Happy Christmas!

Yes indeed that is my Christmas present for Tesco, Morrison's, Sainsburys & Marks & Spenser's who I note have started stuffing the aisles with Christmas fare!  Had it not been for the absurd Halloween nonsense I suspect more space would be taken up with Christmas already.  I can accept these shops expect people to wish to stock up early but September?  I understand that it is illegal in Denmark to put Christmas goods out before December arrives, we ought to consider that here.  Now I am one that when rich buys goods through the year for Christmas.  Having spent a time as a pauper this I have ceased.  My changed circumstances mean I can consider some things for the kids this year, a noose perhaps, and shopping early helps here, but should shops themselves begin  Christmas this far ahead I wonder?  

'Daily Mail'

Naturally after all the fuss re Kate and the 'topless photos' she visits the Solomon Islands and is greeted by several topless women.  William did his best to look them in the eye.....

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Butchers, Bakers & Candlestick Makers.

I like this picture, though I can't trace where it came from. Wounded men, around 1915, heading back to hospital.  Walking wounded from many regiments.  Note the shorts on one, the kilt on another, the bandages, the tickets authenticating their wounds.  I like this because it shows them together, all for one, probably in pain, being held up for a photograph for the folks back home.  

I was given a list of dead Great War soldiers details recently and have been adding them to the website I raised for them, Braintree & Bocking War Memorial,  and am intrigued by the types of work in which they or their relatives were employed.  Quite a few appeared to be 'sons of a horseman on a farm,' which makes sense in this country area.  However when did you last see horses in daily employment?  At the time of the Great War farms were dominated by horse drawn equipment and a large number of men were employed in their care, a ploughman being a very skilled operator. Agricultural labourers also abounded and one or two who served had that delightful (ha!) work as the war began.  Dunfermline Co-op did use horse drawn vehicles even in the early 60's, and the 'St Cuthbert's Co-op in Edinburgh had them in the early 70's if memory serves me right, although few were still in daily use.  Occasional Brewers Drays are seen in various places throughout the country. Horse grooms and ploughmen just don't exist as such today.  

I am also intrigued by the change in the shopping patterns.  Several men were sons of Grocers, others were Butchers and no such shops appear today.  Actually I am wrong, a butcher still exists here but the only Fruit & Veg left are stalls on market day.  These shops, along with almost all Bakers, have now been replaced with large supermarkets containing pretend Bakers, Butchers and the like instead.  While many women enjoyed the flirting that resulted in the shopkeepers desperation to obtain their cash it also meant a trek between several shops, sometimes a distance apart, although it did make them fitter than today's lass who has to spend time at the gym to keep her figure.

Foremen in the Boot Factory or employees of a Mat Factory also appear,  and it is many years since we stopped making boots in the UK.  I'm sure someone still does somewhere by even the great factories in East Anglia have long gone, probably to China.  Who makes Mats?  India I wonder?  Even those employed by the big iron foundry, who employed large numbers of females to make munitions, or Crittall's and their famous steel window frames, are a distant memory today.  Crittall's existed a few years ago, I almost had a day's employment there myself, but moved away and I am not sure it still operates today.  The iron foundry, like the rest are now housing estates that leave people  struggling to pay the mortgage.   So many businesses that men fought four long years for no longer exist, and those that do, like agriculture, have changed immeasurably in the century that has passed by.  Once thirty or more men worked on a  farm, now there is only two, with a third to power the machinery during harvest time.  House painters and Publicans have not changed that much, neither I suspect have solicitors!  The street layout is similar but the buildings that survived two wars, and not all did, are much changed.  Hopefully we can discover how many men obtained their jobs again once they returned, in many places they did not!  

A hundred years is not a long time when looked at from a historical viewpoint.  Much similarity remains, but the world is a very different place.  Cars now growl where horses plodded, long working hours are replaced by shorter hours and long paid holidays, heavy labour is much reduced by machinery, and women do all the shopping in one day, making him carry it to the car and drive her home.  Washing machines and Microwaves, electricity for all, and the wonder of radio & TV would frighten the ploughman more than they would the horses.  While rail travel enabled long distance travel most folks did not venture far, today they holiday in Spain, or even Hawaii.  The NHS heals most of the sickness soldiers took for granted and dole money and pensions are a godsend to one and all.   The men pictured above may well have survived the war, although that looks very much like a 1915 picture, and they would have benefited from the advances.  What would those who did not survive think if told today I wonder?  

