwash where the advert on television shows a man using the mouthwash and having to suffer the effect of what looks like a small explosion happening in his mouth; but even here the company has produced a version of the original product which has been watered down in its intensity so that it achieves the degree of blandness which products seem to need.
Today the choice of toothbrush is bewildering. The days when the only choice was the degree of firmness of the bristles is long gone. The head of a modern toothbrush looks more like a sculpture by Barbara Hepworth or a garish pop art frippery than anything else. The elegance of the handles of some toothbrushes are breathtaking in their svelte dynamism and you feel that you should be brushing your teeth while hurtling though the air attached to some formula One racing car rather than standing bleary eyed in front of a misted up mirror.
My present toothbrush is a masterpiece of chamfered sides, twisting planes, ergonomic stylishness and a ‘multi media’ head composed of differentiated tufts and a border of extended crenulations of funky plastic. Gosh! And all for under a couple of quid! I get the same feeling contemplating this morning and evening miracle that my Dad used to get from looking at a fizzy drink can which does indeed have an elegance all of its own.
The proliferation of electric and electronic brushes (yes, there is a difference between those two designation, ask the producers) should be a continuing source of delight to me given my predilection for gadgets of all sorts, but I have mixed feeling towards them. They fail the Euthymol test, because they make a chore easy; they take the work out of a task – therefore, it must be wrong! To say nothing about the changing of the battery: this gives rise to a whole series of problems. When should you change a battery? When you sense the power of the brush action is lessened? When pressing the brush against the teeth can actually stop the action? At a designated time after a predetermined number of days has passed? And what happens when you forget to change the battery? Such questions are of far more importance than most of the so called world shattering questions facing mankind about such things as what to do about global warming, the proliferation of atomic weapons or how to avoid even a glimpse of “I’m a nonentity get me a tarantula.”
I’ve finished ‘The Pickwick Papers’ and I’m at a loss to explain the affection which this novel commands. Its narrative structure is deeply unsatisfying and the nauseating sentimentality lacks the killing emotional charge that such writing has in the later novels. Sam Weller is the hero of the novel and by far the most interesting character, and the only one that you would fancy having a drink with! It is a reversal of the Don Quixote/Sancho Panza and Tom Jones/Partridge relationship, and is much nearer to the relationship of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves.
The ending of the novel is the usual tying up of loose ends and relationships. Everything ends well all because someone has enough money to make all things right. Mr Pickwick is cheered when he leaves The Fleet after his servant has distributed gallons of beer; but nothing is actually changed and only two colourful characters are (eventually) saved by the financial impetus of Pickwick.
It’s only a novel: why should the novelist be expected to make social comments and provide answers to great social problems; but there is an element of literary voyeurism; a use of human misery for the purposes of entertainment.
I don’t think that it will be a novel that I will reread soon.
The enjoyable question which I find facing me now is which novel will I read next? Any suggestions?
As both my parents smoked there was always a tin of Eucryl smokers’ tooth powder. Now that I’ve written that brand name I realise that it is the first time that I’ve ever actually written it down in my life.
I wonder how many other things – products, people, places, foods – that are as familiar as a flannel, but which we have never written down?
There was toothpaste which was bought from time to time: Euthymol. This was, as I remember it, a pink colour and tasted absolutely vile. It was bought on the principle that anything which tasted that disgusting must be doing you some good: the degree of unpalatability being in direct proportion to its efficacy. The same principle was used in the use of TCP as a disinfectant for those childish cuts and grazes. It hurt so it worked.
Nowadays the idea of no pain no gain in products is almost lost from the market place. The only product in which physical discomfort is a selling point is in a certain brand of mouthwash where the advert on television shows a man using the mouthwash and having to suffer the effect of what looks like a small explosion happening in his mouth; but even here the company has produced a version of the original product which has been watered down in its intensity so that it achieves the degree of blandness which products seem to need.
Today the choice of toothbrush is bewildering. The days when the only choice was the degree of firmness of the bristles is long gone. The head of a modern toothbrush looks more like a sculpture by Barbara Hepworth or a garish pop art frippery than anything else. The elegance of the handles of some toothbrushes are breathtaking in their svelte dynamism and you feel that you should be brushing your teeth while hurtling though the air attached to some formula One racing car rather than standing bleary eyed in front of a misted up mirror.
My present toothbrush is a masterpiece of chamfered sides, twisting planes, ergonomic stylishness and a ‘multi media’ head composed of differentiated tufts and a border of extended crenulations of funky plastic. Gosh! And all for under a couple of quid! I get the same feeling contemplating this morning and evening miracle that my Dad used to get from looking at a fizzy drink can which does indeed have an elegance all of its own.
The proliferation of electric and electronic brushes (yes, there is a difference between those two designation, ask the producers) should be a continuing source of delight to me given my predilection for gadgets of all sorts, but I have mixed feeling towards them. They fail the Euthymol test, because they make a chore easy; they take the work out of a task – therefore, it must be wrong! To say nothing about the changing of the battery: this gives rise to a whole series of problems. When should you change a battery? When you sense the power of the brush action is lessened? When pressing the brush against the teeth can actually stop the action? At a designated time after a predetermined number of days has passed? And what happens when you forget to change the battery? Such questions are of far more importance than most of the so called world shattering questions facing mankind about such things as what to do about global warming, the proliferation of atomic weapons or how to avoid even a glimpse of “I’m a nonentity get me a tarantula.”
I’ve finished ‘The Pickwick Papers’ and I’m at a loss to explain the affection which this novel commands. Its narrative structure is deeply unsatisfying and the nauseating sentimentality lacks the killing emotional charge that such writing has in the later novels. Sam Weller is the hero of the novel and by far the most interesting character, and the only one that you would fancy having a drink with! It is a reversal of the Don Quixote/Sancho Panza and Tom Jones/Partridge relationship, and is much nearer to the relationship of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves.
The ending of the novel is the usual tying up of loose ends and relationships. Everything ends well all because someone has enough money to make all things right. Mr Pickwick is cheered when he leaves The Fleet after his servant has distributed gallons of beer; but nothing is actually changed and only two colourful characters are (eventually) saved by the financial impetus of Pickwick.
It’s only a novel: why should the novelist be expected to make social comments and provide answers to great social problems; but there is an element of literary voyeurism; a use of human misery for the purposes of entertainment.
I don’t think that it will be a novel that I will reread soon.
The enjoyable question which I find facing me now is which novel will I read next? Any suggestions?
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