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Arkwright - The Independent Voice
Being one who leaves a lot of things to the last minute, meeting the Editor’s deadline for submitting my article each month sometimes makes me feel like I used to at school when I hadn’t got my homework done to hand in on time.
Then I could rely on my mother writing a note to say the guinea pig had eaten my pencil or something equally ludicrous. In these days of computers the excuse would have to be the cat got the mouse!! But, as the teachers probably never believed my mother, I doubt the Editor would believe me if I tried that one.
Feeling slightly under pressure this month to get the article in that old feeling is even more appropriate as Back To School has taken most ofmy energy – and what a great back to school it has been thanks to an imaginative headmaster at a local school adding lacrosse to the sports curriculum. Luckily not everyone leaves things to the last minute and a well motivated mother enquired about lacrosse sticks early in the holidays, prompting me to spring into action.Rarely does new business fall into your lap like that! A few blind alleys of research because a lot of people don’t even know the sport – some thought I was enquiring about Lacroix or Lacoste and just didn’t know how to pronounce the names – then I came across UK Lacrosse; a big thank you to them as they couldn’t have been more helpful. The great knock on is that we are now known to a lot of new customers who added on other purchases when collecting their lacrosse sticks. In our search for another new market next year and with the help of climate change, depending on which expert you believe,we could be moving into ice hockey or camel racing!
I just don’t understand boredom as for me there are never enough hours in the day to fit in work, rest and play never mind eat a Mars bar (for those of you old enough to remember the ad). I’d love my epitaph to read,“Only just made funeral, too busy living life”. Kids saying they are bored in the summer holidays is nothing new but perhaps it is compounded by today’s choices of electronic gizmos that have them skimming the surface from ipod to computer games to multi channel tv then on to the web – hop, hop, hop like butterflies (but without the exercise), never settling on anything for very long. What with all those things and food additives it’s a miracle there are any children or adults left that aren’t hyperactive. Now we have the Games Tsar being introduced to teach children HOW to play, presumably in a cocoon because of all the ridiculous Health & Safety regulations. Oh dear, just put them out in the fresh air and let them get on with it; they’ll soon recover from the occasional broken arm or cut knee. Look at all the good sex education has done them so let’s not insult them by trying to teach them how to play!
I’m not keen on listening to computer generated music when a telephone is answered automatically but it’s marginally preferable to a message that says,“Your call IS important to us, thank you for holding”, “Holding for how long?” I want to scream. To hear the message once or twice is excusable but much more than that it becomes clear that my call is not in the least bit important to them and why say “We are currently experiencing a high volume of calls”when what they really mean is “We haven’t employed enough staff, you’re paying for the call and you’re probably ringing to complain about something so you can just keep hanging on”. These people describe themselves as Service Providers, they wouldn’t know service if it sat on their lap,well not the sort of service I need when I’m ringing them.
Call me bitter if you like, I don’t stock Crocs! They have got to be one of the most hideous fashions to date but you’ve got to admire the person who dreamed them up, if only I’d thought “I’m going to come up with something truly unattractive and get people of all ages and all walks of life to buy and wear it”. There are none so blind as those who don’t look in the mirror. Women who thought themselves chic now look like frumps, boring city accountants still look like boring city accountants even if they adorn their feet to look like Donald Duck and children… well, you can excuse them anything!
