2024 was a rich year for misinformation, disinformation, contradictions, ambiguities and straightforward lies. But few instances meet the definition of ‘meaningless twaddle’. Even Donald Trump’s pronouncements have an internal logic to them, even if they are inconsistent over time and bear little resemblance to the truth.
So we have resorted to an admittedly soft target: the instruction manual for an electronic device – specifically an HPM Digital Timer. Here is an extract from the instructions for setting the clock:
Auto on – Is a temporary override when the unit gives power until the program starts. Its used once off then the unit continues on with the program – example if connected to a light and its 6pm, you’re setting the timer for 7, this mode will turn the light on until the program starts then continues to turn off and on as per the program.
According to the 3-year warranty, credit should go to Legrand Australia.
While I’m at the keyboard, you’re probably wondering how effective the netting over our orchard (aka one nectarine tree) proved to be. Well, we left it a bit late to harvest. So most of the fruit was over-ripe and some had fallen off into the netting. Most of the nectarines had been pecked, so we were evidently a bit late throwing the net over too. Nevertheless, the tree yielded about 17kg. We ate half of that over the course of a week (including in our breakfast porridge every day) and bottled or froze the rest. Next cab off the rank is the lemon tree.
It’s been too long between posts, Sorry! To make up for it, here’s a illustrated Christmas carol for you to sing with your family on 25 December (Gregorian calendar) or 7 January (Julian calendar) or, indeed, both. Here it is:
Deck the trees with bird-proof netting, Fa-la-la-la-la it’s Christmas time. ’Tis the season to be fretting, Fa-la-la-la-la it’s Christmas time. Avian manners are quite awful, Fa-la-la, fa-la-la, la-la-la. Here they’ll get no beak- or clawful, Fa-la-la-la-laa, la-la-la-laaaa.
Hmm, that’s pretty meagre after such a hiatus. Here’s another carol that I just sent to a British company that owes me fees for work done nine years ago…
God rest ye, merry Roughton men Who owe me so much dough, Glad tidings from my lawyer friend – But probably you know: An invoice more than six years old you legally can throw In the bin. Oh-oh ti-idings of joy, Comfort and joy, Oh-oh ti-idings of co-omfort and joy! But I shall keep you on my list And send you Christmas cheer, In hope God will unclench his fist And hand you a good year – Then shall your coffers overflow, all dues and debts to clear. Oh-oh tidings of co-omfort and joy, Comfort and joy, Oh-oh ti-idings of co-omfort and joy!
In the midst of all your wild rejoicing, please don’t forget to submit your nomination(s) for next year’s Stroppy Git Award for Meaningless Twaddle (aka The Stroppy). I have a feeling this could be a bumper year! My address: johnstandingford@hotmail.com
A lot of people criticise the policy of privatising essential public services and breaking them up into their constituent parts – such as generation, distribution and retailing of electricity. They advance flimsy arguments about the higher cost of capital to private borrowers, the need for multiple layers of profit, shareholders’ demands for risk-weighted dividends, and the ease with which the gullible and the vulnerable can be ripped off.
I say “Pah!” to these nay-sayers. So electricity costs a little more… but look at the entertainment we now enjoy! Once a year we’re notified that the price of electricity is about to increase hugely (most recently by 42% in our case). That’s the whistle to start the game of Beat the Bastards. This entails spending happy hours on the telephone – mostly on-hold but sometimes chatting to a fellow human – shopping around to find the best deal with another retailer; or being offered a better, under-the-counter, deal by one’s existing retailer. Lazy or incompetent players lose many gaming tokens at this stage.
Fortunately there are coaches on the sidelines, calling out to us with virtual megaphones. These are the call centres that compare rates, each paid by a group of retailers with a view to luring players away from their competitors. They cold-call around whistle-blowing time, and in my experience do a pretty good job. But the retailers don’t tell them about all the under-the-counter deals. Of course. That would spoil the fun.
Just as in Dig-Dug, if you do well in the game you’re promoted to a higher level. In our case this meant getting a smart meter that allows a retailer to charge differential rates depending on the time of usage. Peak time usage costs 2.2 times as much as shoulder usage, which is cheaper than off-peak.
Intriguingly, peak time accounts for 14 out of the 24 hours in a day, so any heavy usage (by air-conditioners, washing machines, irons, electric ovens…) has to be restricted to the hours of 1am–6am or 10am–3pm. It’s now 1140, so exactly 100 minutes ago I called out to Mrs SG that she could start the washing machine, and then the dishwasher.
I mentioned that the game is called Beat the Bastards. I realise, however, that the game is won by the consumer who most efficiently adjusts his/her pattern of consumption to counter the imbalances between supply (especially solar-generated supply, which is abundant in Australia) and demand.
