Spending money to save money

On the pavement (US: sidewalk) this morning there’s an unmistakable shape at my feet: the truncated L of an Allen key. It triggers memories of reassembling Ikea knocked-down furniture, especially to furnish the house in France. I’ll withold the joky stories this topic usually engenders in what Damon Runyon used to call “the blatts”.

I’m struck by the techno-financial equation it represents. Allen-headed screws are I suspect more expensive than conventional slotted and/or cross-head screws, and Ikea is renowned for its parsimony. Yet opting for this design allows flush fixings which aren’t visually disagreeable together with the provision of the cheapest of all screwdrivers – so cheap, in fact, it can be regarded as a disposable. But which does the job perfectly.

I once visited an Ikea warehouse in the midst of rural Sweden. The blue and yellow that seem so garish in this country blended rather better with the conifers and silver birches. But then they are the national colours.

WRITING: CRAFT NOT ART
Eclogue 77. Semi-colon pundits should be required to prove the point.
Example: In 1957 I bought my first car; until then I’d ridden bikes. (Using a full stop would turn the two short sentences into telegrams – remember those?)

Note: Virgil wrote eclogues, or pastoral poems. It must be clear I’m not seeking to compete.

Flaming torches even better

The Daily Express which resembles The Daily Mail but without the necessary hormone treatment has launched a campaign in defence of the incandescent light bulb. In insisting our living-rooms should be lit the same way granny’s was, it snits the government for promoting low-energy bulbs.

Injudiciously the paper quotes technical rather than sentimental reasons, all three of which are wrong. Even incompatibility with dimmer switches has been resolved.

This is said to be little-c conservatism. Were tears shed when outdoor lavs were brought indoors and hundreds of night-soil men were put out of business? Is there always someone who regrets change, however beneficial? Certainly there was when capital punishment was halted. In fact much of that regret is still sharp and ripe.

Such tendencies must make growing older even more of a penance.

WRITING: CRAFT NOT ART

(a) Semi-colon or comma? (b) Semi-colon or full stop?
Eclogues 76a and 76b. (a) Not an option; the comma divides linked items while the semi-colon separates ideas/concepts. (b) For me the judgement is aesthetic since you could, at a pinch, use either. Choosing depends on rhythm and assonance as much as on sense. Do you prefer two complete sentences, or a longer, subtly linked one? Listen to your ear and/or your noggin
Note 1. My formal instruction in English ended when I was 15.
Note 2. I have raised this thorny subject in response to a request from Relucent Reader to whom I owe a debt of gratitude.

Note 3. Eclogue. Wrong again.

Greed: it has powerful after-effects

Those affected by the financial crisis may be divided into three: those who brought it on themselves (banks, financial experts, tax dodgers and lazy-minded manufacturers), ordinary folk advised by experts and who got reamed (the majority of us) and those who did everything possible to avoid the situation (yet still got reamed). A word of sympathy for the latter group.

While I was still working my magazine carried a story researched by my assistant editor about Nissan’s UK operation. How different it seemed from so many British enterprises. A new factory with a parent prepared to accept losses for a decade, huge and continuing investment in technology and systems, management based on weekly if not daily consultation with the workforce, a reward for anyone whose suggestion helped improve efficiency, training that meant something and involvement in the local community.

Yesterday, Nissan UK laid off a quarter of its workforce. I’m gutted for all those who have suffered but as an observer of industry I’m particularly heart-slufted (a special angoisse experienced only in the West Riding) by this one. It’s enough for me to consider – at least for a nano-second – the possibility of compensation in an after-life.

WRITING: CRAFT NOT ART

Eclogue 27e. Distrust adjectives, adverbs, related phrases and excess.
Before: “Please, please,” she said in a voice that carried a note of entreaty, “reconsider your reckless driving and pull into that safe layby.”
After: “Stop!” she implored.
Note: Eclogue still misused.

Applaud the unapplauded

Those who understand the internet and who pass on knowledge are rarely thanked. Instead, their inarticulacy is derided, their whey faces laughed at and they are accused of lacking a life away from the screen. Rarely does anyone mention their altruism.

I am presently setting up a second blog in French. Seemed easy enough until I discovered the new is joined at the hip to the old. Translate the profile in one and it appears in French in the other. Blogger Help says true separation requires an additional email account. But Blogger Group Help – an impromptu service provided by those with the knowhow and, it seems, lots of spare time – has shown me a way of bamboozling setpiece Blogger so I can be a former editor in one and un ancien rédacteur-en-chef in the other.

Not perfect, but a step forward. More fiddling necessary at the ISP end. But it’s those volunteers, hanging around in space, waiting for idiots to call in who fascinate me. When I used a similar service for website designers the raggedy advice I received was forgivable given that it came from the Ukraine. While a tricky DIY problem involving a router invoked the cadences of a Brit used to talking about “two-bi-fours” and “three-inch slaps”.

