The curse of the cuddly companies
I REMEMBER that some children weren’t allowed to read Enid Blyton – not because she said awful things about oiks and foreigners – but because she was considered a writer of poor literary merit.
Me, I was allowed to read anything but I never read her Farawaytree books, aimed at tinies. I was more of a Famous Five girl. But now the children’s author Dame Jacquelinewilson (writer of thetracy Beaker books) has been commissioned to take us up the Faraway Tree once more.
Blyton’s three books (the first was published in 1939) have already been updated over the decades to cause less offence. I believe the fabulouslynamed Dame Slap (a tireless advocate of corporal punishment) was re-imagined as dreary Dame Snap, whose bark was worse than her bite.
Inwilson’s new books the references to pink blancmange had to go. Children don’t eat pink blancmange any more, let alone get excited by it, she explained.
Her three modern children get excited by pizza instead.
Her characters are called Milo, Mia and Birdy.what’s in a name? Quite a lot.
In the original, two of them answered to Fanny and Dick... Oh Enid, what were you thinking?
SINGLE-USE sachets for ketchup, mustard, etc may – under plans from Defra – be banned from restaurants in the interests of reducing plastic waste.
Obviously it’s good to reduce plastic waste, but I also began wondering how many hours of my life I have wasted trying to open the blasted things.
You know the drill – the attempted tear where it says “tear here”, the second useless attempt, then the increasingly frantic ripping-it-with-your-teeth or piercing it with a fork.this eventually produces a small rupture in the packaging and results in the ketchup/mustard (delete as applicable) squirting down your shirt.
Bring back the tomato-shaped squeezy bottle with the dried-on gunk at the top, I say.you know it makes sense.
I’M LOOKING forward to the unveiling of the winning pud in the Platinum Pudding competition launched by posh nosh shop Fortnum & Mason to mark the Queen’s 70th Jubilee.
My best puddings are creme caramel (which I could eat 24/7) and bread-andbutter pudding, which is comfort food like no other. But without some special twist I can see that they’re not prize winners.
But let’s hope the contest acts as a spur to pudding makers throughout the realm. The saddest words you’ll ever hear as you’re poised with your cake slice and jug of double cream? “I’ll just go straight on to cheese if you don’t mind.” ■
WEWENT to friends for supper the other evening. I wore a little black dress and a necklace, a touch of lippy. Nothing over the top, simply an acknowledgement that this was slightly more of an occasion than the usual Saturday supper on our laps in front of the telly.the hostess also wore a black dress and a string of pearls.
Our partners, however, were in cords/ jeans and jumpers – all-day-long wear. Not
OVO ENERGY was “embarrassed” after an email was sent to its customers telling them how to keep warm and save energy. There was that old favourite “wear extra layers” along with “cleaning the house, challenging the children to a hula-hoop contest, or doing a few star jumps.” If all else fails you could resort to a bowl of porridge, Merino wool socks, leaving your oven door open after cooking or having “a cuddle with your pets and loved ones to help stay cosy”. It all sounds frightful. I think I’d rather freeze.
As we’re all expecting that our next energy bills will bankrupt us this sort of tin-eared advice is remarkably ill-timed.
Why does this sort of twaddle appear? I’ll tell you exactly why. It’s because service companies labour under the delusion – fostered by focus groups and marketing experts – that we want them to be our friends.and in order to do that they have to “connect” with Joe Public in some way.
Some wet-behind-the-ears junior assistant in a PR company is told to think up “Ten Tips” to stay warm. Tips, or life hacks, are very popular.
There are Ten Tips all over the internet – Ten Tips for a healthy lifestyle, for maintaining healthy feet, on how to make friends, keep your love alive, avoid getting scammed, write a novel or “smell great all day long” (honestly, I didn’t make that up).
The junior assistant – who has no pets, no kids and would never look at a plate of porridge – scratches his/ her head and eventually churns out this nonsense.
It’s patronising and stupid but it’s put online because companies have this compulsion to be forever in our faces and the junior assistant must be given something to do.
Just because you can “reach out” (how I hate that phrase) to a million people you don’t know, it doesn’t mean you have to or that you should.
When I go somewhere on a train I’m happy to know what the next station is, but I don’t need five minutes of loud-speakered earache from the guard telling me about how the train company wants to keep us all safe. I’d like to take that for granted.
I don’t want to buy something and “rate my experience” or answer plaintive pleas from faceless corporations asking “how did we do?” Neither do I give tuppence for your values and policies.
Last week one of Britain’s top fund managers, Terry Smith of Fundsmith Equity, said Unilever had “lost the plot” in its obsession with a goody-goody image and laughable attempts to instil brand values in products such as Hellman’s mayonnaise.
Said Smith: “The Hellman’s brand has existed since 1913 so we would guess that by now consumers have figured out its purpose (spoiler alert – salads and sandwiches).”
Well said Mr Smith. scruffy, but not dressy. I’ve noticed this for years.women like to dress up a little and men really don’t.there’s often a mismatch between couples in public.
Time was when men too would have felt obliged to put on something different for a night out. But what would a man wear to show he was in evening mode now?ties are no longer worn at informal events and a different jumper is indistinguishable from any other jumper.the stated aim of most fashion is dawn until dusk, day wear which will see you through to the evening.
But my grandmother and great aunt used to change into afternoon frocks and then dress for dinner.they weren’t particularly grand either.
Changing your clothes was simply a way of marking the divisions of the day.
We’re always being urged to find some “me time”, but are much too busy now for these sorts of gentle rituals. It’s a shame.