So perhaps the game should be called “Follow the Pricing Signals that Minimise the Overall Cost of Energy to the Community as a Whole as Well as the Harmful Emissions Attributable to Burning Fossil Fuels.” Not as catchy, but whatever it’s called the game has changed our lives for the better by giving us something to strive for. It would be no exaggeration to say that we are driven to succeed in much the same way that Olympic athletes are.
It may not be all to do with having too many people making coffee for other people who could boil a kettle and make themselves a cup of caffeine-rich brown liquid in much less time than they have to wait for an expert to do it for them with a hissing big machine and put a beige heart-shape on top. In the last few days I have had a cluster of revelatory experiences . . .
It’s rare for an email to go astray, and when it does happen one usually gets an ‘undeliverable’ notification. But it’s now common not to get a reply. It’s called “ghosting”. A month ago I sent five emails to businesses that had expressed some interest in sponsoring my Lions Club’s art show last year – but only when the impact of Covid-19 had passed. Not a single one replied, even to say, “Sorry, times are still bad.” Or “Buzz off or I’ll call the cops.” Nothing. So I’m wasting time following up: “Perhaps my email of 9 June found its way into your Junk folder…”
Twice in the last week I’ve had occasion to contact private companies and been told, “Oh, the person responsible for that is away for a month.” I gently suggested that a) I was talking to that person’s deputy and b) even if so-and-so was physically away they probably still had access to a telephone and an inbox. I refrained from any sarcastic mention of carrier pigeons. “Yes, but I’ll have to wait for so-and-so to come back to give you a definite answer.” People are scared to take responsibility.
I attended a first aid class (CPR and defibrillator operation) run by a very well-known NGO. It ended with a practical test and… Hurrah! All fifteen of us passed! No we jolly well didn’t, not really. We got certificates for showing up and paying a fee. If that applies in other fields… well, perhaps that’s why people are afraid to take responsibility: they know they’re not competent.
My bag was searched at the Aldi check-out. I had some mixed grain wraps in there, just purchased from a rival shop where I had declined a receipt. Fortunately the brand was one that Aldi doesn’t sell or I might have been writing this in a cell. I understand: shoplifting is on the rise, forcing businesses to divert resources to strengthening security.
I was just notified that an old class action against a company that had misled its shareholders had been settled, and Mrs SG’s and my pension fund had benefited to the tune of $1,090.60. How many hours of costly people’s time had been expended on achieving that movement of money from one set of pockets to another set (mainly in the well-cut suits of lawyers)?
This week I spent half-a-day shopping around for cheaper electricity, having been informed in a curt email that my tariff was about to increase from 34.96 to 49.5c/kWh. Disingenuously I phoned to report an apparent misprint, and was told, “No, that’s the rate you’ll be charged if you do nothing, but I can offer you a special rate. And if you can find an even better one with another supplier, come back to us and re-negotiate.” I shopped around, found a better rate and took it. Life’s too short to bugger about endlessly. ’Scuse my French.
We used to put all our rubbish in the dustbin. Now we have three wheelie-bins: Green for organic waste; Yellow for stuff that can be recycled; and Red for real rubbish destined for landfill. If one is conscientious, getting it right takes time. And the last time I was in our local civic centre I saw this Recycling Hub! Don’t get me wrong, I like it, and I tipped several dozen blister-packs (bonded plastic and metal, hard to separate) into the top right-hand slot. But this means more person-hours spent unproductively – not in producing goods and services that people want.
Yesterday I received an email that referenced my very first blog, and I immediately felt guilty for having deprived my followers of my wise thoughts for too long. By way of amends I offer the following…
A few years ago Mrs SG and I were on holiday in Cuba, where we met a British man and his daughter. The daughter was introduced as a… was it ‘barrister’ or ’barista’? Mrs SG and I were equally unsure, but thought she looked too young to be a barrister. We turned out to be wrong.
But today I Googled “How many baristas in Australia?” I was offered a Bureau of Statistics figure for 2019: 48,000 of whom 16,700 were fulltime. This compares with 6,000 barristers.
I raised this question for two reasons. First, one effect of the cost-of-living crisis is a rash of closures of restaurants and cafés, tossing baristas and other staff into the labour market. Second, with a dire shortage of people to work in the police, armed forces, aged care and construction, it seems absurdly wasteful to employ people to make coffee for other people who could very well make their own cuppas at home or get them from a machine (this is not a sponsored link).
