Things I Threw Away

Wall Planner

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 22:58:09 GMT

One of the odd things about deciding that you're going to start organising your life the middle of the year is that you end up with a July-to-June wall planner. Very useful, and it comes with lots of stickers (that we don't really use, but I like them) and a felt-tip pen, and it's possible to see the year filling up with stuff ahead of one, sort of like rural lanes emerging from the dark into the glare of the headlamps, on a midnight headlong cross-country rush sort of thing.

But of course Christmas and New Year are in the middle, which creates an odd effect, a bit like seeing a map that has (for example) Japan in the middle, and Europe off to one side and the US to the other, and one can see an entirely different world. A year that's lived as-it-were from Summer Solstice to Summer Solstice is different from one lived from Winter Solstice to Winter Solstice. For a start I used to emerge bewildered from Christmas and it would take half of January for me to orient myself, but now, having the month planned, I come back more quickly. On the other hand July is a bit confused.

And when they're filled up, they're quite tough to get rid of, as there's a map of the past year, and it would be like throwing the year away. Whereas with an old diary you can chuck it in the back of a drawer and forget about it, that's more difficult with a bit of A1 laminated paper.

I think it would be quite tricky to jump back to normal year planners - I'd either have to leave half a year unplanned, which is unthinkable, or only use half of a planner before jumping to the other planner, which would be wasteful and slightly cruel to the spurned planner. So it looks like I'm a July-to-June man for the time being.

Guitar Strings

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 22:35:09 GMT

How many of these have I thrown away over the years?

I must confess I've found them very difficult to jettison - in my younger days there used to be coils of rusty wire everywhere, after I couldn't bear to get rid of them (thinking they'd come in useful, I suppose - what a strange thing that is, that naive optimism that sees a little usefulness in everything, even bits of rusty wire, to short to reuse and incapable of holding any kind of tuning).

Recently I've been better at it, but still, its a wrench.

One's relationship with guitar strings is very physical - there's definitely something of oneself on them, at an atomic level we've had an abundant opportunity to blend into each other. But when they've been replaced I don't notice anything different about the guitar other than that it's in tune for a change.

These are nylon guitar strings from a classical guitar. I don't know exactly when I put them on the guitar, but I think that in guitar string years, they're well past pensionable age and into Guinness Book of Records territory.

The other problem with changing classical guitar strings is that it takes about a week for them to stay in tune - they have a tendency to slip flatter and flatter and require quite a bit of training to get them to behave. Steel strings, on the other hand, are bright and eager straight out of the packet.

Sofa

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 22:07:25 GMT

I think I got this sofa in 1994 or so - a friend of mine phoned up, knowing I wanted a sofa, and having seen one. She arranged for it to be delivered. Cut forward a couple of days, and I come home from work at lunchtime to receive it.

Somehow we managed to get it up the stairs and around the corner (which was achievement enough). And through the front door (although it was a bit of a squeeze). But halfway down the corridor it jammed. The delivery man and I spent half an hour trying to get it through the door at all angles, but to no avail.

So I had to go back to work and leave it, hanging at 45° in my corridor. I imagined that I was going to spend the rest of my life crawling under it to get into the living room.

A friend came over in the evening, and we dismantled the door and finally got it in. Close run thing, though.

So it's sat in my living room from then until a short while ago.

Another friend came over to assist in its destruction - Juan, who lived here for a year, and so had a relationship with it too. His mother even repaired parts of it, which was very good and very maternal of her, and I was very grateful.

We dismantled it with a hammer, an axe and a Stanley knife. As nicely as possible.

Actually, no, it was brutal, and messy and, eventually, done. And there was a lot more space in the living room.

Didn't get stuck in the corridor this time, though.

Shredded Paper

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 22:45:01 GMT

If you look carefully, you'll see that this batch of shredded paper contains kinds of paper that the council don't want us to put in the recycling - brown paper envelopes, for example. But in it went anyway, because:

I didn't realise until I'd got to the recycling bins and read the signage on it (I'd read the sign before, but it's quite specific and complicated, and I'd forgotten exactly what was in and what was out).There was actually no way in which I was going to turn around, go home and painstakingly pick out the proscribed shreds of paper before returning with the council approved ones. It grieves me to say that, I really ought to try harder, but it's true. I don't think they're in a position to be picky, frankly.

