Author: damienowens

I love it in old movies when someone grabs the earpiece of a bakelite phone, turns the crank a few times and demands that they be put through to a three-digit number. There’s something deeply engaging about it. Maybe it’s the fact that there’s physical activity involved. Or maybe it’s the wispy half-presence of the operator, the crucial go-between with her sensible skirt, nimble fingers and weakness for listening in. The three-digit number helps too; a subtle whisper about exclusivity and power. There’s glamour here, in short, and romance and ritual and drama. You can’t imagine someone picking up one of these old phones, going through the laborious connection process and then sighing, ‘So, any crack?’ much less ‘Would you like to take a few minutes to provide us with some feedback so that we can continue to improve our service going forward?’ No hold music either, of course, no Greensleeves played on a comb and a bit of toilet roll. No ‘Press the hash key NOW’. No ‘I wouldn’t have a clue pal, I’ll put you back to reception’. And no call waiting. Imagine that. Call waiting symbolises everything disappointing about the modern phone experience. You call someone up, not because you’ve got something important to say, but because you can. They’re engaged because someone else with nothing to say got in before you. But they know you’re out there, hanging on. They might swap calls, they might not. You’re stuck in limbo, complaining under your breath. And no one’s even listening in.

‘You can’t eat it. It’s a stick. Not food. NOT FOOD. PUT IT DOWN.’

‘No, I don’t know why Daddy has hair in his ears.’

‘Stop kicking your sister in the face!’

‘You do like toast. I know you do. I’VE SEEN YOU EATING IT.’

‘You can stop helping now. Please. STOP HELPING.’

Ever heard of Leo Gorcey? Me neither. He was an actor, by all accounts. You may not remember him from such films as Crazy Over Horses, Feudin’ Fools, or my own favourite, Dig That Uranium. But in 1967 Leo Gorcey had something in common with Laurel and Hardy, Mae West, George Bernard Shaw, Tony Curtis, Karl Marx, Marlon Brando and Shirley Temple. His likeness was one of those chosen to decorate the cover of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Beatles’ and hence the world’s first concept album (the concept being ‘Let’s get wasted and not bother so much with the concept thing’). But his face was removed before the album went to the presses because Gorcey – get this – thought he should get paid. Now, it’s not as if Ringo and co. were unknowns at the time. This isn’t a story of unrecognised opportunity, like Decca’s legendary rejection of the self-same Beatles on the grounds that guitar music was on the way out. Gorcey couldn’t have known that Sgt Pepper’s would turn out to be probably the most famous and memorable album cover of all time, but … it was the Beatles, for God’s sake! We can only conclude that he wasn’t all that bothered about immortality. Sadly for him, that’s just what he’s earned. The modern sleeve notes for the album include a list of who’s who on the cover. Gorcey’s name is still there, trailed by a smirking asterisk. The footnote, ours to ponder forever and ever and ever, reads ‘Painted out because he requested a fee.’ They’ll still be laughing at him in two hundred years time, the poor bastard. There’s a moral here somewhere, I’m sure of it.

You know those care guides that you see attached to a little stick in the soil of a new house plant? Have you noticed that they’ve gone first person? They used to be nothing more than a stern list of dos and don’ts, written in cold instructionese. Now they read like a lonely hearts ad. ‘I like to be kept out of direct sunlight and to be fed once a week in the summer months. I also enjoy wine-tasting and walks on the beach.’ Presumably, the idea is to give the plant a personality so you’ll feel guilty enough to take care of it. It works, too. I found myself apologising to one the other day and promising that, if it gave me another chance, I’d be more attentive to its needs in future. In fact, I’d like to see this approach extended to other vulnerable products. Clothes labels, for example, are currently all but meaningless. Pictures of dotted irons, circles with a letter P in them, crossed out triangles … How much better if they said things like ‘I like to be washed in water no warmer than 40 degrees and to be carefully ironed, then hung up on a proper wooden hanger. Please don’t boil wash me with the tea towels and then stuff me into a drawer while I’m still damp.’ Is that too much to ask? Cars, too, could benefit. How I wish that mine had come with a sticker saying ‘Please take care of my delicate outer shell. For example, check my rear-view mirror for poles before reversing out of your parking space last Tuesday’.