I’m always bewildered by the daily displays of outrage portrayed in the British press (although some papers are worse culrpits than others): today I’ve read about outrage over prisoners being given a standup comedy course, uproar over a topless photo in a Cambridge student magazine, bankers DISGUSTING sex & drug spree, and of course the ever-present Ross/Brand/Sachs story. Although when I think about it, I wonder if these outpourings of outrage are just a series of “this is the last straw!” moments as people around the country get fed up with constantly having stupidity stuffed in their faces. Given that there’s 60,000,000 people living in the UK, and the Brand/Ross story exploded like it did due to 27,000 people complaining, even if every person living here only got infuriated enough to complain once every 6 years then – providing they timed it correctly – we’d still be able to see a public outcry of this “magnitude” erupt every day.
(I realise that this is a fairly overhyped introduction for the story I was intending to write, but I still think the theory holds water)
So, we’ve got this water cooler thing in the kitchen at work, right? Though I’m constantly ecstatic that I’ve got continuous free access to sparkling water at the office, the thing that needles at my sensibilities is the label proclaiming “Pure Chilled Water”.
My understanding of “pure” is that it means a non-contaminated sample containing only one thing – in the case of water, I’d expect it to be H20 molecules. Are they talking about Type 1 lab-grade purified water? Or is it simply distilled, filtered, or reverse-osmoted? It just seems silly, when bakers aren’t allowed to call pig-shaped cakes “pig cakes” because they don’t contain any pork, that someone can slap the word “pure” on a water system because it makes it look more appealing (despite the fact that most people who work here would drink it anyway, as long as it’s not tap water).
I’m not asking 26,999 other people to mobilise and start lighting torches/sharpening pitchforks, or anything. I’m just saying that different people have different things that push their buttons (bear in mind there’s an “Apostrophe Protection Society“), so maybe this accounts for the near constant public outrage going on. Or maybe there’s a cabal of them holed up in warehouses, with pens and telephones constantly poised at the ready.
Recently whilst trying to purchase a dehumidifier for my basement bedroom, I stumbled across one for sale at Argos which listed as one of its specifications: Moisture removal per day is 14 litre (measured at 90% RH and 32 degrees Centrigrade). (despite “centigrade” having been formally replaced by “Celsius” in 1948) However again, considering that the unit only comes fitted with a 1.5 litre tank, it’s probably just as well that the temperature and humidity are very unlikely to reach those levels, or you’d need to empty it 9 times a day!
It’s just not a very useful performance statistic, that’s all! The temperature in my room scarcely even reaches double figures. I’ve a good mind to write a letter… (and misuse the apostrophe’s, just for good measure).
Oh yeah, just remembered another thing that yanked my chain – the story in August about elderly persons’ campaign group Age Concern complaining that the elderly persons warning roadsign depicted the elderly in an unfair an inaccurate light, as not all elderly people are frail, suffer vertebral collapse or require walking aids. Just what else would these pinheads would suggest as a readily identifiable graphic to quickly convey a concept & meaning to an international audience, hmm?
I wonder how I get involved in this warehouse scheme?