Climate Change

Having come out of a lovely summer in the UK with sunny days almost a distant memory, I've had time to reflect. Firstly, I should say that having lived in the UK, part of the Northern Hemisphere, my experience is that, not only is the weather a regular topic of conversation for British people but it is also the subject for constant complaint. In winter people moan about the cold, the damp, the drizzle, that it's raining 'all the time,' how winter is so dull and how they wish they were lying on a beach in Ibiza or had the money to buy a retreat in sunnier climes, such as Spain. Then, in the summer, for the first few weeks they welcome the warmer sunnier days - women get the chance to bring out their summer dresses while men decide to dress like toddlers (flip flops and ill fitting shorts) - and seem to love the warmer weather. But as soon as the hot weather persists for a lengthy sustained period, and once the weather forecasters get in front of their 'apocalypse now' weather maps with their lurid yellow, orange and red colours covering the British Isles, the summer moaning starts - 'it's so hot'; 'I can't work in this heat'; 'we need to cancel our meeting 'cos there's no aircon'; ' I can't wait for it to rain.' And of course, global warming. Yeah, it's a thing to some degree but ... 

Back in the day, well, to be precise, at the end of the last Ice Age, eleven thousand seven hundred years, four months, two and a half weeks ago, as the planet warmed up and the ice retreated, the weather forecasters were not going apoplectic about global warming. There are no records to suggest any panic. There are also no records of schools closing, people being told not to go out unless they really had to, or to remember to drink water. Not a trace.

No, the weathermen of the day kept it simple. A forecast was nothing more than, “it’ll be hotter tomorrow.” It was notable that it was only men who did weather forecasts back then in the Ice Age because women were too clever to get involved. They got together and said, “we ain’t doin’ no forecasting! Wot? They fink we’re stoopid? Hah! No way. We start doin’ forecasting an’ they’ll make out we’re all witches. Them guys wanna do forecasting, let ‘em, knock ‘emselves out”

So the guys got on with it, and there were none of the gaudy coloured maps that make it look like Armageddon is happening this week, before it all goes back to normal next week. The weathermen simply watched the ice retreat with no mention of global warming, even though it was actually real global warming with the oceans warming up and releasing massive amounts of stored carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, increasing greenhouse gases, trapping more heat and melting the ice. And as it got warmer, populations started to move north en masse to find new lands to settle in.

Nobody questioned it - well, except the women who WERE actually witches, but kept that information to themselves. Their inquisitive minds soon realised that as populations moved north, the weight of mass migration caused the Earth to tilt and consequently change its orbit, and that meant the Northern Hemisphere started to get more direct sunlight. So, they encouraged it. And it worked.

Soon, under the weight of movement, the ice retreated until it reached the top of the planet where the Earth’s orbit was not affected by the sun, and the ice would no longer melt. So, the women said, “Let’s stay here and build houses out of … out of, erm … ice.”
“You’re bonkers,” said the men.
“Wot about ‘em?” replied the women.
“No … no … not your … you ARE bonkers. We’ll freeze our nuts off if we stay here,” said the men.
“WE won’t,” said the women.
“Yeah, but you know what we mean. We just left the ice age and now you wanna stay here?”
“Well, it’s too friggin’ far to walk back,” said the women. “We’ll build ice houses, make a village and call it … Icy Mo’s Village, after our leader Maureen.”
The men looked at one another and mumbled between themselves. “S’pose it’s a long way back. We’ll give it ago. Anyway … it’ll be hotter tomorrow.” And they said to the women, "You're right, the climate is changing. You girls should be weather forecasters."

"We already done that chat, " the women said. "You guys do it."

Yeah, we live in the Northern Hemisphere. Our winters will be chilly and our summers will be warm.

Critical Difference Theory

I’ve worked it out - the difference between men and women. Took a while but I’m now content. Not the obvious physical difference, that’s simple enough. No, the mindset, the thinking, the approach to life. In other words, the critical difference.

Baths and showers. That’s it!

Forget all that, ‘women are from Venus, men are from Mars’ stuff. That can be condensed into a much more down to Earth example. Yes, baths and showers. Let me explain.