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Service

After careful scrutiny of the financial situation, and the fact my feet were protruding through my trainers, I took myself off to the 'Shoe Zone' today.  Now I am not keen on buying shoes as they never have the ones I want in my size (12), and no matter what I do I am never happy with the brutes.  Strangely enough I also find I do not wish to lose the hole riddled ones I have been wearing as they are now comfortable, so how that works out I know not.  In this town I find service in the shops comes in two shades.  One is friendly and almost like dealing with family, almost, the other is surly, disinterested and often teenaged.  Today I met both.  The girl in the shop kind of smiled at me, the kind of smile she uses on her uncle when he repeats the story she has heard countless times before, and was busy shelf filling when I dumped the cheapest I could find on the counter.  Her boss arrived, devoid of smile, but this time the strained "I've had enough" kind of non smile, indicated me beginning a  queue.  Smile less service followed and I departed wondering.  

Now long ago I dealt with customers in a Cash & Carry and can appreciate what people go through.  The great British public is an ignorant pain in the neck at times, the job is boring, the future bleak, however it is work!  My great nephew obtained a shop in a 'cheap end of the market' sports clothes shop and came home on his first day grumbling about the customers, "They are so rude!"  I can imagine the young who are employed in such shops, their life stretching out ahead of them, excitement calling at every dawn and instead it's enduring fussy women, grumbling children, men with no idea or indeed too much idea as to what they want, and a company pressure to make sales.  It is not what you wish to wake up to is it?   I suspect these folk are being paid the minimum wage, and that reluctantly.  If the boss and you, and possibly others have little time for one another life can be hard.

I was left wondering if using older folks as staff, especially part time, might be an idea here.  Few wish to employ folks over fifty and I think shops especially suffer because of this.  If unemployed they could do the legal 15 hours work while on the dole, give some meaning to their day, and this might bring about a better atmosphere in such shops.  Older staff know they only way to make such employment work is to have fun.  This is not easy, but boring jobs are lightened by laughter, even dark humour.  I think such shops should consider this idea, although they probably only ever consider the pennies.

On the other hand I had to contact the Pensions people the other day.  A question arose regarding Pensions I knew nothing about.  I know I will benefit from around £1000 p.a. from my time at Selfridges in the 80's, but I discovered the NHS has automatically enrolled me in their pension also. Whether this was during the seven years at the hospital or the two years of angst in the health authority I do not know.  I did not realise I had been enrolled automatically and nothing was ever said re this.  The NHS authority folk spent most of their time fighting for position, the care for patients never crossed their minds!  I was not popular whenever I mentioned this, and I did! 

The nice young lady at the pensions encouraged me to contact the NHS folk quickly, mostly on the basis I may have a large lump sum coming!  I think she may want some.  However when I called today they had no note of my existence.  Typical!  I now have to dig out addresses long since forgotten and try to discover where I was living when enrolled.  This is difficult as a quick look at Google maps shows some places have been redeveloped.   Mind one one or two were indeed slums!  However the point is both persons contacted were highly efficient, patient and helpful.  (I wonder how much they earn?)  

Management often has no consideration regarding staff contentment.  If staff are treated right, given proper support, and the work has some degree of enjoyment they will respond.  It always appears to me far too many shops work on the cheapest basis.  'Young staff are cheap, people need shoes, customers will come.'   It may give you a number of shops up and down the land, but this does not lead to a better world. 

The new trainers?  They are OK, so far.

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The Power of Advertising

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A post by  a pretty American lass reminded me of a programme on telly a few months ago. It revealed the way to make something sell, even though we all obtain the same substance almost free daily. It concerned the rise of bottled water, in spite of the stuff coming into most folks homes by a tap! 