It's a strange development that now everything that has any identifying information on it at all has to be shredded, on account of the dreaded Identity Thieves. When did this start? I got my shredder a couple of years ago, but it was largely because of Gadget Lust rather than any serious attempt at protecting myself.

What I really need is a gerbil to live in it.

Should I be offended if someone steals my identity and then decides they don't like it and tries to give it back? Is it possible to trade it in for a better identity, one with straighter teeth and better social skills? How much does the insurance pay out on a stolen identity, and does it cover counselling?

Inquiring minds would like to know.

Shower Gel Bottle

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 23:10:50 GMT

Curious stuff shower gel. They go to a lot of effort with it, but frankly I don't care.

Firstly they put in all sorts of fascinating smells - this one smelled of coconut, for example - and I've had minty, tea-tree-y and lots of different fruits, as well as indeterminate smells that were apparently designed to represent the qualities the shower gel embodies.

This one, for example, was called Enliven. Some of the shower gels I bought in Germany had wonderful names. The Germans speak English very well, but perhaps they don't get the absurdity of plucking a word out of context. Perhaps they don't care, I'm not sure.

Anyway, I do find myself standing by the relevant shelf, comparing the qualities that the gels represent - Wake Up! Soothe! Excite! Relax! Recharge! Deep Calm! - obviously mining two particular strand, but I'm not sure how they achieve their stated goals, given that (to the best of my knowledge) they're not allowed to put narcotics into their products. It could go further - they could be advertised as promoting moral virtues - Fortitude! Reliability! though perhaps that's too Victorian for today's market.

I usually go for something that will wake me up, and often for the brand marked "for Men", as this implies that it doesn't smell of anything in particular, except some general gelly smell.

It's just that I want to pick something that suggests that I don't think to hard about this stuff, despite the fact that I obviously do.

I mean it's just soap.

What worries me, of course, is that despite the fact that there's the generic Supermarket brand (labelled "Shower Gel" and not smelling of anything in particular), I still place an unhealthy trust in the echt product.

The best one was mentholated and smelled minty. The menthol left one artificially cool and quite numb in parts, which was an unusual experience.

Wallace

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 22:47:44 GMT

I can't remember getting this, although I'm fairly sure that it came from my father, who's forever finding things cheap, realising he doesn't want them and passing them on to me. I say that I operate a home for waif and stray inanimate objects.

As far as I can tell, it's an oven glove in the shape of Wallace in the popular series of plasticene animations by Nick Park. I expect it was cheap because people actually wanted Gromit-shaped oven gloves, but were too cheap to buy the pair.

I could never bring myself to use it, because, fictitious character or not, it's somebody's face, after all. Why would I want to pick up very hot objects with someone's face.

Anyway, it just got stuck on guitar headstocks, or left around gathering dust and grot until it was uncleanable and I came to the conclusion that I'd just have to throw it away. Not that throwing away the face of a much-loved children's animation character is any easier than using it to pick up pot-lids.

Unpopped Popcorn

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 22:34:27 GMT

One thing that disturbs me about the occasional Popcorn Frenzy (courtesy of the disturbingly mauve popcorn popper, whose box was disposed of recently) is that at least half the corns don't make it to popcorn status. This doesn't seem fair, somehow, as they've also been denied the transition to proper corn. They look up at me balefully (and eyelessly, I hasten to add) from a halo of salt at the bottom of the bowl.

"Y'know," they seem to be saying, "if I'd have known it would end like this, I don't think I'd have bothered. Better to have stayed in the field."

I sympathise. Sometimes I try to eat the unpopped corn as a gesture of solidarity, but it's not really the same.

By what process of selection are the successful popcorn divided from the unsuccessful? Has anyone done research into this question, and asked how they process could be made more efficient, less wasteful?

Actually, I suppose from an evolutionary point of view, they're all failures, as a successful kernel would be waving from a Midwest field next autumn.

Oil Burner

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 22:47:30 GMT

I was stashing a large computer box on a high shelf (an accident patiently waiting its turn I suspect, but we needed to get it off the floor), when it slipped and knocked this onto the floor. Despite the fact that it fell onto (admittedly threadbare) carpet, it shattered quite impressively.

