Saturday, May 24, 2008

mini-rant to fill the time

Unfortunately I can’t spend all my time thinking about the environment. Sometimes I just get on with it.. Today I impulse bough a reel of plastic covered wire with an attached clipper to tie up my tomatoes. I usually use any old bit of string but because today I have been humping large quantities of rock all over the place and my fingers are stiff and sore I couldn’t face the idea of using string or raffia to tie them up with. It’s like when you go to the supermarket hungry, you end up coming out with all sorts of rubbish you would not ordinarily buy (Pringles for example). But, my addled brain thought, twisting is easier than tying and a built-in clipper is easier than hunting all over the place for a pair of scissors. The logic is Infallible, just pity that the roll of wire, on the roll, is already tangled and no amount of pulling and back-threading could get more than a few inches of wire off the roll to be clipped. In the end I had to take the back off to see what the problem was and found out the standing end came directly from the middle of the roll. No way was there any chance of unrolling it. And, the clipper doesn’t work either. I’m so glad I can recommend the manufacturer to my friends and family!!

Couple of other niggly things while I’m here. We have a tube of Colgate toothpaste (yes I know!!). Written on it are the words “protection caries”. It seems that to sell anything in Italy you have to have things in English. But as a lot of people speak second languages other than English they have to reverse the words, English words, Italian construction. Pathetic. They must think we’re a right bunch of cretins.

Then we have a Delonghi 7days microwave. Now here we get into the realms of pure idiocy. The turntable thingy inside is balanced, no I’m not kidding, on three little bump type things in the center, diameter, 4-5cm. The idea is you then have to balance your plate or jug or whatever you’re using on the balanced turntable. This is almost impossible. You put your milk in, turn it on and boom splash fizzle and the turntable tips, the milk falls over and splashes producing sparks and flashes. Very safe!! Very conforming to elementary standards of safety. I wonder how much they paid in bribes to get it passed. In addition, as if that wasn’t enough, there is a dial, to select the time, which goes up to 30 minutes. Pity though that you can’t select a time less than 2 minutes. Heating up milk for example is about 60 seconds, so you have to manually count, 1, 2, 3, and so on. It’s rubbish. The thing which annoys me though is not that it is rubbish, strangely, but that someone actually designed this rubbish and got paid for it.

Then we have the two VCRs and two TVs one of each have been chucked away because totally unusable without mega temper tantrums and the others don’t work very well either. And then, to end up on a glorious note, we have the Chicco baby monitors. Considering that we live in an isolated place away from other houses or cars etc. there is interference which, I would imagine, means that they haven’t even bothered to set a frequency not used by every other electrical device in the county.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The environment issues tend to take a backseat with me because I am dependant on everyone elses help for shopping etc, i can't be too pushy, and I do give in to ease of use rather than my morals when pain has flared up, so I can kinda understand the reel of plastic, but as you've just found out yourself, it tends to end up worse lol.

Everything in southern Ireland is written in english and irish usually, but trying to explain that the words are reversed to stepson or my partner is a job that could send you mental, now the darling stepson says irish people are backward. He's 15 he may think he's too old for a slap but he's heading that way :p

I gave up on baby monitors, as you said interference form anything makes them rubbish. I had a monitor to check my youngest breathing for the first three months because one of my other daughters died so I was paranoid, now I've got to the stage that if she's whimpering she doesn't really need me but if she really needs me she'll scream loud enough for me to hear her, caring aren't I, lol.

Woozle said...

Hi again
I would love to be more envionmentally concious but life sometimes gets in the way (to use an overused but true phrase). There are some days when i just don't want to wash the dog food can, squash it and go outside to the recycle bin. But I do try. I would imagine that having a mobility disability it would be really tough. We are after all human and if you're in pain the last thing you want to think about is procuring yourself more pain and hassle.
Sorry to hear about your baby. I think i'd have gone nuts with a good few years paranoia to follow. Tabatha often wakes up and doesn't cry, just gurgles but our house is too long for us to hear her even if she cries so we are lumbered with the dreaded monitors.
Perhaps, when she is a little older, we will teach her to use the walkie-talkie or buy her a megaphone.
Cheers