The Customer Is Always Right

We recently had to move mother into the family home. Difficult times all round and some adjustments have to be made. To this end I wrote to Stannah Stairlifts thusly:

Dear Stannah,

I’ve always admired your adverts on the television. The site of Thora Hird whizzing up the banister brought a ray of sunshine to many an episode of ‘Countdown’, especially when they insisted on having that vile Richard Stilgoe character on the show. He’s very fond making ‘amusing’ anagrams of people’s names but is conspicuously quiet on the fact that an anagram of his own name is Corgi Shitelard.

I’m still a fit and able-bodied man myself, so for me to use your product would be an act of wilful laziness. Three years in the army taught me many things, such as how to bandage an amputated leg, how to start a fire in a swamp and how to ask “How much for both of us?” in Korean. But the main thing it taught me was that laziness is a vice.

No, I am interested in some information not for myself, but for my mother. Mother is a fiercely independent person, used to living alone. I cannot condone what she called the Nigerian Meals On Wheels woman, but it does point to her wish to look after herself. However, in recent months it has become clear that this is no longer an option.

We started noticing the unusual smell when my wife & I would visit. At first she blamed this on the new people next door but it soon became clear that this was not the fault of the Guptas (a lovely family) but my mother’s inability to use her upstairs bathroom.

Mother also used to be a formidable cook. Her bread and butter pudding was infamous throughout our family and many still believe it to have played no small hand in Uncle Mortimer’s stroke. But recently we noticed that her kitchen was awash with microwave meals and Pot Noodles. Either mother had a student lodger, we thought, or she’s not able to fend for herself. Sadly the latter turned out to be true.

So, mother now lives with us. It’s not entirely convenient, but we’re coping the best we can. And the new conservatory bought with the proceeds from selling her house cheers her up no end. Or will do, I’m sure, once she’s allowed in it. This may sound cruel but I don’t feel that parquet flooring and incontinence mix.

Anyway, to my questions about your products. Firstly, is there an upper weight limit to the apparatus? Mother is not a slight woman, and I’d hate to have your engineers around the place every five minutes, despite my wife’s feelings on this matter. Secondly, are the stairlifts terribly difficult to be tampered with? I ask merely for my own information.

I look forward to your response.

Yours etc.

Still no response from the Stannah people. I think this might put a rocket under them though. And just in time for bonfire night.

Dear Stannah,

I am disappointed by your lack of response to my perfectly reasonable questions about your products. To whit, how fat does your chosen elderly need to be before they render them unusable and how easy, or rather how difficult, is it to tinker with the mechanism?

I am a potential customer and as such you could be throwing away thousands of pounds by not furnishing me with the information needed to make a purchasing decision. If you doubt this, just ask my local bakery. Their refusal to assure me that their French fancies were not, in fact, baked by a French person has cost them dearly.

Your sluggishness has also inspired me to look at alternatives and I think I may have come up with an idea that could put you out of business. Ask yourself this – why do the seniors generally want to go upstairs? To go to bed, to do toilet duties, take a bath or maybe have a quick shufty through their photo albums and have a bit of a cry.

Now rather than having to use your (if I may say) rather ponderous ride to get upstairs, I have devised a method that is 50 times quicker, is cheaper, and uses no electricity. And we all know how much they like to have a bit of a moan about using electricity. I sometimes wonder why they don’t just whack the heating on and hang the expense. The court system is murderously slow and the chances of them still being alive when the bailiffs come is a gamble worth taking.

Anyway my system is this (and I’d shy away from plagiarism if I were you. One of my like-minded friends has every episode of “Rumpole” on video and wouldn’t hesitate to whack you with a writ.). A fireman’s pole is installed in the living room, poking up into the bedroom above. The pole has a seat attached to it. And attached to the seat are a set of counterbalanced weights. I weigh the old dear when installing to make sure it works and hope no wasting disease mucks the whole system up.