Since it was discovered that foul water brings disease such as Cholera in its wake the supply of clean water has become important in the UK and elsewhere. Today water flows (at a high price thanks to the stupidity of privatising peoples needs) freely into every house. Clean, safe water, doctored to preserve the purity at the pumping stations and keeping the nation clean, healthy and thirst free. Who can complain about this? No-one, it is just not possible to whine about something so important coming direct into the home. Of course natural resources differ. In Edinburgh the water is 'soft.' This gives a lovely 'feel' to the water, an improved 'taste,' and when thirsty nothing 'tastes' better than cool water. In some areas, such as the south, water is hard and leaves a 'limescale' deposit around the sinks and inside kettles and the like. While harmless it is an irritation and the water tastes somewhat 'dull' in comparison with 'soft' water.

This is where advertising men saw their chance. Knowing that the rich 'trendy' set are always on the look out for expensive 'one-upmanship' opportunities, those given the job of selling 'Perrier' water in the eighties went to work. By suggesting sparkling water that arose 'deep in the earth' was healthier than the stuff coming out of the tap, by including sexy women and of course an expensive price, the adverts touched something in the 'Yuppy' mentality of the time. Soon those bulbous green bottles were everywhere, and within moments dozens of others appeared in the shops. Today this is a multi million business.  From large enterprises to small a business is to be gained. One man found a disused well in the back garden of his new house and produces thousands of bottles, at high price, for five star hotels in Scotland! Straight forward 'water' in plastic bottles flew of the shelves at high prices as customers wished either to be seen with the right kind of water or fell for the idea that water filtered by a mountain was cleaner than that filtered by Fred Bloggs at the pumping station. Much later it was revealed that more bacteria is found in the plastic bottled water, of all kinds, and that tap water was healthier!  Facts of course do not end beliefs! The bottles still fill many shelves in the supermarkets, and price is no object to the daft ones who 'prefer it' because of 'health' or 'society' reasons.

I buy cheap sparkling water, and clearly not to impress the society around me!  This is because I looked at what is contained in the average soft drink, available at high price in the shops. Whether Pepsi, Coke or any of the dozens of other available they all contain at least eight spoonfuls of sugar and various other stuff, some of which I am not willing to trust. I decided to buy cheap carbonated water to provide for a 'fizzy' drink.  The stuff available in the shops costs from 40pence to over a pound if you are daft enough to pay for it. I pay 17 pence for the big Tesco bottle shown. Mix it with tap water and it is fine to drink, less harmful than canned drinks and with no additives bar the bubbles, and as I drink a lot of water these days it is better than the canned stuff.  When out and about during these hot summer days, yes there was one recently, buying a plastic bottle of water does make some sense. However paying £1:45 at a railway station appears to me to be just a bit dear myself!  OK if desperate but the word 'rip-off' goes through my mind here. People will not believe me when I tell them it is advertising, and the labels, which make them pay through the nose for water available from their taps. Advertising speaks to something within us, usually greed, 'keeping up with the Jones's' or a deep psychological need recognised by the advertising people. Such folks make better psychologists than psychologists! 

This is a (US) sample of the hype from the eighties, although all of my female readers will not be old enough to remember this sort of thing.

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Hmmmm, the French do things differently of course.....

                                   



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Almost Christmas

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It was as I strolled on the white sand, hand in hand with a brunette beauty, glancing at the turquoise beach and the blue sky as we walked, and enjoying the warm sun settling on my back that the alarm went off and I flowed quickly from being Robinson Crusoe to  became Nanook of the North! Divesting myself of my dingy army blankets I dressed in my dingy clothes and nourished by a cheap nan and cheaper coffee headed once more into the day. (That's nan as in bread nan as opposed to nan as in Grannie by the way!) To Tesco I slipped and slithered on the icy pavements cheerfully ignored by the council gritters. My intention was to grasp if I could those items forgotten yesterday. My awful forgetfulness is a problem these days and once more this let me down. Today I forgot to take the chainsaw with me, I find it enables me to pass through the masses to the checkout much easier! However after a mere short and very uncomfortable lifetime I was free once more to slip on the ice outside, fall flat on my face and return home without the Cayenne Pepper I went for. I really desperately require this as it puts life into my cooking! Bah Humbug I say! Drat, I forgot the Humbugs also! More Bah!


