How do you judge when you have achieved the status of actually being a ‘grown up’?
When I was very young it came down to a number of simple tests; you were a ‘grown up’ when you could:
1 Have a bath and not regard it as some sort of punishment.
2 Spell words like ‘cauliflower’
3 Use joined-up writing.
As you get older (and no nearer to being a ‘grown up’) your list changes; you are now a ‘grown up’ when you can:
1 Have a serious, engrossing and informed discussion on financial arrangements for your pension
2 Clean the filter on the tumble dryer without having to be told to do it
3 Admit there are some classic texts in English Literature that you have not read and that you have no intention of reading: The Fairy Queen in its entirety springs turgidly to mind!
As I pointed out in my last blog entry, you cannot pretend to maturity when you have a 42 inch television given pride of place in your living room. When it is on its size, colour and speaker system ensure that it is the cynosure of every eye: it’s something you simply cannot ignore. When it is not on it still commands attention by its blank, stark potentiality. I understand that there are some televisions which, when they are switched off, act as mirrors: the sociological implications and metaphorical possibilities of that situation almost take my breath away.
So what can be done to combat this abnegation of intellectual responsibility; the availability of a mini cinema only a switch away from dominating a living space?
The answer, of course, lies in white goods.
My mother had firm views on present giving. One of the most oft stated, especially on the lead up to Christmas was that a household article could not be a ‘gift’ for her. It followed that however technologically advanced a Hoover was; however ground breaking its ‘beats as it sweeps as it cleans’ action; no matter if it had a light (which it did) to show up the dirt; trendy colours aglow – nothing would induce my mother to see it as anything other than a utilitarian necessity and in no way could it be gift wrapped to acceptability in the present stakes.
Life, of course, would be unutterably drearier without one. It is instructive to consider what we didn’t have when I was a child. No television, no central heating, no computer, no microwave oven, no automatic washing machine, no personal stereo, no hi-fi, no CDs, no DVDs, no video recorder, no transistor radio, no mobile phone, no dishwasher and, at last we come to the reason for this list.
We had no tumble dryer. What we did have was something called a Flatley (?) dryer which was basically a metal box with a heating element in the bottom and a series of wooden slats at the top on which you draped the clothes to be dried.
Well, as a counterweight to the self indulgent extravagance of a large television today saw the appearance of a tumble dryer.
This machine is something of a development on the last machine that lurked outside the front door of number 129 in the entrance porch hidden behind the slatted doors (I always considered the slatted doors as a humble tribute to the Flately (?) and a tangible reminder of ‘how we lived then’) As I recall that machine had a timer and two heat settings and a tube which vented the air. The present sleek monster is a condenser model which (in theory) condenses the water from the clothes and obviates the necessity for a hole to be cut in the wall or for a lolling colon to hang out of the window. We shall see.
It also has a vast array of buttons and lights on the front and indeed a light inside the drum. It is the sort of machine which makes you want a child: they have an instinctive understanding of complex electronic equipment. Though one is tempted to ask how complicated the blowing of hot air through clothes can actually be. Do all the buttons do anything or are they merely decoration?
If I am truthful I can genuinely say without even a tinge of mendacity [methinks he doth protest too much] I gained more genuine [ditto] satisfaction from the installation of the tumble dryer than the setting up on high the vast temple to all commanding god of the television.
It helps of course that the language of the television is Spanish and Catalan and spoken at such a rate that it doesn’t really cater for neophytes in these tongues as my good self.
A disturbing facet of this television, as vouchsafed to me by the Guardian of the Remote was that by a simple press of his thumb he can change the language of some films on the TV to English. I feel this is a temptation that I must resist.
The learning of the language however is now a necessity and a pressing necessity at that.
The instructions for the tumble dryer are only in Spanish!
When I was very young it came down to a number of simple tests; you were a ‘grown up’ when you could:
1 Have a bath and not regard it as some sort of punishment.
2 Spell words like ‘cauliflower’
3 Use joined-up writing.
As you get older (and no nearer to being a ‘grown up’) your list changes; you are now a ‘grown up’ when you can:
1 Have a serious, engrossing and informed discussion on financial arrangements for your pension
2 Clean the filter on the tumble dryer without having to be told to do it
3 Admit there are some classic texts in English Literature that you have not read and that you have no intention of reading: The Fairy Queen in its entirety springs turgidly to mind!
As I pointed out in my last blog entry, you cannot pretend to maturity when you have a 42 inch television given pride of place in your living room. When it is on its size, colour and speaker system ensure that it is the cynosure of every eye: it’s something you simply cannot ignore. When it is not on it still commands attention by its blank, stark potentiality. I understand that there are some televisions which, when they are switched off, act as mirrors: the sociological implications and metaphorical possibilities of that situation almost take my breath away.
So what can be done to combat this abnegation of intellectual responsibility; the availability of a mini cinema only a switch away from dominating a living space?
The answer, of course, lies in white goods.
My mother had firm views on present giving. One of the most oft stated, especially on the lead up to Christmas was that a household article could not be a ‘gift’ for her. It followed that however technologically advanced a Hoover was; however ground breaking its ‘beats as it sweeps as it cleans’ action; no matter if it had a light (which it did) to show up the dirt; trendy colours aglow – nothing would induce my mother to see it as anything other than a utilitarian necessity and in no way could it be gift wrapped to acceptability in the present stakes.
Life, of course, would be unutterably drearier without one. It is instructive to consider what we didn’t have when I was a child. No television, no central heating, no computer, no microwave oven, no automatic washing machine, no personal stereo, no hi-fi, no CDs, no DVDs, no video recorder, no transistor radio, no mobile phone, no dishwasher and, at last we come to the reason for this list.
We had no tumble dryer. What we did have was something called a Flatley (?) dryer which was basically a metal box with a heating element in the bottom and a series of wooden slats at the top on which you draped the clothes to be dried.
Well, as a counterweight to the self indulgent extravagance of a large television today saw the appearance of a tumble dryer.
This machine is something of a development on the last machine that lurked outside the front door of number 129 in the entrance porch hidden behind the slatted doors (I always considered the slatted doors as a humble tribute to the Flately (?) and a tangible reminder of ‘how we lived then’) As I recall that machine had a timer and two heat settings and a tube which vented the air. The present sleek monster is a condenser model which (in theory) condenses the water from the clothes and obviates the necessity for a hole to be cut in the wall or for a lolling colon to hang out of the window. We shall see.
It also has a vast array of buttons and lights on the front and indeed a light inside the drum. It is the sort of machine which makes you want a child: they have an instinctive understanding of complex electronic equipment. Though one is tempted to ask how complicated the blowing of hot air through clothes can actually be. Do all the buttons do anything or are they merely decoration?
If I am truthful I can genuinely say without even a tinge of mendacity [methinks he doth protest too much] I gained more genuine [ditto] satisfaction from the installation of the tumble dryer than the setting up on high the vast temple to all commanding god of the television.
It helps of course that the language of the television is Spanish and Catalan and spoken at such a rate that it doesn’t really cater for neophytes in these tongues as my good self.
A disturbing facet of this television, as vouchsafed to me by the Guardian of the Remote was that by a simple press of his thumb he can change the language of some films on the TV to English. I feel this is a temptation that I must resist.
The learning of the language however is now a necessity and a pressing necessity at that.
The instructions for the tumble dryer are only in Spanish!
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