They could then whizz up and down the pole to their heart’s content. And it might make the grandchildren more likely to visit with a ride like that at granny’s house. I think it’s a winner but I can’t wait for the investment to come flooding in to use it for my own situation. So if you could answer my initial questions I would be awfully grateful.

Yours etc.

I was saddened to read that once more our Communist press were trying to besmirch the good name of one of out fine upstanding Tory MPs.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_headline=exclusive%2D-top-tory-dumps-wife-for-man%26method=full%26objectid=17992356%26siteid=94762-name_page.html
I wanted to offer my support and wrote to him thusly:

Dear MP Barker,

I am writing to you to offer my wholehearted support at what must be a very difficult time. I understand that you have recently parted from your wife and children and are now living the life of the gay bachelor.

I once had to spend a week living in the potting shed after an ill-advised comment I made about my sister-in-law’s breasts in front of the wife. So when I say I know what you’re going through, believe me I do. I only hope your wife was understanding enough to allow you to gather a few items together before you left. I was reduced to wearing one of my nephew’s dreadful rock group t shirts for three days and some stern questions were asked down the bridge club as to what exactly an “Anal C**t” was.

I find it disgraceful that the media should intrude in the manner that they have. If a man chooses to leave his wife and children after years of marriage, then that’s his own business. And if he chooses to move in with a close male chum, that’s also his own business. And if the man in question is an MP with a long track record of voting against pro-gay legislature…well…I suppose that is the electorate’s business but I dare swear you had a very good reason.

Just because your party fashions itself around old-fashioned family values doesn’t mean you actually have to adhere to those values yourself. “Do as I say, not as I do.”. That’s what my old games teacher used to tell us as he watched us shower. The brass neck of the media to imply that your recent behaviour may display some sort of rank hypocrisy really turns my stomach.

I too have had to bear the brunt of nasty innuendo. Not against myself, of course. I love the ladies, always have, always will, nothing’s going to change that, I’m 100% man. Those years spent in Korea with the army don’t really count. You do what you have to do to get by.

No, the insinuations I speak of have been against my daughter, who now lives in Sydney with her female chum Spike. Some people have made pointed remarks about the fact their flat only has one bedroom. My daughter assures me that rent prices in Sydney have precluded her getting a bigger place and I have chosen to believe her. And she tells me that her regular attendance at the carnival ‘those lot’ have every year is merely because she likes the pretty outfits. Now what could be more normal than that for a young girl? The tattoos of Amazon women across her back are a bit of a worry, though.

Anyway, I hope things are well with you. Follow the advice of the great Iron Lady herself – “The lady’s not for turning” she said. And neither, I’m sure, are you.

Yours etc.

After reading news that the good people of Iceland had started whale-hunting again, I decided to write to them to offer my support:

Dear Iceland,

I read with interest that your country has decided to resurrect the traditional and essentially harmless pastime of firing spears through the heads of whales and dragging them ashore.

I fear that over the coming weeks you may get a glut of messages from so-called ‘do-gooders’ who will try to convince you that such behaviour is wrong. Well, as one of your countrymen was wont to say on our television (You have television in Iceland I assume? The shipping forecast must be a big hit.) “You’ve started, so you’ll finish.”!
(Not ‘Finnish’, you understand. Entirely different race, the Finns. They’re overly fond of that gloomy metal music my nephew insists on blasting out behind his locked bedroom door. If the miserable little toad washed occasionally and went outside once in a while, he wouldn’t have to listen to such miserable dreck.)

At least, you’ve started so you’ll finish once you’re out of whales. I suppose you’d then have to start harpooning cod or something. You take your pleasures where you find them, I say. At least, I said that to my wife after that whole sales conference secretary ‘incident’.

Anyway, I do feel that if some of these fringe lunatics (such as Greenpeace, the IWC & the European Commission) were to see the glorious spectacle of a whale hunt, they’d soon change their minds. The salty spray in the face of the sailors. The excitement of the chase between two perfectly matched foes – a man on a 200-ton boat armed with a jet-powered explosive harpoon versus a fish. The bold splash of red as the whale blood gushes out onto the rocks of the bay. Who could watch that and wish to ban it?