I bought it in Covent Garden towards the end of 1993, I think. Recently I got a pestle and mortar from the same place, though I'm not certain why I was shopping for a pestle and mortar, good though it is to have one.

There are two bits to such a burner. Despite the name I've given it, it doesn't actually burn oil, but rather small tealight candles go in the bottom bit, on top of which rests a bowl full of water, into which drops of perfumed oil have been dropped. A subtle fragrance is released. Probably not a chap thing: chaps tend not to go for subtle fragrance; indeed I think we find the concept of fragrance a bit suspect. We'd prefer a smell, and get our money's worth. After all, why hand over all that cash and get something that's only barely detectable?

Anyway, the top bit, the bowl bit, went AWOL a while ago, and this bit has been sitting on a high shelf waiting to be reunited with it, which obviously won't happen now. If I'd known, I could have thrown it away a while ago, but then, there wouldn't have been any point to throwing it away, as it would be perfectly good, apart from not being useable on account of the missing top bit.

Now I have to work out what to do with the orphaned top bit if it does turn up. It seems cruel to throw it away, considering it's not, in itself broken.

Raffle Tickets

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

There should be a line on a raffle ticket - If you haven't heard anything by [insert date a couple of weeks after the draw], for goodness' sake throw this away. Otherwise they end up hanging around for months after they no longer represent the boundless possibilities that good fortune might bring into your life and now signify your tendency to fall for every snake oil salesman you stumble across (even if this is good-cause snake oil).

Of course if you're in the room - if someone calls your number and you collect a bottle of champagne, or a luxury hamper from Fortnum & Masons or Harrods or (at a pinch) Selfridges or one of those other prizes that are associated with raffles (a toy bear?) - or more to the point if not - you know where you stand (at the back of the room, wishing you had the hamper, thinking "bloody Irene, she always wins, it's a fix") - but when you buy these remote raffle tickets, you have no idea. They could be searching for you, trying to decipher the address in your terrible handwriting, eventually turning up three years later after many adventures, clutching a hamper or a stuffed bear or (and this is what you actually want, let's be frank) an envelope containing £2,000 in cash. And if you'd thrown the ticket away you'd look foolish (almost as foolish as someone eating food from a three-year-old hamper).

(Actually there is such a line on the back, I checked before shredding them - "All winners will be notified in writing by 6 October 2006. A list of winners is available on request." with an implied "Get over it, luser". How many people request lists of winners? It doesn't say who to request the list from.)

I knew someone who threw raffle tickets and lottery tickets away as soon as she'd bought them, as she'd just bought them to give the money to charity and didn't want to be distracted by thoughts of the prize. An admirable ideal, but difficult.

I really should have an eye test, too, now I come to think about it.

Cling Film

Sun, 22 Apr 2007 19:02:58 GMT

The thought struck me as I was stretching a piece of cling film over a bowl of bread dough, before leaving it to rise, that it probably represents in some small way the high tide of human self-indulgence - imagine some future historian explaining that we took oil that had been in the Earth for millions of years and, by some mysterious alchemical process, converted it into a gossamer-thin skin, which rendered containers air-tight - quite miraculous!

"And what did they do then?" asks the future historian's assistant.

"Oh, they just dug a big hole and threw it in."

"Verily, they were gods. But kind of stupid and self-indulgent ones."

So I thought this as I was stretching a piece of cling film over a bowl of bread dough, feeling quite with-it and Al Gore-ish. And then I took another piece and stretched it over the other bowl, and when I'd finished with them I threw them in the bin. Because I don't think I was paying attention.

If you're an American, you probably know this product as Seran Wrap. I can't help that. I don't even know what a Seran is, let alone why you'd want to wrap one up.

Useful, though.

Jaffa Cakes Box

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 21:48:47 GMT

It was only quite recently that I realised that there were - and always have been - different kinds of Jaffa Cakes.

The McVities Jaffa Cakes are pictured here because that's what we ate, and are the more famous of them by far. But frankly everyone's in on the act.

Nevertheless, if you Google "jaffa cakes" (which I did), you'll find (as did I) that McVities have sort of cornered the market in publicity, at least. Relentlessly springing in-jokes on the population (like Tango and Marmite before them), they aimed to make buying McVities' Jaffa Cakes a sort of post-modern statement, and act of buying in to a grand joke.

