Do not judge a man by the number
of leads he has.
If you counted up the
power supplies, connectors and assorted leads that I have acquired then there
should be literally no area in the house in which to live as all available
space should be taken up with electrical devices that presumably came with the
leads. And, while there are vast numbers
of ‘things’ that need power (I hesitate to count the number of them that I can
see from where I am typing) there is still, just, space to live which is not
occupied by a shining metallic carapace or something with a keyboard or grille
or screen or . . . but I am already beginning to count the machines that I can
see and that way lies madness.
Or is it rather a sort of madness
that allows you to get rid of (or put away somewhere) defunct machines that are
too expensive to throw away, and yet still keep to hand the power cord or
connector as a sort of precious souvenir?
I willingly admit that gadgets,
especially electronic gadgets, manage to occupy my attention with an ease that
astonishes even myself. All Aldi and
Lidl have to do on their Central Aisles of Interesting Stuff is offer a brush
or mop or any other sort of domestic appliance with the addition of a battery
and a sensor and I’m sold.
I once bought a kitchen washing
up brush that looked like a gigantic electric toothbrush and thought to myself,
“Now, this is ideal for all that washing up that I do when I don’t place the
cups and dishes in the dishwasher.” And
there you have the central paradox of my obsession. Because I do
place the cups and dishes in the dishwasher, and I don’t and will not wash up
when I have a dishwasher specifically for that job. Nevertheless, I bought the thing, and I have
used it once. Ineffectively. The dishwasher does a better job. And, frankly, for those burnt in gungy bits,
it will take more than a giant’s Oral-b toothbrush to dislodge them.
Does this example of
self-knowledge discourage me? No, it
doesn’t even deflect me. Gadget freaks
like myself, live in fear of what we know as “The Passing By” – in other words,
not buying something that looks sort-of plausible, and finding out that it was
absolutely essential to genteel living when you hadn’t got it. It all amounts to a variant on the Catch-22
situation where you have to buy things that you don’t want in case they might
have turned out to be really very good and an obvious buy. And yes, I do realize that the verb tenses in
that last sentence do not make strict chronological sense, but that, I fear, is
part of the point. The backward blame
that gadget freaks are known to indulge in when they have ignored something
that Freakdom acclaims as indispensable.
The leads though are a hangover
from a different and more distant period in our national psyche before planned
obsolescence became the True Path of unfeeling capitalism.
During the Second World War the
Ministry of Information (or something equally Orwellian) issued slogans,
catchphrases, concentrated wisdom, call them what you will, like “Keep Calm and
Carry On!” A phrase, by the way, that
was intended originally for use inside a ministry and not for general
consumption, but now the phrase has become more widely known that it ever was
at the time of its conception.
“Dig for Victory!” was another
one; “Careless talk costs lives”; “Loose lips cost ships”; “We can do it!” and
so on. My personal favourite is one of a
voluptuous blond lounging in a chair, sheathed in sex, apparently merely
eye-candy, but actually listening to the military men by whom she is surrounded
with the tag line, “Keep mum, she’s not so dumb!” Deconstructing the levels of meaning and
social comment in that one must keep students of such things awake at nights,
probably with delight! I’m not sure if
“Make do and mend” was a war slogan, but it was a definite piece of ready
philosophy during my childhood.
Outside the back door of my
grandparent’s house in Maesteg was a sort of shed built into the neighbour’s
wall that was referred to as The Morgue.
My grandfather was a retired accountant and was painstaking in
everything he did: from gardening to impeccable copperplate handwriting; from
fire lighting to dressing; from politics to cigarette rolling. He did nothing hasty and everything had its
place. And The Morgue was where
everything that didn’t fit (in size or use) inside the house was housed.
Used tobacco tins were part of
the filing system of The Morgue. Pins, screws,
nails, washers, bits, pieces, things – all found their place inside a neatly labelled
box and placed on a shelf. String was
not thrown away, it was kept wound around equally cut sticks for the different
types of binding that were recovered.
Nothing that had the possibility of a future use was thrown away, the
philosophy was, “That might come in useful some time.”
Although I knew the word ‘morgue’
from an early age, I had no conception that it meant anything other than the
shed next to the outside toilet against the neighbour’s wall that contained the
things that were (temporarily) not wanted.
It was only much later that I learned of the more gruesome meaning of
the word, and by that time I was able to appreciate the use of metaphor.
So, if anyone (other than my good
self) is to blame for the writhing masses of cables that snake through the
rooms of our house, it is my maternal grandfather. Cables are, self-evidently, of use. And, to be frank, their number reflects the
galloping use of planned obsolescence that leaves poor consumers floundering in
their increasingly desperate attempts to stay abreast of the latest fad of
standardization. It is as if the titanic
battle between VHS and Betamax never took place, and certainly little was
learnt from that fight to the death for a format!
I have recently (while looking
for something else) revived my Kindle, iPad, Bose speaker and computer: all of
which need different leads and connectors, or in the case of my mobile phone, a
converter connector! It is hardly a
surprise to see my chair covered in various wires and cables like some sort of
unimaginative foliage! And don’t get me
started on Bluetooth, where the cable-less needs of that system necessitate a
whole range of unique powering solutions for the various pieces of audio
equipment that I use!
It is with something approaching relief
that I turn from the electronic zoo of slinky excess to the more stark delights
of Catalan where, in the next month or so we might progress from the first,
second and third person singular of the limited number of verbs to which we
have been introduced to the delights of the plural!
Meanwhile there is vocabulary to
be learned.