We’ve had our own troubles in this country with hunting. I shan’t bore you with the details but suffice to say a similar group of Trotskyite ne’er do wells managed to ban the hunting of a type of vermin in this country (They’re called foxes – imagine skinny seals with arms and legs.) One of their feeble excuses was that we never ate the kill afterwards. Now, I’ve read that the majority of whale meat gathered by your brothers-in-spears in Japan has been stockpiled due to lack of interest. It’s not stopped that industrious little nation and neither should it stop you. So what if the meat is never eaten? I’ve got a bag of couscous that’s been in the cupboard for two years and I don’t see a band of scruffy tree-huggers marching down my mews. Well, except when my nephew’s friends visit him, anyway.

As your spokesman has said, there seems to be enough whales around your neck of the woods, so how can they be endangered? I was once thrown out of London Zoo when I was found near the giant panda enclosure with a pistol and can you believe that when I used the very same reasoning as your spokesman, I was thrown out on my ear? The place was teeming with giant pandas. Surely they wouldn’t miss one?

And then there are those who insist whales are to be watched, rather than harpooned for pleasure and maybe some sandwich filling. Nonsense. People like that don’t understand that after years of watching harmless, beautiful and rare creatures, man’s natural instinct is to challenge them to a fight. I imagine the real reason Adam & Eve were thrown out of Eden was when God found Adam rabbit-punching a unicorn in a headlock shouting “Take that, you smug bastard.”

Fear not about this proposed ‘tourism ban’, either. Since Bjork moved to Primrose Hill I can’t imagine there’s much reason to visit Iceland for most people. I, however, will soon be organising a trip with my wife and a group of like-minded individuals who share your free-spirited view toward wildlife. On that point, I have two questions:
What are the best beaches in Iceland to see seals frolicking around the place as nature intended? And secondly, what permits would one need to take a shotgun into your wonderful country?

I look forward to your response and hope that my resisting the temptation to make a puerile comment about a chain of supermarkets will show the seriousness of my missive.

Yours etc.

I trust this message of goodwill is appreciated. I shall keep you updated of any replies.

Well, the Icelandic ambassador replied. I thought he’d be as busy as a bee, but the length of his reply would suggest otherwise:

