Guilt And Sorrow In The Aisles

Choice of muzak in a supermarket these days is not quite what it was in the days of custom recorded ‘lift/elevator’ soundtracks of yesteryear that were designed to have bland but carefully crafted peaks to encourage shopping habits and act as a a kind of consumer prozac on those engaged in shopping.

These days it’s pop music and inane store-wide dj’s who promote brands in between supposedly uplifting pop music that many are already familiar with.

Yesterday it was my misfortune to experience the one song that should not be played to a person of my generation within the confines of a supermarket store whilst pondering whether I should treat myself and my partner to some chocolate and ice cream.

That song was Drive by the Cars. A song that for me anyway is so linked to 1985′s Live Aid that as I stood surrounded by shelves of plenty I was, in my mind’s eye seeing the video that accompanied this tune when played during the Live Aid event and consisted of moving scenes of the starving masses both young and old of Ethiopia at that time.

Not, for me, a song that encourages the filling of a supermarket basket when inducing a state of tearful guilt.

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What Is The Point?

It strikes me that we are in the middle of an epidemic of meaninglessness at work. Bankers, lawyers, and senior managers are increasingly asking themselves what on earth their jobs mean, and finding it hard to come up with an answer…

The best way to find meaning at work? Don’t look for it (BBC news magazne)

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Nothing Works Catweazle

Image from Wikipedia‘Nothing works’, as Catweazle used to say and if he were to have appeared some 38 years later than previously he’d be uttering this exclamation quite frequently.

Having yesterday bought a toaster after a number of years just using the gas grill we found that inevitably the item was defective.

Earlier in the week I’d also had to explain to somebody that that their shiny new Vista laptop could not work wirelessly because this particular model was not fully functional with the ‘new’ Vista OS despite sporting a sticker than proclaims its Vista compatibility (now the subject of a US class action) though really its the laptop manufacturer who applies the sticker.

The world in which we now live puts a priority on getting products to market in order to make a profit. Making sure the product works most of the time is of secondary importance and in the cut throat build it cheap (though in the case of Vista which cost a reported $6.5 billion to get to market I’m not quite sure how that quite fits my example), sell at a profit world it’s hardly surprising that quality control these days is mostly undertaken by the consumer and the faint hearted who can’t push for a redress just have to put it down to ‘it always happens to me’ and move on.

We used to be able to go to the moon using less computing power than than a speak and spell toy but now we can’t make toasters that work reliably and when they do they still don’t toast evenly. Progress?

As for Vista , I’ll apply the service pack update for the third party and see what else fails to work after that.

We Are Glass

And lo a matter of days after the delivery of a glass recycle box the first collection occurred early today. A lone advance bin man (or garbologist as some may now classify him) moved alone and on foot with a large black bin (or ‘otto’ as they call them in Australia) and proceeded to noisily empty each glass bin contents into the larger black bin which he then wheeled away and out of the close to, I presume, an agreed collection point.

Glass is a very good choice for recycling as its structure does not deteriorate when reprocessed and up to 80% of the original material is suitable for using in new glass which helps reduce the total CO2 footprint for raw glass production. Glass accounts for around 7% of the total household waste composition.

Britain currently recycles around 34% of glass which is poor when compared to Switzerland and Finland achieve rates of around 90%.

Recycling two bottles saves enough energy to boil water for five cups of tea.

Source

Photo by Lady Ema under this creative commons license

 

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Music In The Aisles 17/10/07

A swift charge around the supermarket aisles today gave me two subliminal music messages via the store tannoy: I could be happy by Altered Images and F.E.A.R by Ian Brown.

There seemed to be a lot of people just standing and staring into space. Perhaps I was one of them. Also there were a lot of very fashion conscious women presenting smart casual. I felt very dowdy and unusually envious.

More music in the aisles 

 

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Torn

 

Meanwhile in the modern world where snail mail is still used…The postal strike is over and slowly mail is getting through again (shame about the bills). This was how a letter arrived today conveniently pre opened (how thoughtful). My heart initially sank though mercifully the letter and cheque inside was still intact.

 

 

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Social Networking Can Include Being Socialable

Today was a bit different that most in that we met up with our Internet friend Vlad from the Ukraine whom I’d met randomly on-line around 2 years ago. He was over here for a week to see his friends who had come here to work and he wanted to meet the couple he chatted with sometimes on-line.

The Secret Life Of us
I’m a notoriously private person and seldom that keen to break the fourth wall of Internet friendship (I build my own defensive walls, my partner less so) but he’d come all this way and we’ve been talking for around 2 years and he seemed like a nice person with a great command of and interest in the English language and our peculiar culture. I’m usually nervous about meeting new people but didn’t seem to put out by the experience and anyway he had an excellent command of the English language.

Still about people?
There’s a lot of talk about on-line social networking not being really social but once in a while any one of us can make connections and friendships on-line with people we wouldn’t otherwise meet in our immediate neighbourhood ( and where we live hardly anybody in the ‘real world’ knows their neighbour) and sometimes choose to do ‘the real thing’.

Vlad couldn’t stay too long but we talked a fair while and he was keen to have a good old British cup of tea. What a civilised young man.

Picture by fotografisch under this creative commons license

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