Generally, women love to take a bath but men much prefer to shower. When it comes to bath time, women love to make an event out of it - essential oils, soft lighting, scented candles, calming music, perhaps even a light white wine, indulging and pampering themselves. Men just turn on the shower, get in, scrub themselves clean and get out. A five minute, non-thinking, functional job.

And in those moments we see the difference. Women - in touch with their inner selves, their emotional brain, the side that creates empathy, indulges feeling, develops tactility. Men - it’s an essential task, zero emotional input, get it done, move on, get on with life.

Simplistic, I know, but from each of those approaches we can begin to see the critical difference and therefore better understand the attitudes of both genders to life and how they behave.

N.B:

1. The above is based on perceived specific behaviour traits based on observation (No! Not peering in through bathroom windows; observation on listening to people and over lifetime some actual experience) and is not intended to compare one gender less favourably than the other. It is accepted that women shower too; it is accepted that men sometimes take baths, usually to alleviate a minor sports injury but never use candles and any additional and unnecessary paraphernalia when they do.

2. For any astronomers reading this, the reference to three specific planets was simply to enhance the narrative and was not intended to convey any scientific input. And if you are an astronomer, well done for reading this far when clearly this had nothing to do with astronomy. 

3. The above refers to ‘both genders’ for two reasons. The first is that in this case it focusses simply on what was considered the norm for many centuries, men and women, and therefore is using those categories as the sample. The second because the writer has no knowledge of bathing habits related to any other gender.

4. It is understood that not every time a woman decides to take a bath she makes an event of it. Of course not. Women have busy lives and lots of responsibilities so do not have the time for frequent bathtime indulgence. The point is that when they do have the time, women are much more likely than men to take the approach detailed.

5. No, I didn't have stats to back it up. Who in their right mind does a survey on people's bathing preferences? Oh, yeah, shower gel and soap companies perhaps.

Thrashing and Thumping

I’ve noticed that when four or more goals are scored in a football match against a team, the words ‘thrashed’ or ‘thumped’ are used in report headlines to describe the outcome of the match. For example, Brighton beating Coventry City 5-0, Chelsea beating Bournemouth 5-1, Coventry City beating Newcastle United 4-1, this season. There are many more examples over the years. But there seems to be some limitation to the use of these words in that they are rarely applied if the defeated team gets more than one goal in response. So, ‘thrashed’ or ‘thumped’ are poised to go once the four goal threshold is achieved, but are quickly withdrawn from reports if the opposition manages a couple of goals in reply. In a recent Irish Premier League match between Shelbourne and St Patrick’s Athletic they ‘thrashed’ each other, or perhaps ‘thumped’ one another, in a 4-4 draw. But, of course, as it was a draw the four goals each team scored cancelled 'thrashing' and 'thumping' out.

So, in men’s professional football where you rarely get extremely high scoring games the benchmark for ‘thrashed’ and ‘thumped’ is set quite low. Surely double figures should be the starting point in the modern game?

Personally, I still use Arbroath’s 36-0 win over Bon Accord in September 1885 as the benchmark for a ‘thrashing.’ I’m much too young to have watched it live, but anyone placing a pre-match wager on Bon Accord to nick a 1-0 win would have considered their bet misjudged when the half-time score showed that Bon Accord were losing 15-0! The chances of Bon Accord scoring perhaps ten or more goals and keeping a clean sheet (for non-football people, that’s not conceding any goals) in the second half and thus avoiding being ‘thumped,’ seemed unlikely given their first half defensive performance. 

Of course a savvy punter could have hedged their bets by placing a side wager on Aberdeen Rovers to win against Dundee Harp in another game that same day just down the road. However, the hapless punter would have ended their day sucking on a lone Hamlet cigar when the result of that match came through and they realised Aberdeen had been thrashed 35-0! 

Having seen some old black and white footage of that game, I’m still convinced that if VAR had been invented sooner, at least seventeen of Dundee Harp’s goals would have been ‘chalked off.’ As it was, Aberdeen Rovers did give away several ‘soft’ goals. A draw would have been a more realistic result except for the fact that Rovers failed to score any goals at all. 

Who would have thought that two games on the same day would have had such hefty score lines - 36-0 and 35-0? If any games warranted a ‘thrashed’ or ‘thumped’ description, those two most certainly did.