When it comes down to it, though, I expect that the average consumer would, like I, just reach out and grab the first thing with "Jaffa Cake" on the box, not realising that there's any competition at all, let alone a hotly-contested war.

They've been discussed at great length across the internet, especially their indeterminate cake/biscuit status. Customs and Excise, hoping to wrench a few more pennies from the kind of people who tend to go for them (students and the financially circumscribed), defined them as biscuits (which attract VAT), the manufacturers as cakes (which don't). This much is endlessly repeated: it's a Dreaded Interesting Fact.

What I find interesting is that due to this ruling we now have a scientific and firm definition of the difference between cakes and biscuits viz cakes go hard and biscuits go soft, which wouldn't have happened were it not for the ruling, which is curious.

If it were possible to create a true cake-biscuit hybrid, therefore, we'd have something that remained relatively firm forever.

Anyway, the box usually carries at least one in-joke, all part of McVities' attempt to define themselves as The Only True Begetter of Jaffa Cakes. In this case it's a helpline number for "Jaffaholics Anonymous", though I don't know what they'd tell you other than a) Jaffa Cakes aren't actually physically addictive, though they are a bit more-ish, which isn't actually the same thing and b) you're next phone bill will be quite a bit higher than you're expecting, especially if you ring the number again.

They're also available in other flavours (the German version, which has none of the airs and graces of McVities' product, comes in two varieties - Orange and Raspberry. I prefer the Raspberry). A pedant would suggest that a Jaffa Cake without orangeness isn't a Jaffa Cake, as the Jaffa bit is a reference to the Oranges from which they're made. That pedant ought, perhaps, to be beaten gently but persistently with a full box of Jaffa Cakes (any flavour), even if they are right.

The box was in the flat for a total of fifteen seconds before it was folded flat and demoted to Merely Garbage Status. I almost feel bad for the box, but I enjoyed the cakes.

Or, if you work for Customs and Excise, biscuits.

Stopwatch Box

Sat, 19 May 2007 22:32:18 GMT

Considering it's a cheap stopwatch - the cheapest in the shop - it was severely overpackaged: Big plastic dome of a package, on a cardboard backing, with a thick book of instructions in several languages. And what is there to know? Pressing Start/Stop starts and stops it, Reset resets it, and Mode cycles between stopwatch and watch.

I really look forward to one day buying something and finding a bit of paper that says "Look, we put a lot of work into the useability of this thing. If you can't work it out for yourself, you probably shouldn't have it". Come to think of it, the iPod Shuffle's a lot like that.

"On. Off. Think about it."

Anyway, they didn't need to put it in a big plastic bubble. It doesn't need protecting from anything, either (isn't a sports accessory supposed to be fairly resiliant?).

Odd design decision, anyway.

Crisp Packet

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I found this in my coat pocket - it was a packet of crisps I bought at Bath Spa station last Sunday, so it's a good job I was going through the pockets, otherwise it would have been there until next Winter.

I'd not had these crisps before (they were all right, I suppose), but a look at the packet shows a number of things that have changed since the last time I was paying attention to crisps (how often does one pay attention to crisps?):

The company have a website. I'm almost tempted to visit it to see what they have to say for themselves. These are crisps from the West Country, and proud of it.They were hand cooked. They are Sea Salted (as opposed to table salted, I suppose)They are not crisps at all, but Potato Chips.

But the crisps themselves were, as I say, all right. I don't see how the fact that they were hand fried trumps Machine Fried crisps - it's just holding a basket of chopped potatoes in boiling fat for a prescribed period of time. If they actually were holding the chopped potato in the fat with their hands, no basket involved, it would be impressive. Horrific, but impressive. But they're crisps, not tempura.

Similarly, unless one is especially proud of one's Devonian heritage, I don't see what difference the source of the crisps makes, other than that they've been driven a shorter distance than had they come from Harrogate.

And why Potato Chips - to make themselves seem American and upmarket?

There were meetings about this. People seriously argued and made decisions about the wording on this crisp packet, in order to upscale their perceived value, resulting in the fact that they cost 75p.

The actual product isn't actually any different from a packet of crisps, ready salted, machine fried, made somewhere indeterminate but probably Essex.

Just saying.