Thank you for your correspondence concerning Iceland?s policy on
whaling.
I wish to assure you that Iceland has no intention of catching any of
the endangered species of whales, killed on a large scale by other whaling
nations in the past. Iceland?s resumption of sustainable whaling only
involves abundant stocks and is linked to Iceland?s overall policy of
sustainable utilisation of marine resources.
Several countries catch whales, most of them on a much bigger scale
than Iceland. The biggest whaling countries among the members of the
International Whaling Commission (IWC) are the United States, Russia,
Norway, Japan and Greenland. The whaling operations practiced by all those
countries, as well as Iceland, are sustainable and legal and in accordance
with the rules of the IWC.
Iceland fully appreciates the need for careful conservation of marine
resources. Our economy depends on those resources as marine products
constitute around 60% of Iceland?s revenue from exported goods and almost
40% of all Icelandic exported goods and services. Disruption of the
ecological balance in Icelandic waters due to overfishing or other reasons
could have catastrophic consequences for the livelihood of Icelanders.
As you may know, Iceland was among the first countries in the world
to extend its fishery limits to 200 nautical miles in the year 1975, in
order to put an end to the uncontrolled fishing around Iceland by trawlers
from other countries. Since then Iceland has taken great care in
maintaining balanced and sustainable fishing in Icelandic waters by
enforcing an effective management system for various fish species including
cod, herring and capelin.
Iceland takes pride in its pioneering work in this field, which has
been emulated by many countries in the world wishing to avoid unsustainable
practices. The annual catch quotas for fishing and whaling are based on
recommendations by scientists, who regularly monitor the status of the
stocks, thus ensuring that the activity is sustainable.
For a number of years, Iceland has acknowledged the need for
scientific research on whales to gain a better understanding of the
interaction between the different whale stocks and other marine species and
the role of whales in the marine ecosystem. Therefore, Iceland began
implementing a research plan on minke whales in 2003. So far, 161 minke
whales have been taken and we look forward to the completion of the
research plan in 2007 when the sample size of 200 minke whales has been
obtained. Whaling quotas will take into account the number of whales that
are taken in the implementation of the research plan, ensuring that the
total number remains well below sustainable levels.
There are many different whale species and stocks in the world's
oceans. Some are in a poor state and in need of protection. However, many
whale populations are far from being threatened or endangered. The total
stock size of Central North-Atlantic minke whales, for example, is close to
70,000 animals. Of those, around 43,600 live in Icelandic coastal waters.
Fin whales in the Central North Atlantic number around 25,800 animals. Both
estimates have been agreed by consensus by the Scientific Committees of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and the North-Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAMMCO).
Iceland?s decision to resume sustainable whaling involves takes of 30
minke whales and nine fin whales, during the current fishing year which
ends on 31 August 2007. This will bring the total catches of minke whales
in Icelandic waters during this fishing year to 69, including the minke
whales taken in completing the research plan. These takes equal less than
0.2% of the number of minke whales in Icelandic coastal waters, an even
smaller fraction of the total stock, and less than 0.04% of fin whales in
the Central North Atlantic. Both are considered to be close to
pre-exploitation levels and estimated sustainable annual catch levels are
200 and 400 fin and minke whales respectively. As the catch limits now
issued are much lower, the catches will not have a significant impact on
whale stocks. A responsible management system will ensure that the catch
quotas set will not be exceeded. The catches are clearly sustainable and
therefore consistent with the principle of sustainable development.
Iceland?s resumption of sustainable whaling is legal under
international law. At the time of the re-entry of Iceland into the IWC,
Iceland made a reservation with respect to the so-called moratorium on
commercial whaling. As a part of that reservation, Iceland committed itself
not to authorise commercial whaling before 2006 and thereafter not to
authorise such whaling while progress was being made in negotiating the
IWC?s Revised Management Scheme (RMS), a management framework for
commercial whaling.
At the IWC?s Annual Meeting in 2005, Iceland went on record
expressing its regret that no progress was being made in the RMS
discussions. At this year?s IWC Annual Meeting, Iceland?s judgement of the
situation was reconfirmed as the IWC generally agreed that talks on an RMS
had reached an impasse. As a result, Iceland?s reservation has taken
effect. Therefore, Iceland is no longer bound by the so-called moratorium
on commercial whaling. In this respect, Iceland is in the same position as
other IWC members that are not bound by the moratorium.
Iceland was one of the first countries in the world to realize the
importance of a conservation approach to whaling. As signs of
overexploitation of whales emerged early in the last century, Iceland
declared a ban on whaling for large whales around Iceland in 1915. Whaling was not resumed until 1948, except for limited catches 1935-1939. Strict rules and limitations were applied to whaling in Iceland from 1948 to 1985 when all commercial whaling was halted again following a decision by the IWC.
Iceland has been a leading advocate for international cooperation in
ensuring sustainable use of living marine resources, including whales. This
has been the position taken by Iceland within the IWC, based on the
International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling from 1946. The
stated role of the IWC, according to its founding Convention, is to
?provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible
the orderly development of the whaling industry?.
I hope that this information will be useful to you in understanding
Iceland?s position on sustainable whaling. You may rest assured, that the
desire to ensure the conservation of the whale stocks around Iceland and
elsewhere is fully shared by the Icelandic Government.
Sincerely yours,
Sverrir Haukur Gunnlaugsson,
Ambassador

Interesting use of question marks but jolly nice of him to take the time, I thought, and replied thusly:

Dear Iceland,

I appreciate you speedy response to my email. Here was I, worrying that your reply would be delayed due to the deluge of correspondence you’d receive from animal rights activists (for activist read ‘communist’, in my view) and the general majority of the public who’ve watched “Finding Nemo” once too often and think that just because an animal is considered intelligent, defenceless and graceful it gets a free ride in life.