Loyalty

I bought something in a shop. The sales assistant began the payment transaction and immediately a bizarre conversation started.

“Do you have a loyalty card?” she asked.
“Uh, no …” It was the word ‘loyalty.’ It felt odd to reply negatively to that word. So, I tried to qualify my lack of loyalty.
“No. Sorry. I don’t. Erm … not that I’m not loyal. I am … uh, you know … usually.”
She smiled. “Usually?”
“Uh, no … I mean, mostly. Mostly loyal.”
She raised an eyebrow. I felt I was being judged. Her next sentence seemed to confirm that. “I see, so sometimes you’re not loyal? Would you like a bag?”
The switch threw me. “A bag? Uh, yeah … please. No, I meant that I am loyal, uh, all the time, just not to this …” I stopped. I couldn’t say ‘shop.’ She worked there. It was her livelihood. And what with shops closing in high streets … “Err, I mean I’m loyal where it matters.”
Her expression grew serious. Clearly she considered that I thought her shop didn’t matter. I felt guilty, so I said, “But I’d quite like a loyalty card, if you have one.”
Her smile beamed back on. “Excellent. I’ll just take your details, sir. Each time you shop you will receive points and be eligible for certain discounts. Now, can I take your email address?”
Great, I thought. I'll get emails every two days trying to sell me stuff I don't want. I only go in that shop about once every ten years! Oh, well, another loyalty card gathering dust in a drawer.

Either I’m a mug or she’s a great salesperson … or both!

Call Waiting

Call waiting. Yes, you know, that period when you are waiting to speak with someone after you get through the AI barrier that takes you around in circles back to your original question, and then finally you reach a human who doesn't know what the f**k the answer is so they say, "I'm just going to put you on hold while I speak with my manager." 

So, I'm wondering why aren’t people just straight? You know, just tell it like it is. There are options that would at least make you feel like you're important. How about...

1. “Okay, If you’d like to hold, I’ll just check that for you, sir. In the meantime, I’m going to play some really shit music that you didn’t request, probably don’t want to hear and at a volume that really should require you to wear ear defenders. I should warn you this is some crap electronic music from the eighties 'cos everybody seems to be into eighties music for some reason, but if you're not then ... tough. Roll with it.”

2. "Your call is not that important to us, even though we say it is. In fact parting you from your money is way more important. Oh, and our time is much more valuable than yours, so we'll just keep you waiting for as long as it suits us. Plus it gives me time to finish texting my friends about where we're going tonight."

3. "I'm just going to put you on hold while I speak with my manager because I don't have a clue what you're talking about. Yeah, I know I work here and, okay, maybe I should know something about our products, but, to be honest, I couldn't give a toss about the shit we sell so I've never bothered learning about it. And 'cos I work for a shit company, I've not been trained in customer service neither. So if you just hold on I'll come back with some bullshit that suits us but not you. Okay?" 

As soon as you hear the hold music, kill the frigging call!