Ah but it's great to be alive! The sun may be hidden by clouds, the pavements ice covered, money flowing like water from the wallet (not here mate!), and all around miserable faces greet the weary traveller, but we are alive! The robins still sing in the bushes, the stomach has more than enough grub inside, the PC brings good people to your heart, and we are still healthy enough to enjoy walking through the park, breathing the air, and observing the world around us! Ignore all the bad things, we think about them too much. Concentrate your energies on the things you like, the people you love, indulge what makes you laugh, what builds up and does not knock down (chainsaws exempted) and determine to enjoy your world in spite of everything!

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Christmas Cards

It's all Sir Henry Coles fault! Instead of writing Christmas messages he decided to send a Christmas Card instead! He had helped develop the 'Penny Post' with Rowland Hill and clearly was a man of talent. Talent which taught him how to avoid writing Christmas letters needlessly and his idea, which must have appeared clever at the time, now means we, that is you and I, have to trail through shops full of women to select, buy and post, at great cost, cards to friend (and foe on occasion) alike. Cole thought his card such a good idea that he printed over two thousand of the things. He sold his card at 1/- (a shilling) a time! Remember that in 1843 you would be lucky to earn 15/- a week. (20 shillings to one pound). Clearly the middle class were able to buy, but a quick read (?) of Dickens books reflect real society at that time, at least the bits that spoke to his poverty when young, and 'A Christmas Carol' probably spoke to many clerks who came across it!

I have just returned from being barged around by thoughtless women, and one man out of his depth, intent on looking at EVERY SINGLE CARD before not buying one. I have also looked at every single RELEVANT card and been, on the whole, disappointed. Far too many are slushy, some religious, others just plain unfunny or smut, and that is all too often not funny either. Cards for Mum are the worst. If my mother ever got a card with 'Love for my dear Mother' on the front she would think I had turned funny. Flowery slush is abundant but she has lived 93 years in the real world so she wants something amusing or worth looking at. I tried the 'Just what you want for Christmas - ME!' card once, but that brought a rare degree of sarcasm that need not be repeated. However,'Next year, just try money,' was an oft repeated phrase I noticed. For the younger kids I wanted 'Happy Christmas Brat!' but it appears these are not stocked by any card shop round here. I bet they would sell mind! I think I will suggest this to one of those companies that makes millions from poor suckers like you and me. (Notice that in the UK we can still have 'Happy Christmas' in our cards, not the PC, 'Happy Holidays.' That is what you call a democracy! Until the fascists change it of course!

As for the price! if I wanted to I could pay a fortune for cards, and we do! These folk have us over a barrel. They know that we MUST buy an expensive card for Mum, wife, concubine, daughter, someone important and so on. They realise that if Aunt Jessie sends a card she needs one back, and if we have a business large or small cards (and bribes) MUST be sent to ensure the customer comes back, especially in these world wide recession days, (Thanks for that American Bankers! Enjoy your bonuses!). I discovered however, that simply by not sending cards to those you feel send one to you because you send one to them because they send one to you is a circle that can be broken by 'forgetting' to send them one this year. The next year 'Glory be! you both save the cost as they don't send one because you sent one because they sent one and all are glad. Far too many cards are sent this way, and much dosh can be saved by a Christmas note over the e-mail to many of those you feel may still hope you live well and prosper (is that a biblical phrase, and why are my fingers joining together?) Now I send to those that matter, and in return receive almost no cards back. This, I am constantly being reminded, should tell me something, but I can't think what? When I first got the PC I decided to make my own cards and save money. I ended up paying almost three times the amount I usually spent! Never again!

It is of course nice to receive a good, funny, card stuffed with £20 notes at Christmas, and one year I hope to actually see this happen outwith my cocoa induced dreams. It is nicer to find suitable cards in one shop and avoid trekking around several of the female dominated areas, and they are, pushing aside the one who has clearly died (laughing?) which perusing the stock, and if an appropriate card is found, finding one that is not bent, spat on, or covered in some brats sticky fingerprints! It helps also, I discovered, not to trip over the lassie kneeling at the drawer under the shelving while attempting to replenish the stock. Such language from a lady! I bought a lot of (Cheap) cards from the hospice where my sister died, as I thought this would save money. Oh yes it does, but the kids need their own cards, different from the adults, Mum needs that special card, and then there is another who appears out of the blue and I begin to wonder where the money is going! Sir Henry may well have gone off and bought a stationers after he sold his card, but I would still like to have a word or two about him and his invention. I bet he did this just to encourage folk to use the 'Penny Post,' and by this means rise up the hierarchy at the General Post Office. For myself I hope he got rickets!

