OPINION: Ouch that hurts!

With all the kafuffle about re-cycling plastic, I never hear anyone harking back to the days when it was being introduced into everyday life for the very first time.
I can remember them putting a plastic bucket in front of a large lorry on TV and showing, after the lorry had driven backwards and forwards over it a couple of times, that it was undamaged. Just think, the programme presenter enthused, we could buy a bucket or other essential household items and they would last for the rest of our life.
Thinking about it all these years later it was never going to work selling products that would never need replacing, but in those post war days of drabness and clanking metal buckets, we eagerly bought into the dream.
The manufacturers had more sense though, and I’ve never owned a bucket, bowl or anything else made of plastic that didn’t need replacing after a couple of years normal wear and tear, let alone a lorry running over it!

The same can’t be said for plastic packaging. They seem quite happy to make that practically indestructible.

I know it’s a leap from indestructible buckets to cucumbers, but a few years later, again on TV, they were hailing the breakthrough of sealing cucumbers in tight plastic skins. It would keep them fresh for weeks, which meant they’d be more readily available all year round. Growers, especially the Dutch, found it very exciting.
Putting this subject in context, when I was growing up in the fifties, cucumber, a seasonal food and only available for a few weeks in the summer was classed as a luxury food in our street.
Of course it never occurred to us that packaged that way cucumbers aren’t actually fresh by the time we get them. A three week old cucumber is a three week old cucumber and we all know vegetables keep losing goodness the longer they’re kept.

Oops. Methinks progress has turned full circle and is now biting us on the ass.

Why she's become a blogger.

Being ancient she was present at the birth of blogging, but had never been sure about having a blog page, because if it was kept exclusive what was the point? You might as well keep a dairy or send your inner circle of friends an in depth letter about what you’d been up to every so often.
If you went public there’s only so much you can write about a hobby. Why would people be interested in your daily life? The daily grind of work or looking after our families is pretty boring after the first few paragraphs, but if you spiced it up a bit and bared your soul, would you really want everyone knowing your deepest thoughts and feelings?
She imagined it was rather like performing a ‘to the skin’ personality striptease in front of an audience of millions.
She could understand that it’s supposed to be a good portal for your work; a chance for others to see what you do, especially if you write, but what if you’re not hankering for success?

By now you’re probably thinking what a load of crap this blog is and if that’s how the old dear feels, why is she bothering?
Well, if you stick with me I’ll tell you. She’s bothering because as the years tick on, she’s becoming more and more occurd - and occurd is Berkshire slang for awkward.

It started years ago with a refusal to buy a certain brand of washing up liquid because she hated the commercial. Then, as television advertising mushroomed, she grew to hate the cynical manoeuvrings that brainwash us into buying products that are bad for us, that we don’t need, or can’t afford, to the point she’s now severely restricted in what she buys from the supermarket. Worse still, she irritates the pants off her husband when she hurls foul language at the TV when yet another breakfast cereal crammed with sugar, is projected as low fat, therefore healthy and good for us.
She’s also become an utter bore on the subject of shopping around for a good deal from insurance and utility companies; is totally committed to reducing her carbon footprint and seriously pissed off with the blatant, self serving attitude of local government officials and politicians.
Call it what you will, ignorance, cynicism or hypocrisy, whether from advertising agencies, politicians or the man on the street, the older she gets the more she wants to have a poke at; become a thorn under the skin of, and let’s be totally honest as this is a blog, deliver a good healthy spit in a few eyes.

She’s tried the local paper but they aren’t really up for it when you really get down and dirty, and she’s had a go at a few politicians, but they’re so thick skinned it slides off.
In fact she’s having a job to get a rise out of anyone and it’s driving her crazy, so that’s why, as she reluctantly heads into her dotage and runs out of time for making even the smallest dent on the world, I have pushed her into becoming a blogger.