But who are these people who advise the unadvised? I know little about the internet and what I do know I hold close to my chest. I assist others only where it suits my need for self-aggrandisement. Luckily the virtuals put me to shame. A small prayer should be composed to celebrate the pro-bonos out there.

The cheapest of thrills

I’ve got to get this right: the difference between “sensuous” and “sensual”. But checking the dictionary leaves me lost in nuances. As before I must leave this up to my better-educated wider family out there.

But sensuous/sensual are words that find application when using this type of vegetable peeler, especially with carrots. The key lies in the pivoting blade which effortlessly follows the contours, delivering gossamer peelings. And although carrots provide its ultimate tactile experience the practical benefits are best felt with the most awkwardly shaped potato. A sense of gliding, of frictionless contact – and all for less than a quid.

There’s even a small cup-shaped whotsit which digs out potato eyes. Hey, in a world in which most pleasures will soon be beyond our pocket, it makes sense to take gratification where we can.

WRITING: CRAFT NOT ART
Eclogue 50c. Don’t discard clichés entirely. But always tweak

Example: Having drunk three bottles of Banrock Station, been rejected by my girl-friend and woken up in Victoria bus station, I was – you might say – quite under the moon. Much better example (by a master): Though not disgruntled he was some way from being gruntled. (P.G. Wodehouse)

Note: Yes I know, I’m misusing eclogue.

Trafalgar in reverse

My New Year’s resolution is to use the Net as a source of self-humiliation. How? By issuing comments to French blogs and enduring the subsequent corrections.

First I needed something suitable on which to impale myself. I went to Google’s “Preferences”, switched languages and searched Les blogs francais. Didn’t work for reasons too tedious to mention. Ditched that and tried Les bloggeurs qui voudraient partager (share) leur langue avec un Rosbif. Too long, of course, but it did at least reveal people rather than organisations. Alas, all were ultra-lefties (ie, unreconstructed Maoists) who wanted to discuss politics from a socio-philosophical viewpoint.

So I narrowed it down to the Languedoc, where we spent our last two summer holidays and where we’ve booked for June this year. After sorting through hundreds of thinly disguised publicists for the wines of that region I finally found a spirited lady of 77 who read Jean-Louis Fournier’s last novel with “a tightened throat and a heart full of tears” and who offered for inspection her last poem (“This sky so soft, pale and nacreous, This tranquil winter sky…”). Fine, add her to Favourites.

Then a group of young satirists running a cod poll as to the most appropriate recipient of their Golden Sausage of Political Impertinence. Inevitably a certain M. Sarkozy was leading the field.

But of course the first step is to-do-as-I-would-be-done-by. Hence the new blog. One point: since I share my pseudonym with a fictional Royal Naval bosun who spent the Napoleonic Wars kicking French butt, I felt the need for a less rebarbative flag of convenience.

What industry can get up to

It’s a hand pallet truck (actually, only a model). Slide the forks into the slots of a pallet on the floor, work the pump to raise the forks a couple of centimetres and one person can easily move a one-ton load.

But how do you paint such an awkward shape? Passing it through a paint bath is a no-no. The paint would clog up the raisable undercarriage and the hydraulic pump. Here’s how in a state-of-the-art Swedish factory twenty or thirty years ago.

A skilled sentient being does the job with a paint gun. Attached to the gun is a cassette recorder capable of tracking the gun’s movements. The cassette is transferred to a player which drives a robot. And the robot, equipped with its own paint gun, faithfully reproduces the skilled human’s work. Because the paint, usually in powder form, and the pallet truck are electrostatically negative and positive, very little paint is wasted.

They not only did this but also gave birth to Ingmar Bergman.

WRITING: CRAFT NOT ART
Eclogue 46b. Setting long and short sentences side by side can have a pleasing effect.

Example: With lengthy DIY projects it is quite understandable that the desire to finish the job might outweigh a wish for perfection. It happened to God!
Note: Eclogue is inappropriate but, what the hell, I wanted to use it.

Post-Christmas at No. 56

Finally we caught up meteorologically with Marja-Leena. But only lightly and only, I suspect, briefly. But enough to disguise the fact that the garden looks like a junk-heap without the white dusting.

But all is not what it seems. The top picture has been Photoshopped. Cropped, of course, but also the recipient of Healing Brush Tool. As a result the washing line that runs right to left above the fence has disappeared. So too has the ugly street lamp which dominates pix taken from this angle.

Just in case anyone was in any doubt, the ducks are made of a stonish sort of substance. The bottles – minus two still in the utility room – represent the household’s consumption since December 26 (Boxing Day).