A Mixed Saturday

Getting up early this morning I decided to wander around Sainsburys for the weekly fruit and veg. I knew that with it being a holiday weekend, and with snowflakes attempting to fall, that the market stalls would not turn out today. Naturally, as I left the store, I could see the usual veg man trying to erect his stall in spite of the wind fighting valiantly against him.
I then attended to the clean up and washing and all the other things that must be done on a holiday weekend when some folks are enjoying a break and I am plodding around looking for Somerfields own brand washing powder. Well it is actually a kind of purple liquid but you know what I mean.
Smugly satisfied with myself I then turned to the main project of the day, attempting to complete the reinstalling of XP that I began yesterday. All day I spent downloading, installing, scratching my head, installing, querying, and installing till the candle was near the end of its life. Naturally my work had not been completed, I still had to connect to the web and reinstall OE. Today that was accomplished, and some hours later Outlook Express finally allowed me to use it. It is one of the wonders of this computer world that instructions for a wide variety of computer hard and software come incomplete! However I had wisely kept the secret hidden away and, once I remembered this, Success was achieved.
The word success does not include sound of course. No sound whatsoever can be obtained at the moment. 'No audio device' it claims, although I do get a buzz every so often - not like that - so something makes a noise. Oh yes, and the 'floppy' still wants a disk inserted in 'A.' So that is lost also.
However I managed to make an almost uneatable soup out off a wide variety of near penicillin veg that I had lying around. That I used tonight to take away the taste of the 'Flanders Curry' that I had for lunch, with oatcakes. The dole office have never suggested I take up cooking for a living, which is just as well. I once fed beautiful young lass who worked for the environment folk at the council. She closed down my kitchen! While doing this I listened to Sky Sports as the season begins to draw to an end. My ears were anxious to hear the good news of our mighty hammering of Falkirk at Tynecastle today - it never happened. It seems instead we had a dreary nil-nil draw which does not suit us at all. There will now be a moment for sympathy.

Thank you.

An unusual thing did occur tonight mind, I laughed at 'You've been Framed!' One of the sequences had me in tears of laughter and that has not happened for a long time, tears of woe and despair oh yes, but laughter - no! Mind you some folks blogs have come close to it in recent days. Usually deliberately!

But as I looked out of the window I realised just how much I love Spring. The birdies flit cheerily through the trees, singing happily while they begin the breeding season, maybe that's why? The chaffinches and robins, dunnocks and blackbirds pour out their song brightening the dawn. One advantage when I was a postman was to hear the dawn chorus beginning as I cycled to work, marvelous that was. High overhead a kestrel may circle or hover while seeking out the tiny speck that is a mouse or vole far below. Wood pigeons coo irritatingly loudly outside folks windows long before the alarm clock has threatened them into life. Massed ranks of rooks or crows,(who knows the difference?) caw loudly high in the trees, and somewhere a thrush takes time off from listening intently for the worm and instead sings beautifully while announcing that this is his patch so clear off. Among the trees covered in budding leaves are masses of bluebells showing through the darkening floor. Daffodils can be seen in many places, and snowdrops and little blue flowers begin to appear. Lovely, just lovely. The sight cheers the heart, a lightness within accompanies the lightening of the skies above, and the sun climbing higher each day, ensuring the sky is that little bit deeper blue, and the whole world appears a better place. No wonder folk in Norway and Finland who suffer six months darkness each year go bananas! That is enough to turn anyone into a Viking invader!

