Monday September 28th 2015
Nuisance calls
My goodness how mad these used to make me. I’d be at the top of the stairs, arms full of laundry to put away when the phone would ring and like you, thinking it might be family, dumped it all to find that someone was trying to sell me double glazing/ encourage a claim for mis-selling and so on.
My late dad used to keep these folk on the phone for ages just for revenge but of course you can’t blame the caller; quite often they will have an Hons degree and this is all they could get. Once I told someone calling in this way when they asked if it was convenient I advised them that the cat had just been out down and I was suffering from diarrhoea. Even I felt a bit rotten at their heartfelt condolences.
Anyway, it doesn’t happen to me anymore as I have a thingy called “Call Guardian “This screens out everybody unless they are on my special “non- screening” list. The trouble is I’ve lost the instructions and until I find it the answerphone is doing double time.
In Parliament this week I will be debating this (not Call Guardian but nuisance calls!) and let’s hope there are other solutions out there.
Junk mail
While I am on the topic, I can’t stand Junk mail. It’s for everything and now it comes from so many charities. I have standing orders to a few charities, most but not all of the animal welfare variety. So when I receive standard mailings from these charities it makes me wonder how much of our donation is being spent on them.
That also goes for clothes collection bags while I am at it. You are told to leave them out, used or unused, on a certain day. I have to say I have yet to see the unused being uplifted.
Recycling
There are so many bins, at home or at work that I’m thinking of doing a PhD in “Know your Bin”. At Parliament for instance there may be five bins on a row. Paper only, plastic cups only, biodegradable packing, food waste and so on. These are the easy ones.
Now don’t get me wrong it’s a round of applause for recycling, but first, why don’t we just do away with some of the over the top packaging. Who needs to buy four raw baking tatties in a special raw baking tattie for four tray? We might be using fewer plastic carriers but look at all the other stuff wrapped and double wrapped. Why? You could argue that not only is it an IQ test to work out how to open the packaging it is also a dexterity test on getting the dammed thing open at all.
Composting
You can see there’s a connection can’t you. I’m a great composter myself. No tattie peeling, egg shell or tea bag goes in the bin. It’s straight onto the heap to layer with grass cuttings and weeds. But you have to be patient as it will take a year at least for the stuff to be garden worthy. Mine is right behind the garden shed and I have camouflaged it by draping the wooden slats with hanging baskets. You can tell I’m quite pleased with myself!
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