Frankly, I’ve had to watch my nephew cruise through his blighted existence without lifting a finger and he has none of these qualities. That’s enough to turn my stomach alone without worrying about some overgrown cod.

So anyway, well done on your promptness. My wife rather cynically suggested that yours was a generic response that needed to be drafted due to overwhelming public condemnation, and was automatically sent to anybody mentioning whale hunting. She started waffling on about the fact I was supporting the whale hunt yet your email seemed to be a defensive one, almost as if you hadn’t read it and expected every missive to be critical of this generally-derided practice. That was until the valium in her cocoa kicked in. I can cope with her strident tones until 930pm, no later. I’m a patient man but I have my limits.

So anyway, about your email. I really don’t think you should be worrying whether the Fin Whales you slaughter are endangered or not. Although I suspect having a ten-foot shard of metal through the skull would endanger most animals. The US Fish & Wildlife Service and The International Conservation Union Red List seem to think the Fin Whale is endangered, in the case of the ICURL as recently as this May. However, I’m sure lots of little Fin Whales have been born since May and I’m not about to believe the word of two internationally-respected wildlife agencies over the word of a government minister. It would be a sad day for democracy in Iceland and England if we start believing the experts over our elected betters.

Even if they are endangered, I look at it this way: endangered animals are treated better than most humans (certainly better than I was treated by my wife after having an innocent drink with a work colleague at a motorway hotel one Saturday evening). They have protected spaces, their diet is checked, they even have people to pop around with potential bedroom partners. Much simpler than inventing a weekend meeting about a trade fair. I imagine. So being endangered is a far cushier lifestyle than being abundant. So by pushing these animals to the brink of extinction, you’re giving the remaining ones a much higher standard of living. And are you applauded for this? No. Disgraceful.

I read your statement about extending your fishing waters out to 200 miles in 1975. I remember that whole unpleasant affair and all I will say is that I let bygones be bygones, the best man won in the end, and the need for our warships to mooch around your island to ensure our lads weren’t being roughed up was purely a precaution. If I can buy Fray Bentos corned beef, I’m sure I can buy your (or rather, our) cod.

And you are right that yours is not the biggest culprit of whaling and that China catches far more whales than you. In fact, if your island of 300,000 people could keep up with a country like China (population 1.3 billion and counting, despite their robust attitude toward giving birth to girls) then I’d be more impressed by your little nation than I currently already am.

It is a sensible defence and one that should be used more often in world politics. Maybe North Korea could give a whirl, do you think? “Hang on, Johnny Foreigner” that chap with the glasses could say “I’ve only got one nuclear weapon, and I’ve already used that. You chaps have got thousands of the blighters”

I would like an answer to my previous question re the seals and the shotguns, though. Hunting in England is a drab affair. Once you’ve bagged two dozen badgers, your interest wanes. The thought of blasting an entire family of seals into the next life, now there’s a challenge I’m sure as an Icelander you would relish.

I apologise for not replying in Icelandic, and congratulate you on your English. I was going to reply with little lines through all the letter “O”’s, but thought that might be a bit patronising.

Yours etc.

I look forward to his reply with some trepidation. His prose is like an evening in bed with my wife - long, dry and rather tedious.

A reply. Of sorts.

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your reply, as the Ambassador is away, for information, please look at the webpage of the Ministry for Fisheries for further information,
http://eng.sjavarutvegsraduneyti.is/

Best regards,
Ágústa

Ágústa Óskarsdóttir,
Embassy of Iceland,

Well, I don’t know what they call it in Iceland – probably something like Ooouanggsrtaauningononon – but from where I’m from that’s called the brush-off. I’m going to head down to the travel agents forthwith and cancel my little hunting spree immediately. And if they think I’m eating their seafood again, they can go and tickle.

A like-minded friend has told my good things about Vietnam as a hunting venue. Apparently, for about fifty quid, you can blow up a water-buffalo with a bazooka. Now that’s more like it…