Upselling

I went into a petrol station shop the other day to buy a sandwich and some water as I’d had no lunch. I approached the till counter with my choices, a BLT and a bottle of sparkling water.
The cashier gentleman behind the counter looked at my purchases and said, “No fuel.”
I wondered what that had to do with me as I am not responsible for ordering the company’s fuel stock, but then I realised he was actually asking if I had bought any fuel for my vehicle.
“No,” I said, “just these.”
He then scanned the items and said, “That’s five pounds twenty-four.”
I pulled out my debit card to pay but then he said, “If you get a meal deal it’s cheaper.”
“Okay. What’s a meal deal?” I asked.
“You can add a bag of crisps or a bar of chocolate.”
“I don’t eat crisps,” I replied. “But, uh … the chocolate … what, any chocolate at all?”
The cashier extended a finger indicating a nearby selection of chocolate products. “Just from them two rows,” he said.
Fair enough, I thought. Sounds like a bargain. I scanned the rows and picked out a Mars Bar which I placed on the counter next to the sandwich and the bottle of water.”
The cashier scanned it and said, “That’s five pounds forty-nine.”
I looked at him. “Sorry?”
“Five pounds forty-nine,” he said again, only a little louder as if I was hard of hearing.
“Sorry, I meant that’s twenty-five pence more. You said the meal deal was cheaper.”
“It is,” he said.
“No, it’s not cheaper. It’s twenty-five pence more expensive.”
“It’s a better deal. You get a Mars Bar with this deal,” the cashier said, as if I was stupid."
“This deal? But we weren’t doing a deal in the first place. I came in to buy a sandwich and bottle of water. I didn’t look for, nor ask for, a Mars Bar. So the purchases I actually wanted were less expensive than what they now are with a Mars Bar. So, therefore your meal deal is not flipping cheaper at all. Definitely not cheaper than the two items I was going to pay for originally.”
“But the meal deal is better,” the cashier said.
“Better than what?” I queried, but without waiting for a response continued, “It’s not better for me because I wasn’t looking to buy a Mars Bar in the first place. Granted it might be better labelled a ‘Meal Deal’ than if I bought all three items individually, but I wasn’t doing that so it ain’t cheaper. And anyway you never said, the meal deal was better. You said 'cheaper' which, because it costs me more money, like five pounds forty-nine pence instead of five pounds and twenty-five pence, it is clearly not the case. That's simple maths. You with me?”
A queue was forming. The cashier looked past me and then focussed on my purchases. “So you don’t want the Mars Bar?” he said.
I watched as he moved it to one side. I hesitated and then said, “Yes. I do.” I was invested in it now. I like chocolate. It wasn’t about the cost - it was only twenty-five pence. “I’ll take it. But it isn’t cheaper.”
The cashier shrugged and scanned the additional item. “You wanna receipt?”
No! I don’t want a bloody receipt was my immediate thought, but I just said, “No, thank you.”

SOLD! 

Used Cars

I was looking at the moon last night. It was a clear night in sunny Gloucestershire (although the sun was not out at the same time) and I got to thinking, you know, about life out there in space. We’re always thinking, are we alone or is there life out there, perhaps in some distant galaxy zillions of light years away. Well maybe we should be looking closer to home… to the places we've already been and where we've left our mark. It won't have gone unnoticed if there is life out there!

“What d’you reckon, Zhertan?”
“About what? That car over there?”
“No, dork. They coming back?”
“Who?"

"You know, them jumpy things with the big bubble heads what left the car?”
“Oh, right, yeah. Uh, I dunno. It’s been over fifty of their planet years and nobody’s been back since. I mean, if they were gonna come you might have thought it'd be to get their motor back?”
“You’re not wrong. I mean they kept coming for four years, then nothing. You'da thought they’d be back for the car at least. And maybe them golf balls what one of them was hitting?”

"Don't be stoopid. Nobody's comin' all the way back to the moon looking for friggin' golf balls. I mean, you ever played golf and hit a ball out there?"

"Can't say I have. I ain't got no clubs, for starters. I wouldn't even know where to get 'em."

"Alright, alright. That ain't the point is it? What I mean is, you hit them little golf balls out here on the moon, what with the gravity thing, they're gonna go bleedin' miles. On top of that, all the surface here is nearly the same colour as yer golf balls so you ain't never gonna find 'em. No, they ain't comin' back to look for golf balls, trust me. But the car, well, maybe. That makes more sense. Might be worth a bit still."

“Dunno 'bout that. Some of the lads tried to get it going last week but no luck. They got jump leads but nothing to give it a jump!”
“Must be some way we can get it started. It’s ours now, ain’t it?”
“Dead right it is. And look at it this way, whether it starts or not, it’s a classic motor now. So, yeah, maybe you're right, it could be worth a bit. We get it going we could sell it, make a few bob on it.”
“Sell it? Who to? Nobody here’s gonna buy it. But we get it working it’d be a nice little run around for a while. Maybe do some trips, a little taxi business or something. Lunar Uber.”
“Lunar Uber? Ain’t she a singer?”
“Nah, you’re getting confused, mate. That’s Luna Abba.”
“Oh yeah. But I like your idea. Maybe shoot down the beach at the Sea of Tranquility now and then.”

“Yeah. And I fancy a little trip to the dark side, too, catch a few rays. Never been there.”
“Blinding. Tell you what, Zhertan, mate, why don’t we try contacting that Apollo lot see if they can send us some spare parts and maybe a manual?”
“I like it. Got a contact?”
“Yeah. Bloke called Houston, I think.”