Admittedly, being Easter, the weather would turn a tad chilly. There is a slightly cold front moving from the north, starting at the north pole and passing through Iceland picking up snow and ice on its way. Kind hearted as it is the front is leaving Spring snow all across the highlands and down the east coast of England. Some of it has been plastering itself against my window all afternoon! To be honest it is bright and sunny at the moment but I can see in the distance another huge dark gray cloud heading towards us. From the light blue sky above small sleet like flakes are drifting by, doing their best to grow up into snowflakes. Now in my humble opinion, if the ice flows are melting, glaciers shrinking, and the Maldives and other places beginning to flood maybe it would be a better idea to keep all this white stuff up there in the north where it belongs? Could we not persuade the weather folk to do something about this?
Clouds have always fascinated me in some ways and I can see why Constable put them in his pictures so often. I doubt he realised just how large a cloud could be. In the far distant past I flew home to Edinburgh and the whole journey was above cloud. Later that night the weather forecast showed the size of the cloud. The picture revealed one single cloud that stretched for thousands of miles from the Arctic to the Mediterranean, and from the Atlantic to the centre of Asia. What a size! Add to this the variation in the clouds, what the meteorologist will understand from them, and what they comprise, it just leaves me wondering in the same way I do when confronted by other elements of creation such as the sea, or mountains. Fascinating. Wonderful stuff, but I would really rather get sunburned somewhere in the Mediterranean!

I am however suffering that guilt that turns up every so often. The guilt caused by talking to my mother! My Mum is a wonderful person and does so well for someone who is 93. However while I want to keep in contact I really find less and less to share with her. My conversation is limited at the best of times, and she is trapped indoors too much at this time of year, and after discussing the weather, the 9 year old, what she eats, and nothing else really there is nothing to say. Women need to converse in a way men don't, and all to often this is plain boring, and add to that my life being very different for the family up north, and indeed everyone else on the planet, it is a very trying time. Until my sister died things were OK, she would call and talk for hours about nothing, and she was just around the corner, not 400 miles away! It is so frustrating, and made worse by here deafness. I am not going to spend all night shouting down a phone!
So nearly every time I call I end up full of guilt, and angry! I want to do more, and I don't want to spend time talking about her dinner for an hour-again! Excuse me, I am just off to gas myself!

Tesco's

Ah Tesco's, or the 'Happy Smile Club' as I like to call it. As I wander around I want to shout 'Is everybody happy?' But never quite get round to it. Today was not too bad, in spite of it being noon and the kids being on holiday. I think most of them were wandering around filling mum's trolley while mum put all of it back as soon as she noticed it. The rest were sitting in the fridge, climbing up the shelving units and just generally getting under the feet and up the nose like brats do. But they were at least happy!

Ah happiness, where does it go when you enter a supermarket? Here, in the midst of vast wealth, where goods from every part of the globe are displayed, where overweight, overdressed (well except for her in the gray outfit, doesn't she know it's October?), folk with large 4x4 vehicles and houses filled with stuff they never use and don't need, here amidst all this wealth folk never smile! They wander around lost in their own world. occasionally you will see a deliberate nudge used to 'encourage' someone to move a bit further up the meat counter, a glare when a trolley is pushed over a foot, and, when I am around, questions asked as to why it takes a woman so long to 'pay up and get a move on out the way woman!' The cry 'I didn't need a shave when I came in!' may follow this. But I am so irritable these days, age you know. But how often do folk smile? Ask them a question and in this small town some women will respond helpfully and cheerfully, others will regard you as a rapist! Suggest with a smile they move their trolley so one can pass and receive a stare that Margaret Thatcher would run from. I blame women's magazines myself.

I ended up with a checkout lass who, although she filled the small area given to her with ease, the 'healthy option' stuff she obviously avoids, had eaten her good nature along with her porridge. A smile, received a grunt, a helpful suggestion received a silence, a comment that I was sick and at deaths door received the question 'Why don't you knock then?' I muttered thank you as she through the card back at me and raced for the door. I am just glad she was in a good mood!

I did think of trying for a job like that, part time. But the more I look at the folks doing it I can see why they get so uppity - folk like you and me! Imagine having to deal with the public? I have done it, so I know why it is so demanding. I would kill if I was on a checkout, it seems easy but how wearing and boring it must be day after day and hour after hour. hard to smile then.

Of course after I walked the long way home I realised I forgot the milk......