I had a founder-member of the Envy Anyone Who Worked Hard Party on my case last week – the result of a foolish admission at The Slog to being the owner of a swimming pool.
He really was the archetypal online Leon Trotprole, gargling as he wrote in Marxist syntax along the expected tramlines of the fundmentul Menshevik naicha ov The Slog, and the nevitabull finull viktry ov the Leninist Utopeyan kneeavarna.
Well, I am here to tell you that if, during the current unseasonably, unreasonably and almost unfeasibly scorching drought, the Leons of this world wish to know how to cool down a tad in every sense of the term, then I have the almost zero-cost solution.
It goes like this:
Reclaim two lengths of yellow garden hose from a rubbish tip (or the latest sale at Homebase/Gamm Vert/ACE).
Gullibly purchase hoselock-style connections including pipe-join kit (1), garden tap connection kit (1) and multiple-spray garden hose (1)
Connect, join up, switch on, hold hose.
Become soaked from head to foot.
It is one of the diktats of contemporary garden-durable capitalism that every connection – no matter how tight it be screwed – dribbles and squirts.
It dribbles along your forearms, onto your espadrilles and then drenches your groovy-grunge cut-off jeans. It squirts onto your hair and all over your teeshirt. At times, it squirts in your eye, up your nose and into your ear.
It makes people stare at you in the local store, their gaping based on the certainty that you’re incontinent.
In fact, it so efficiently soaks you from head to toe that if – God forbid you might be a Boojwah comme moi – when you do finally get to the decadent running-dog capitalist pool in question, you almost want to dry off the warm water before you dive in.
I have no idea what particular version of incompetence ensures that garden hoses and their fittings piss on the owner at every opportunity. Truth be told, I don’t want to know. But be assured, Trots everywhere, it is a reality that the Socialist Utopia will never solve
Footnote: having performed that very ritual this afternoon, this evening we had a torrential downpour of epic proportions – the overture to which was a thunderstorm involving hailstones the size of haricot beans.
The above remarks apply universally on Planet Earth, but there will always remain many things French that can make the expat of any nationality despair to the point of tearing out hair.
The central problem here is what I term the unfulfilled service promise.
I have come to define it in that manner, because it is what the sports commentator jocks think of as a Game o’ Two ‘alves.
In the first half (as a prospect) the potential customer is promised impeccable attendance to each and every need. This is reflected in the TV ads for banks that promise – with an emptiness up there with the space between constellations – that Now More than Ever We are By Your Side.
In the second half (as a client) the Couldn’t Give a Monkey’s cultural norm holds sway.
When I switched banks here three weeks ago, I was assured that I could sit back and relax as Wonderful AXA Bank took over from Hopeless Credit Agricole.
I got a phone call today from CreditAg asking in haughty tones why my account was overdrawn and how were they to honour Standing Orders.
Well, I replied nonchalanty (with more than a little satisfaction) “As I no longer bank with you, I think you have me confused wit someone who gives AFlyingF***”
The following then became apparent:
CreditAg had no idea I’d fired them
They’d had no communications or liaison at all with AXA
AXA had not taken control of any of my Standing Orders
All my credit ratings would now be compromised by failure to fulfil the SOs.
Not a single service promise made by AXA had been undertaken.
President Macron is busy vapourising all the cultural features that once made France one of nicest places in the world to live.
But, being a wanker – I’m sorry, I’ll re-spell that, banker – Macron is utterly uninterested in the concept of You Get What You Pay For.
He doesn’t give a damn about citizen value for money. His sole concern is how the citizen can be milked to get he, the Majestic Boy King, out of his self-created Covid19 fiscal hole.
Whichever way you cut it folks, They say and we pay.
The Slog 