I seem to recall, in the dim and certainly distant past, my mother having a washing machine which looked something like a cauldron with a top cover and in which the washing was done by her poking about a bit with a pair of long tongs. The water had to be emptied using a black rubber pipe.
The clothes were dried by being put through the mangle and then hung out to let the sun (which seemed to shine more in my childhood) do its work. Later on a Flatley (?) dryer was purchased which was essentially a metal box with removable slats at the top on which clothes could be fussily suspended while a heating element at the bottom of the box drove out the water.
In other words, washing clothes needed effort and usually fairly constant attendance until they were ‘done.’ This memory does not stop me from feeling both smug and long suffering as I put clothes into an automatic washing machine and then have to place them (by hand!) into the adjacent tumble dryer. Clothes do not (god rot them) fold themselves or put themselves away.
You will note that I have not mentioned the I-word. I have an altogether understandable aversion to even thinking of the i-word. Until it actually becomes as trendy in reality as the other i-words made more than acceptable by Apple, I will try and push it from my mind.
This does mean, however, that some shirts are too wrinkled to expect the ‘body heat’ technique to make them acceptable. I am fairly relaxed about just how crumpled I am prepared to look in school: I consider it a traditional sartorial accompaniment to the normal appearance of an experienced teacher! It does mean that my cupboard is filling with disgruntled looking shirts as I wait for the alternative technique of the ‘gravity effect’ (eventually) to come into operation and smooth out the cloth. Hope, as it were, springing eternal!
Yesterday, in the bright gloom of an almost sunny day, we have a foretaste of what the summer (when it finally arrives is going to be like. Our next door neighbours, who we are now convinced were the reason for the last people leaving and the relatively low rent of the house, have spawned a daughter of dubious niceness and who collects around herself a coterie of noisy adolescents. Their favourite meeting place where they sit, smoke and shout at each other is just the other side of our back garden fence which separates our little territory from the communal pool. Yesterday there they sat, smoked and shouted – even though the temperatures were not conducive to this anti-social behaviour.
I think that the neighbours who should not be here yet, and should be waiting instead until May before they inflict their pernicious presence on us are, I think, trying to break us in gently by appearing each weekend to allow acclimatization to their terminally irritating noisiness.
I have now given my permission for documents relating to The School That Sacked Me to be forwarded to the Consul General for consideration. A folio has been assembled detailing the experiences of past workers in that god-forsaken place and outlining just what appalling educational conditions we had to endure. As Tesco say, “Every little helps!”
The academically acceptable book that I finally chose was “Great Planning Disasters” by Peter Hall (no, not that one, somebody else) which gives details of such monumental awfulness as Concorde (with an ‘e’ – just how desperate were we to give in to the French to get into the European Union in those days!) and the Sydney Opera House. It also looks at London road planning (!) The British Library and other interesting, if unbelievable examples of human cupidity.
The book was first published in the early 1980’s and in 30 years some of those stories have had a few endings! I have used the new British Library and had a Champagne tea in the amazing roofed courtyard of the British Museum while gazing into the Reading Room. Concorde (with an e) flies no more and London roads are as horrific as ever. Terminal 5 (London’s mythical Third Airport was another chapter) opened to national humiliation . . . and so on.
Even in its dated form this book is a fascinating read and even after thirty years the spiralling figures of fantasy estimates became reality, the amount of public money expended with a cavalier disregard for just how much money costs, leaves one breathless! As an historical horror story this book cannot be matched!
Now to prepare for my night out with a dead composer!
The clothes were dried by being put through the mangle and then hung out to let the sun (which seemed to shine more in my childhood) do its work. Later on a Flatley (?) dryer was purchased which was essentially a metal box with removable slats at the top on which clothes could be fussily suspended while a heating element at the bottom of the box drove out the water.
In other words, washing clothes needed effort and usually fairly constant attendance until they were ‘done.’ This memory does not stop me from feeling both smug and long suffering as I put clothes into an automatic washing machine and then have to place them (by hand!) into the adjacent tumble dryer. Clothes do not (god rot them) fold themselves or put themselves away.
You will note that I have not mentioned the I-word. I have an altogether understandable aversion to even thinking of the i-word. Until it actually becomes as trendy in reality as the other i-words made more than acceptable by Apple, I will try and push it from my mind.
This does mean, however, that some shirts are too wrinkled to expect the ‘body heat’ technique to make them acceptable. I am fairly relaxed about just how crumpled I am prepared to look in school: I consider it a traditional sartorial accompaniment to the normal appearance of an experienced teacher! It does mean that my cupboard is filling with disgruntled looking shirts as I wait for the alternative technique of the ‘gravity effect’ (eventually) to come into operation and smooth out the cloth. Hope, as it were, springing eternal!
Yesterday, in the bright gloom of an almost sunny day, we have a foretaste of what the summer (when it finally arrives is going to be like. Our next door neighbours, who we are now convinced were the reason for the last people leaving and the relatively low rent of the house, have spawned a daughter of dubious niceness and who collects around herself a coterie of noisy adolescents. Their favourite meeting place where they sit, smoke and shout at each other is just the other side of our back garden fence which separates our little territory from the communal pool. Yesterday there they sat, smoked and shouted – even though the temperatures were not conducive to this anti-social behaviour.
I think that the neighbours who should not be here yet, and should be waiting instead until May before they inflict their pernicious presence on us are, I think, trying to break us in gently by appearing each weekend to allow acclimatization to their terminally irritating noisiness.
I have now given my permission for documents relating to The School That Sacked Me to be forwarded to the Consul General for consideration. A folio has been assembled detailing the experiences of past workers in that god-forsaken place and outlining just what appalling educational conditions we had to endure. As Tesco say, “Every little helps!”
The academically acceptable book that I finally chose was “Great Planning Disasters” by Peter Hall (no, not that one, somebody else) which gives details of such monumental awfulness as Concorde (with an ‘e’ – just how desperate were we to give in to the French to get into the European Union in those days!) and the Sydney Opera House. It also looks at London road planning (!) The British Library and other interesting, if unbelievable examples of human cupidity.
The book was first published in the early 1980’s and in 30 years some of those stories have had a few endings! I have used the new British Library and had a Champagne tea in the amazing roofed courtyard of the British Museum while gazing into the Reading Room. Concorde (with an e) flies no more and London roads are as horrific as ever. Terminal 5 (London’s mythical Third Airport was another chapter) opened to national humiliation . . . and so on.
Even in its dated form this book is a fascinating read and even after thirty years the spiralling figures of fantasy estimates became reality, the amount of public money expended with a cavalier disregard for just how much money costs, leaves one breathless! As an historical horror story this book cannot be matched!
Now to prepare for my night out with a dead composer!
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