Now, I get as tired as anybody else with problems being identified and shouted about with no solutions being offered – other than setting up new government bodies or otherwise chucking tax dollars into a bottomless pit. So I have a practical proposal: Offer generous tax concessions for the installation of coffee vending machines, conditional on the humane culling of baristas.
Whoa! Not so fast with the criticism! By ‘humane culling’ I don’t mean shooting them from helicopters. I mean transferring them into re-training programmes so that they can become truly productive members of society.
As we bid farewell to the Emmys the spotlight turns towards the Stroppys – or rather the Stroppy, there being only one such award for meaningless twaddle each year. After much thought and hand-wringing the winner is… drum roll… anonymous. Yes, that’s unfortunate, but I don’t know the name of the author of this gem, extracted from a report written for a certain international financial institution based in Washington DC:
James Joyce (portrait)
“A weigh station that is also a public check post shall undertake checks in its capacity as a weigh station unless it is established to the satisfaction of the authorised officer that the payload on the truck or combination being checked originated from the nearby urban agglomeration in which case the check shall be made in its capacity as public check post, and if the truck or combination is found to have committed an infringement requiring immobilisation then that infringement shall be waived and the truck or combination allowed to travel directly back to its loading point for rectification without penalty or permanent record of noncompliance.”
Marcel Proust (caricature)
At only 106 words this sentence can hardly be considered Joycian or even Proustian. But it makes up for that in its opacity, convolution, clumsiness and… well, let’s just sum it up as twaddledom.
I am indebted, not for the first time, to my long-term friend and sometimes colleague Ron Allan, who nominated this passage.
And here’s an unrelated thought bubble… I just read that the average human exhales 255kg of CO2 per year. That’s equivalent to an old-fashioned ounce per hour, so it seems plausible.
Boeing 747: First roll-out (30 September 1968)
Back to the individual level, the average person exhales about 20t of CO2 over a lifetime. If this number is correct, our species is directly putting 2 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere annually. This is as much as 800 million petrol-powered cars. Or 90,000 Boeing 747s.
Perhaps a childless person who voluntarily undergoes sterilisation should be issued with carbon credits. What do you think?
By the way, do you happen to know (or be) a film producer in need of a potential blockbusting script for a TV series? If so, please let me know.
As Jerry Seinfeld might have said, “What’s with all these teeny little button batteries? How come everything you buy that has a button battery, it’s a different size than the batteries in all the other things you’ve got? And they have these weird code numbers. Not just one either: they have aliases, like secret agents. ‘Come in, 377. Or should I call you… AG4?’” [Audience laughter.]
But seriously, it’s me, your ethical influencer who accepts not a penny from any manufacturer, distributor or advertiser of the products he tells you about. I know, I know, I said I was going to give up my career as an influencer and be a scriptwriter. Well, I finished my online scriptwriting course, scored 82% for my final assignment, and am now up to Scene 29 in the first part of a 3-part sci-fi TV drama. Meanwhile, I’m still doing a bit of influencing on the side. So what is it today? Button batteries!
I just received 72 (yes, 72) button batteries in 10 diferent sizes (with 18 different names) by mail order for A$10.17 including postage. That’s equivalent to a fraction over US$0.09 per battery. I can’t vouch for their quality of course, but one has been in my watch for a week and it’s still going. Want to have some of the same? They came from Good House Keeping Australia Ltd, P.O.Box 291, Moorabbin VIC 3189 [Tel (03) 9532 3880].
While I have your attention, don’t forget to submit your nomination for the Stroppy Git Award for Meaningless Twaddle 2024. Deadline 15 January, midday GMT.
I have been fearing riots in the streets in protest against my long silence. Fortunately the continuing Russian aggression against Ukraine, Azerbaijan’s attack on the residual Armenian enclave in Nagorno-Karabakh, Hamas’s attack on Israel and its consequences have, I suppose, distracted would-be rioters.
So why am I writing now? I have several reasons. First, and of least interest to anyone outside my family, today is the 150th anniversary of my great-grandfather’s indenture as an apprentice to Joseph Newton, carpenter/builder of Harlow in Essex. The indenture hangs on my office wall as a reminder of the value of diligent study, hard work and ambition.
Second, I want to put on record my disgust at Hamas’s brutal attack on Israelis, and at the equally brutal response and uncritical support that has been lavished on Israel by its traditional allies. I am convinced that both sides’ actions result from the well of hatred that successive Israeli governments have been digging deeper and deeper for 75 years. I have only contempt for Benjamin Netanyahu, who has accelerated the illegal colonisation of occupied Palestinian land and publicly rejected a two-state solution. Sane, decent people of all stripes agree that Israelis and Palestinians should have their own states, side-by-side, each capable of economic and political sovereignty. Jerusalem should be run by an independent authority answerable to the UN – that’s just my opinion.
