Losing your sight

My complaint today is about shampoos/conditioners and the inconsiderate manufacturers who write in teeny tiny writing in a colour which blends in with the colour of the bottle (the worst being Herbal Essences orange bottle 'Citrus Lift' and Herbal Essences red bottle 'Frizz Fighter').  It seems to be the one bit of the label one cannot read, and yet, surely, the most essential.  For instance, when I look at the Clairol herbal essence bottle without my glasses, I can still read:  'Fruit Fusions';  'citrus lift' and 'uplifting volume'.  And that's it.  The rest is a mystery to me.

When one is in the shower, it is not practical to don one's £2 from Poundstretcher's reading glasses to find which is the shampoo and which is the conditioner.  I've tried, but within seconds they become steamed up.  Holding the bottle as far away as the length of my arms will allow and squinting my eyes till they ache doesn't work either.  I have to leave it in the lap of the gods and hope I've put the right one on.  I know that might sound a little melodramatic, but still, it's just annoying.

You may say, why not sort it out before you get into the shower?  Cleaerly, you are not middle aged.  Not only am I becoming more long sighted by the day, but also more forgetful.  I could line up 2 bottles and by the time I was in the shower, would have forgotten which one is which.  Why don't the manufacturer's realise that even middle aged and old people need to wash their hair?  GO on, be considerate and print the frigging label so we can read it.

Just to prove I can write something other than moans

To give you a break from the constant ranting, I thought I would include some of my better poems on this site.  A bit random, I know, but who needs a theme.

This is a pair I wrote about my father.  Enjoy.

Etudes I

I cried the day

you played (at Charlotte’s wedding)

the piece you composed (or so it goes)

when you were only, eight years old.

To me, you were a child prodigy

I imagined you

A little boy,

sat there

on that piano stool,

your gangly legs not even touching

the floor, just dangling.

Beneath you, in the drawer,

Mozart & Haydn reposed.

The hood of the Steinway

a gaping mouth, exposed,

with its taut strings and hammers

ready to swallow

Like Jonah and the Whale.

Your face scrunched up with

concentration, as you wrangle

with the notation, your mother hovering

‘agitato’, as she would do,

 interfering, smothering.

Your father, not yet dead.

Did the demons in his head

render him helpless to praise?

You raise your face skywards,

Seeking inspiration, perfecting your creation.

Your fingers extend, stretched to

their limit, as you scale the keys

from C to B, and back again.

The familiar tinkling

of the charms on her bracelet

(and the ice in her gin & tonic)

a charming accompaniment

to your solemn march.

Etudes II

Age eight, I wake to the dulcet sounds

of a Chopin nocturne

somewhat tarnished

by having heard it

at least a million times before.

You labour tirelessly over one phrase

crazed by the need to perfect it.

The dog’s ‘singing’ becomes howls,

as the noise cloys at her bowels,

Finally, a crashing crescendo,

rallentando, then pianissimo

And ahhhhhh, at last…

Silencio.

Forty years later

Chopin tugs at my heart strings.

Revised memories,

where your tenderness on the keys

is what survives.

 November 2010

Thongs - I just don't get it

Walking round Plymouth's Drake Circus shopping centre this week (always a depressing experience, and I was waiting to give a presentation, so I was jittery and depressed) I noticed a woman wearing a too short top and a thong which appeared to reach halfway up her back (I was looking at her from behind).  Although I was disgusted, I couldn't take my eyes off of it and followed it for several minutes (not in a stalking way, you understand, but just because I happened to be going in the same direction).  The temptation to ping it back like a catapult was almost overwhelming, but I resisted (just as I resisted the urge to pull up a young man's trousers, the crotch of which was down by his knees, his underwear visible to everyone). 

What is it about thongs?  Do people actually think they're sexy?  Having your asscrack dental flossed doesn't seem particularly sexy to me.  But then again, I'm with Bridget Jones.  Big pants rule as far as I'm concerned.

The thing that they wrap CD's in. My Enemy no2

Okay, I thought pump dispensers were bad, but have just remembered they're not nearly as bad as the clingy stuff they wrap round CDs (WHY?).  Here is my story.

Yesterday, my daughter taught me to 'rip' and 'burn'.  God, I'm quite the modern mum.  ANyway, I wanted to make my friend a nice CD of all my favourite songs (a million brownie points to heaven for being such an angelic friend).  The first thing was to download all these songs onto the computer.  I thought technology had moved on since taping.  But no, I could rustle up a decent mixed tape in no time, with little stress.  Yet this took me about 8 hours.  The computer kept crashing, or the CD started to skip, rendering it useless for my purposes. 

SO, I was already in a rage by the time I had to insert the R80 - CD to burn - (or is it rip?) the songs onto.  I tried my nails first, working my way through them all, leaving them chipped and useless for this purpose.  I then found a screwdriver and tried to negotiate it under the 'skin', which stuck to the CD like a limpet to a rock.  It wasn't going to budge.  Eventually, (and by that time I was a quivering wreck, verging on meltdown) I discovered a metal nail file (like those old fashioned envelope opener knife things) and rather than using it to self harm, I prised it under the inpenetrable cellophane and it (eventually) punctured the surface.  Hallelujah!   The unslittable had been slit.  My CD was finally liberated.  Yay. 

But my story continues...
I then had to create a playlist and all the songs had to be 'converted' (another 4 hours), and the whole system froze halfway through so I lost everything.  This is when I gave up.  My daughter found me sobbing uncontrollably, with a hammer in my hand ready to smash the computer.  My obvious distress did not evoke an atom of sympathy.  She simply looked at me as if I was a complete idiot for being unable to perform this simple task, and walked out in disgust, reminding me that our computer was 'shit' and we needed to get a new one, hadn't she been telling me that for years?   Don't I know it.

Pump dispensers - my enemy

I know many people might find this trivial, but I am waging a war on pump dispensers.  You know what I mean?  The kind that pump out hand cream, soap, oils, hair products.  Well, at least they should  pump them out. 

First hurdle, getting the things to work to start with.  I have wrestled for many unhappy hours, pushing the lid down whilst twisting in the direction indicated by the (almost invisible) arrows, only to be frustrated and resigned to never using the Fenjal bath cream (which smells lovely, if only you could get to it) or whatever it happens to be.

If one is successful at the initial hurdle, invariably the damn thing breaks whilst still almost full.  A breakage is indicated by the inability to pump the stuff out because it all seems to have got stuck.  Or sometimes the tube which carries the stuff to the pump detaches itself.  If only you had unusually skinny fingers, or could manouevre some tongs inside without wanting (again) to kill yourself or others, you could probably re-attach it, but usually this proves impossible, so you are left either taking the entire pump mechanism out and pouring the cream/oil/mousse into your hand (in great globules, most of which gets washed down the sink) or just giving up and crying like a baby.  Or, if you're a little screwed up to start with, jumping off a high bridge/taking a machine gun into the High street and shooting innocent people in a random manner. 

I literally have dozens of bottles sitting uselessly on shelves and chest-of-drawers.  I keep telling myself I will NOT EVER buy another one EVER again, but then they're two for one, or special offer, and the bargain hunter in me relents.

So, my solution is to stop them being made in the first place.  And this would be a good green solution, because they must use a lot more plastic than an ordinary, old fashioned type bottle.  So, if you agree with me, please sign a petition or campaign in the streets.  Especially if you're famous or influential in any way.  Because, after all, we stopped the government from privatising our forests, so surely we can do this?