Old Printouts

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 23:08:47 GMT

I've had these envelopes of artwork leaning against walls taking up space for a while now, and I keep saying I need to send them back to the artists. Perhaps they don't want it back - after all, it would just be cluttering up their living space then. Anyway, I thought I should actually do it, as it was threatening to turn into an Issue.

When it came down to it, it turned out that the bulk of the envelopes contained marked up photocopies and printouts with some printed proofs, so I was able to distill the returnable pile down to a fraction of the original stack.

Difficult to do, though. If I have problems recognising the garbageness of ... well ... actual garbage, these printouts (that had genuine value and conveyed real meaning several years ago when I did the work) were difficult to redefine as rubbish. Besides, some of them were very pretty. I could hear a voice in my head warming up to provide a defence of them, so I thought it best to rush them to the recycling before I changed my mind. I still sorted through them three times to make sure there wasn't any real artwork in there.

I kept them for up to seven years, and they've not been called for in that time, so I think it's fair to say they'll not be needed again.

Popcorn Maker Box

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 23:31:35 GMT

I blame Apple.

I used to happily throw away the boxes that things came in as soon as I'd removed them, but after learning that Apple demand that repairs could only be effected on devices returned in the original box (perhaps everybody does this - I heard it about Apple first), I became loathe to throw them away. As I've hinted, I'm sure, I'm loathe to throw anything away, so don't really need the encouragement in that area.

Anyway, since then, I've been a compulsive collector of Original Boxes.

On top of the shelves are a pile of boxes of various consumer goods, which haven't been back in the box since I bought them. There may even be boxes for things I don't have any more, though I hope not and doubt it.

Anyway, this was taking that principle to extremes.

I bought a popcorn maker. I went into a bit of a popcorn frenzy, and decided it was the perfect addition to my lifestyle. That my have been true, actually, popcorn is good. But I don't normally choose the model designed for eight-year-old girls. Perhaps it was because I'd spent a short but very intense period colouring in pictures for a collection of Rainbow Fairies stories, so I was particularly attuned to the eight-year-old girl mindset. Perhaps I just thought it was cool - it's a bit retro, a bit bulbous and a slightly regrettable mauve.

I suppose, in my and its defense, it's not dull-looking. Most of the others I saw were fairly dull-looking - trying to hard to be taken seriously, which is a sore point for an essentially frivolous machine.

But there it sits on top of my kitchen cabinet, ready to provide me with a bit of popcorn, quite a lot of unpopped corn kernels and debris all over the place (functionally it's not as good as it looks, but then how much R&D is put into what is effectively a large, upside-down hairdryer?). And until recently, the box it came in sat next to it I'd look up occasionally and think "hmm, I really don't need that box, I should get rid of it", and then not get rid of it.

Egg Boxes

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Egg boxes are a conundrum.

They're sort of too impressive to throw away - after all they have to protect the relatively fragile eggs from transportation, hurling, incompetent shoppers and supermarket checkout staff who not only insist on putting your stuff in the carrier bag for you but decide that the best place for the eggs is under the potatoes.

Not that they work perfectly - when any public holiday is coming up you'll find there are only three egg boxes left, each half full of egg (substance) rather than eggs (things), as each shopper has checked the boxes and swapped out the broken ones but they're definitely, to use a rather nauseating phrase, a design (and engineering) classic.

So they accumulated on our shelves above the fridge.

They do have a number of uses:They can be used for sound insulation: just cover your walls with egg boxes. When you have done this, spray-paint them silver, and your pad will look just like a set from The Tomorrow People circa 1972.And of course, they make the ideal fire hazard in this state. You can use them for holding small things, such as the screws from a recently-dismantled vacuum cleaner or video-recorder.Alternatively, a number of them can be fashioned and painted to make the base section of a Dalek costume.I have it on good authority that they can be used for chitting potatoes. I do not know what this means and am afraid to find out, as it sounds far too bucolic for my tiny urban mind to handle. Still, if you need potatoes chitting...If the worst comes to the worst you can use them to hold eggs (for example, if you buy a lot of them). Which is why we were holding on to them, I think. But then we never did buy a lot of eggs, and anyway we don't use that many. And there's one more use, that I can't list here, as I won't know until later today, when I find that, having thrown the egg boxes away, I suddenly need them again. For something.