VACUUM CLEANERS DO NOT LIKE ME, IT’S A FACT

Modern technology is more trouble than it’s worth for our man who swears by a brush and pan for sweeping his floors while denying he’s in any way a Luddite

This revelation about my lifestyle will make you drop your jaw in disbelief. It doesn’t involve illicit substances, peculiar costumery or any activity that would contravene my stern moral code. It involves a brush and pan. That’s right. You heard right. I abjure – it is not too strong a word – vacuum cleaners, and sweep my floors with a long-handled broom. I can see you are upset.

“But, in the name of all that is sacred, why?” you wail.

I will tell you why, madam. It’s because vacuum cleaners just don’t work for me. Over the years, I’ve tried all the swanky ones but, after an initial month or so of success, none does the job that it’s paid for – picking up dust, fluff and detritus.

It’s just one of those things. Vacuum cleaners don’t like me. It’s like that with technology.

Sometimes, I have runs of bad luck with objects. Recently, a series of kitchen drawers started going doolally. One after the other, they went agley.

Light bulbs, too, started going oot in quick succession. Then a series of batteries failed at the same time. It was disgraceful. I felt picked upon. As to floors, I should explain I don’t have carpets. Indeed, I disapprove of them cordially.

You know I’ve a thing about wood anyway, but a particular reason for my carpet-phobia is that, in my last house, they were infested with moths. Seriously – hundreds of them.

Obviously, not being very regular with housework, I’d let this situation develop. But also I remember its genesis – one moth that used to hover about my computer. I called him Harold, taught him to fetch sticks, and so on. But the little swine went away and started breeding, as wildlife is wont to do, and next thing the joint was infested.

All that said, I don’t even have wooden floor surfaces in my house. The living room has something called “engineered” wood, basically fake material with a veneer of real stuff on top.

But all the others are cheap vinyl, which I ought to replace, but can’t till I win the Lottery, which I won’t as I never buy a ticket. Why can’t they just give us the money?

Recently, seeing adverts for swanky new space-age vacuum cleaners,

specially designed for hard floors, I must say I was tempted. Brushing by hand, so to say, is harder work. But I declined, knowing that after a couple of months, no matter how much I emptied the bags or container, the machine would decline to pick anything up and I’d be running wheels over the floors to no purpose.

I’m sure some of you must be thinking this cannot be correct. A man cannot be persecuted by vacuum cleaners. But I am.

Possibly, I’m the last person in the free world using a brush and pan, and you picture me stopping for a pinch of snuff and adjusting my top hat.

Powered lawnmowers never work for me either. I use hand mowers, though that’s partly from disliking the racket

of petrol, electric and nuclear-powered ones. It’s not as if I’m some sort of Luddite.

In the meantime, I have to stop here as I’ve run out of ink for my quill.

POSSIBLY I’M THE LAST PERSON IN THE FREE WORLD USING A BRUSH AND PAN... AND I’VE RUN OUT OF INK FOR MY QUILL

LOW-TECH: Keeping it simple with a brush and pan removes lots of mechanical hassle for our esteemed scribe.