Author Archive

Time for a cuppa

You wait for days on end then two blog posts come along at once. Now how civilised is this? A chap in a nice shiny van with big gold letters turns up at your door (the driver not the van that is) with a basket in his hand loaded with tea, coffee, biscuits and cakes. He regularly visits and the quality of the tea and coffee is fabulous. In these days of supermarket shopping the door to door service offered by Ringtons is both quaint and welcomed.

So why am I excited about this? How many of us miss Milko tearing up the road in his super-charged electric float, whistling an appauling rendition of some easy-listening classic? Me for one. However a village I used to live in had a milk delivery service more like The Sweeney. The doors of an old Ford Transit being propped open with a metal bar and a couple of teenagers hanging on for dear life in between jumping off to make their deliveries. How many of us now complain about the queues at the supermarket? Well if you utilised local services like this then we would be buying less in store and therefore get in and out much more quickly.

So do yourself a favour. Encourage and support local delivery services like this and not only can you get enjoyment from the products but also from the delivery style. I would be prepared to pay double if the delivery was made on an old errand boy bicycle by Granville ‘Get-your-cloth’ Arkwright.

I apologise to Ringtons for the image of the PG chimp but I don’t have a stuffed Ringtons distributor to pose next to a mug, besides I’m not sure they sell them.

Ringtons I salute you for this fabulous service and I hope my small missive on the wonders of your product delivery garners you further sales.

Mark Pawsey MP. Who you gonna call? 'Ghostwriters!'

How’s this for politicians engaging with the public? I recently emailed (that’s emailed) my local MP (Mark Pawsey – Con) to express my concern at the proposed BBC funding review announced by Culture Sec Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP (you remember, the multi-millionaire who claimed on expenses for a 1p telephone call). I was happy that my MP’s PA sent me an email reply very quickly asking for my postal address, I assumed this was so he could verify I was actually one of his constituents.

To my horror I received a first class letter in reply. Now remember I said I initially emailed so surely protocol, convention call it what you will suggests you reply in the same form of communication.

Now bear with me becuase it gets worse. When I read the letter it seemed very generic and didn’t counter or answer any of my points. What I neglected to tell my MP was this was part of a campaign by 38 degrees who were actually compiling the responses. Imagine my surprise to see the text of my letter matches almost word for word the response almost all other tory MPs sent to their constituents.

I have since emailed a response to my MP asking him if he has to follow the party line on all matters raised. If so what’s the point in him being there. How about representing your constituents and not your party or Rupert Murdoch? Now my MP is new having only been elected at the last election. I’m sure he’s just finding his feet and got a little worried that he might have to engage with a constituent so I await his response eagerly.

In addition I have submitted two ideas to the government spending challenge website. The first is to stop sending letters when emails would do, and the second is to close the final salary pension scheme for MPs. That should save a few bob.

Yes, you really could win this

Roll up, roll up. Chocolate lovers in the UK prepare your ‘Follow Fingers’. Do you like chocolate? How about Belgian Chocolate? But I bet there’s a lot more of you out there who appreciate the paper engineering that goes in to producing a chocolate box.

This is not a box made from chocolate, be it from Belgium or anywhere else. No, this is made from gold metallic finished card with kidney curved apertures to form the lid. Just slightly smaller than an iPhone 3GS this box also contains the patterned tissue sheet to protect the box from its payload. One luck winner, (competition open to UK citizens only) will be chosen to have this artifact in their home.

To be in with a chance to win this item just follow these two steps.

1. Follow http://www.Twitter.com/DavidMarkOswald before 00:01 on 19/07/2010 UK time
2. RT this message “Free Chocolate Box comp. Follow and RT for your chance to win (UK Only)”  See http://bit.ly/aWwTJ1 for info.”

Entries will be selected at random by allocating all my followers a number which will then be selected via random.org.

Please rest assured the chocolate has been removed and will not be sent as part of the prize.

Good luck and fingers crossed.

This haircut has been retired after a lifetime of service

OK it was a few years ago and my hair was very strange but I got on to the BBC website. It was hidden in the local mid-Wales section so I will forgive you for not seeing it before.

Please note I know how to spell ‘written’. Shame the BBC can’t afford a dictionary. Apparently it’s due to the unique way the BBC is funded.

www.bbc.co.uk/wales/mid/sites/machynlleth/pages/davidoswald.shtml (opens in a new window)

3 on the floor

I think most of us are familiar with alloy wheels, low profile tyres, pearlescent paint and racing seats. I think we’re all quite familiar with tribes of newly qualified drivers congregating in the car park at MacDonald’s to appreciate each others car customising skills whilst ‘cruising the slab’. Now to most of us it just looks like they’ve ram-raided Halfords and left what was stuck on their ‘ride’ as their customisation. Indeed there seems to be a belief that they have a more innate sense of style than all the highly paid car designers from the design houses of Pininfarina or Bertone. And why should we not allow these urban designers free reign to show their artisitic and creative abilities. Should it not be encouraged on all grounds, except for those of taste and style obviously?

Silver dream machine

No,  my interest is not in the activities of the low-bottomed trouser wearing youth of modern Britain. I have noticed a much more interesting development in the field of automotive design. Imagine an 85 year-old Tim Westwood  freestyling on the merits of 3 spoke alloy wheels, phat tyres and more chrome than a Harley Davidson showroom. Except this is not a Vauxhall Corsa or Ford Connect Panel Van with a 42inch plasma screen in the back. It’s the Quingo.

Don’t be fooled, this is not a new french supermini, this is the worlds first 5 wheel shopmobility scooter.  So please permit me to indulge myself . Ladies and gentlemen with respect to Tim Westwood I give you the Quingo.

“Nice three spoke alloys with thin at the front and fat at the back tyres, and an airstream basket. I particularly like the dual purpose head restraint / hair protection device that is part of the sports bucket seat. The owner of these wheels obviously doesn’t want to ruin that hairdo. Style is obviously paramount for this driver.

The front view of the Quingo shows the true beauty of these wheels. Now when I say odd I mean numerically. Three xenon headlamps with a cyclops mainbeam will convince people asleep in their beds that it must be daybreak. Keeping on the theme of three being the magic number, the trio wheel axle allows the driver of this baby to corner like it’s on rails. Finally the addition of a shiny bull-bar should leave nobody in any doubt as to who’s king of the road, or pavement as is usually the case.

Flares are back in

The rear light cluster is stylishly under-stated and the addition of a sissy-bar at the back hints at the potential wheelie poppin’ power this baby has under the basket.

Nice drilled brushed-aluminium sports foot pedals. Also a great view of the 2.5in 3 spoke alloys and a teasing profile of the front bull-bar. Those tyres are so low-profile if you run over a cigarette end you’ll put out your back and be in traction for a month. True dedication.

The Quingo has a sporty jet-ski style central steering column with a multi-coloured button array that James Bond would be proud of. Yes, this is street!”

After seeing more and more of these pimped street shoppers on the road/pavement I now ask why shouldn’t the owners of these wheels (all five of them) want something other than utilitarian transport?

Next time you’re in town just have a look. Goodbye flat paint – hello metallic. Just as the fast-food eating, baggy trousered brigade sacrifice style over sense (ever watched one of those customised cars trying to negotiate a speed ramp?) why shouldn’t  the owner of a ‘street’ shopper?

Maybe the old school style will regain its popularity at some point, but I suspect it will be consigned to our memories like so many other things from the 1970′s like Woolworths and white dog poo.

NB: I am aware of  Woolworths.co.uk but it’s hardly the same place that it was in the 1970′s where you could buy black plimsoles and realistic looking toy guns that fired caps.