Nick's Blog
Eddie Stoblog
21/7/2008 @ 16:35
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Last week, Wifey, Junior and m'self went up to Stoke-On-Trent (you know what they say...Stoke on Trent...bent) for a wedding and on a dark distant highway (the M6), we kept seeing lorries belonging to highly specialised companies. These businesses seemed to do just one, fairly obscure thing, but they felt the need to blazon the company name and what they did in large, bold letters:
JDB...QUALITY TUBE PERFORATORS.
Well, it goes without saying that you want a bit of quality when it comes to perforating tubes. Begs the question though; what kind of tubes are we talking about and why do they need perforating? Don't the tube manufacturers offer pre-perforated tubes to the customer without them having to go to the added expense and time of getting in the perforators to do the job separately? And what advantages does a perforated tube have over a non perforated one? I tried to recall if I'd ever seen a perforated tube in my life and I could only recall the barrell of a .30 calibre machine gun you see in WW2 movies...surely this business couldn't be THAT obscure that they just put holes into the barrells of old American machine guns?
McGRINS....RECYCLED AGGREGATES.
In this day and age of the disposable society, it's nice to know that even aggregates can be recycled and put to good use. Way back when, when no one talked of carbon footprints, I used to buy up aggregates, use them willy nilly and when I was done, I just threw them away in my bin without a thought as to how I could reuse them. Now, thanks to McGrins, I can use a bit of aggregate and then exchange the used bits for vouchers and trading stamps.
PLASTAC...WE BUY, SELL AND CLEAN, DRUMS MADE FROM POLYTHENE
See what they've done there? Made a company statement into a little rhyme. I had trouble with these people before though; I went in with some aluminium drums that needed cleaning and they turned me away "NO ALUMINIUM...JUST POLYTHENE!" they said. "OK, what about Polyurethane?" I replied. "NO! POLYTHENE!" They retorted. "Dacron! Draylon!" I cried. "GET THEE HENCE" they said "THE DRUMS HAVE TO BE MADE PRECISELY OF POLYTHENE AND NO OTHER SUBSTANCE! NOW LEAVE US AND BOTHER US NO MORE". Apparently I had to go to Arthurs': They buy, sell, and strum, drums made from Aluminium.
VODACRESS...FRESH CRESS TO YOUR DOOR DAILY.
Now when I was a child, you got milk delivered to your door...maybe other dairy products or even orange juice but cress? Slightly bitter and totally non filling leaves delivered to your door on a daily basis? I perhaps eat the equivalent of a bowl of cress in a year, not a day. What next? Garnish Direct? E-Garnish? Rocket-U-Like?
And they say small businesses can't flourish these days.
Blog...FROM THE FUTUR!
04/7/2008 @ 15:13
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GREETINGS FROM THE FUTUR MY FRIENDS!
Yes, it's finally arrived; the 21st Century we were all promised back in the 60s and 70s. For 8 years now we've been living in 1975 but with the internet, mobile phones and health and safety legislation to differentiate now and then. So far the gleaming visions of sci fi writers and the artists of those Look and Learn books about what life would be like in the 21st Century have failed to come to pass. But now...we're living in that promised world! OK, so we don't yet have an orbiting hotel, daily trips to the Moon, personal jet packs, pill food, silver jumpsuits or instant guilt free sex on demand but we do now have Oxygen bars!
I was walking through my local shopping centre last week when I saw a small stand selling what I thought was trendy fruit juice by some glamourosly dressed girls but no, it turned out that what they were selling was pure oxygen at £5 a huff. People were sitting on futuristic bar stools with what looked like medical breathing tubes in their nostrils just...breathing there...and with a choice of 5 different coloured waters for the oxygen to pass through (as it's very dry to breathe pure oxygen, they've passed it through coloured water to moisten it up).
At last, that future of living in a vast, bland, sterilised dome where people slowly wander around in a stupefied state, far removed from the overlords that watch over them them on little cameras, populated by miniskirted girls and old people in electric buggies and having to queue up to pay to breathe air from a booth has come to pass. And the Earth didn't need to suffer some nuclear holocaust first to achieve this vision; they just built a shopping centre instead.
But although I was tempted for a nanosecond to partake in a light lunch of orange oxygen followed by a bit of Nitrogen for pudding, I resisted. Mainly because there's nothing for you to do but sit there and breathe. The customers at the booth having their mid-morning oxy-huff weren't reading a book, or having a chat or a catch up like how people in coffee shops behave...they were just sitting there, blank faces, breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Out. CHOKE! GAK! IIIINNNN. And out. Just breathe at £5 a go. Mmmmmm, doesn't it feel good to be living in the future?
As for me, I'll make do with good ol' 20% in the air thank you. Goodness, I've become like one of those people who order tap water in restuarants.