The third reason is to share with you the news of yet another career change. Being an influencer just wasn’t working, so I signed up for a 12-week online course in script-writing with La Trobe University. I’ve just submitted my third and last assignment and am nervously awaiting my tutor’s assessment.
If my new career takes off, my books will be valuable collectors’ items. Well, they should be, but since e-books can be reproduced limitlessly at zero cost (to the nearest cent) they probably won’t. But just in case, do go to the ‘Books’ pages of this blog and buy them feverishly: Goldiloxians (comprising the entire Eeks Trilogy), Bobby Shafter, Farley’s Bend and Household Management for Men. Unfortunately e-books don’t make great Christmas presents, unless you print them out and bind them.
Finally, this is a reminder that the Stroppy Git Award for Meaningless Drivel (aka ‘the Stroppy’) will be announced on my birthday (17 January) and nominations will close at midnight GMT on 15 January.
I’m disappointed. I entered my latest novel (The Boundary Fence, unpublished) in a literary competition – a minor one, not the Booker – and didn’t make the longlist. Not even the longlist! So I’m beginning to think I’m not cut out to be a novelist. Therefore I’ve enrolled in an online 12-week scriptwriting course at La Trobe University, starting in July.
That doesn’t displace my ambition to become an influencer. I’ve been waiting for the big spenders to beat a path to my door, eager to access my phalanx of followers, but they’re a bit slow off the mark. So I’m given them a nudge by plugging products that I’ve actually bought and think worth recommending. So stand by to be influenced to buy… drum-roll… Australian bamboo underpants and Ukrainian/Polish jigsaw puzzles.
This is not actually me.
The underpants are made by an Australian company called Boody. They’re expensive (by mail-order about US$15 a pair including postage-and-packing, but they’re very comfortable and allegedly eco-friendly. That price includes a few dollars’ premium for a rather roomier cut – for the man who has everything.
The jigsaw puzzles are made by Energia Plus (email energyplus@svitonline.com) but printed in Poland by TREFL S.A. I can recommend these companies because Mrs SG and I have just finished one of their puzzles (pictured here) and the quality is a lot better than an expensive one we bought a few years ago in the Tate Modern shop. Each piece is a unique shape and when you slide it into place there’s an inaudible click that reassures you of its rightness.
There’s a story behind that puzzle. About ten years ago I was working in Ukraine, accompanied by Mrs SG. We decided to take a week off and tour Crimea. That was before Putin made a grab for it. In the city of Feodosia we came across the Aivazovsky National Art Gallery and went it. Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (1817-1900) was a gifted artist of Armenian ancestry who specialised in seascapes. One such painting, a huge one with a wall to itself, caught our eye and we stared at it in awe for a long time. Its title translates as ‘Among the Waves’. Aivazovsky painted it when he was 81.
When we went to recover our coats we found that the cloakroom attendant was selling jigsaw puzzles – and pride of place was taken by a reproduction of the one we’d so admired! So we bought it.
This post is multi-thematic and more personal than usual. Between you and me, I’m trying to become an influencer. That career didn’t even exist when I left school, or I’d have asked the careers master how to get my foot in the door.
Personal thing No.1… Last year Mrs SG was using a tube of Cancer Council UV-protective moisturiser. When she couldn’t squeeze any more out I, out of curiosity, tested the weight of it in my hand and decided that there must be some moisturiser trapped inside. So I liberated it by slicing the tube in two (see photo) and weighed the halves properly: 36g. Mrs SG and I continued using it by scooping dollops out with our fingers and when we could scoop no more I weighed it again: 15g. So of the original payload of 75g, 28% was inaccessible without slicing.
In an earlier post I think I reported that a similar proportion of an orange was peel. I’ve had avocados whose stones seemed, Tardis-like, bigger than the whole fruit.
No.2… The Beatles’ first film, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, was on the SBS Movies TV channel and I recorded it. Yesterday I settled down with a cup of coffee to watch it. I wondered if I’d respond to it differently after 58 years – and I did. I found it so contrived, so shallow, so boring that after 15 minutes I stopped and deleted it. The film was the same, so I guess I’ve changed.
No.3… If you haven’t yet read Mark Haddon’s book ‘The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-Time’ please do so now. It’s brilliant. It took me 3 years to read ‘The Pickwick Papers’ and less than a week to read Haddon’s masterpiece. The story is told by the main character: a 15-year-old British boy with Asberger’s Syndrome. If you’ve ever wondered how someone with that condition sees and experiences the world, this book will tell you.
StroppyGit 