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| Off your trolley | Off your trolley |
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| A POINT OF VIEW By Clive James Fitter, happier, always take a bag to the supermarket, never talk too loudly on the train... too few people choose to change their ways, but can technology make us behave? | A POINT OF VIEW By Clive James Fitter, happier, always take a bag to the supermarket, never talk too loudly on the train... too few people choose to change their ways, but can technology make us behave? |
| On my way to work I made my weekly stop-off at the mega-super-hypermarket in the shopping area-precinct-mall just between the motorway exit from the north and the outer rim of the congestion charge zone. | On my way to work I made my weekly stop-off at the mega-super-hypermarket in the shopping area-precinct-mall just between the motorway exit from the north and the outer rim of the congestion charge zone. |
| As I chose a shopping trolley from the ranks of hundreds of shopping trolleys in front of the vast retailing edifice, I at last realised the significance of the sign on the trolley that said it would stop when it got to the red line. | As I chose a shopping trolley from the ranks of hundreds of shopping trolleys in front of the vast retailing edifice, I at last realised the significance of the sign on the trolley that said it would stop when it got to the red line. |
| CLIVE JAMES For years I have been disgusted by the sight of shopping trolleys in otherwise pleasant brooks and creeks in which they have been merrily immersed by the nation's infinite supply of casual vandals Hear Radio 4's A Point of View I vowed to be positive in this series and yet it's taken me all this time to notice the most positive sign of the lot. For years I have been disgusted by the sight of shopping trolleys poking some of their structure above the surface of otherwise pleasant brooks and creeks in which they have been merrily immersed by the nation's infinite supply of casual vandals. | CLIVE JAMES For years I have been disgusted by the sight of shopping trolleys in otherwise pleasant brooks and creeks in which they have been merrily immersed by the nation's infinite supply of casual vandals Hear Radio 4's A Point of View I vowed to be positive in this series and yet it's taken me all this time to notice the most positive sign of the lot. For years I have been disgusted by the sight of shopping trolleys poking some of their structure above the surface of otherwise pleasant brooks and creeks in which they have been merrily immersed by the nation's infinite supply of casual vandals. |
| How can this be fixed? I would ask myself. It can't, I answered, because so large a proportion of the population can't be re-educated. But here we are already, looking at the day when nobody will be able to wheel a shopping trolley any further away from the supermarket than the red line before the wheels lock and the trolley stops. Unless the shopper wants to pick up the fully laden trolley and carry it to his boom-box car, that's where the trolley will remain. | How can this be fixed? I would ask myself. It can't, I answered, because so large a proportion of the population can't be re-educated. But here we are already, looking at the day when nobody will be able to wheel a shopping trolley any further away from the supermarket than the red line before the wheels lock and the trolley stops. Unless the shopper wants to pick up the fully laden trolley and carry it to his boom-box car, that's where the trolley will remain. |
| Triggered by the signal from the red line, the microchip built into the trolley has done its job. A problem posed by technological advance has been solved in the best way: by more technological advance. | Triggered by the signal from the red line, the microchip built into the trolley has done its job. A problem posed by technological advance has been solved in the best way: by more technological advance. |
| Not a plastic bag | Not a plastic bag |
| Surely the best answer to the plastic bag plague also lies in physics and chemistry, rather than in a change of morality. Ireland has got its total number of plastic bags down by about 80% just by taxing them, but the 20% left over are still enough to make the landscape hideous. Also it's undoubtedly a huge fuss always to remember to take your durable shopping bag with you to the store. | Surely the best answer to the plastic bag plague also lies in physics and chemistry, rather than in a change of morality. Ireland has got its total number of plastic bags down by about 80% just by taxing them, but the 20% left over are still enough to make the landscape hideous. Also it's undoubtedly a huge fuss always to remember to take your durable shopping bag with you to the store. |
| Just remember to take it with you to the shopsI can't remember whether I've said this before, but I'm getting to the time of my life when I can't remember anything, and although I can see myself buying a designer label permanent shopping bag, I can't see myself remembering to have it with me. What I want, what every sensible person wants, is a plastic bag that biodegrades. | Just remember to take it with you to the shopsI can't remember whether I've said this before, but I'm getting to the time of my life when I can't remember anything, and although I can see myself buying a designer label permanent shopping bag, I can't see myself remembering to have it with me. What I want, what every sensible person wants, is a plastic bag that biodegrades. |
| Some of them claim to do that already, but only by a percentage. Again, it's usually 20%. If the bag starts its 20% biodegradation immediately, you're left holding 80% of the bag, with 100% of your purchases all over the road. If the process takes time, then the effects will make little aesthetic difference. Nobody's going to look at the hedgerow lining a narrow country road and cheer that 20% of each plastic bag has gone, while there are still the usual few thousand plastic bags almost entirely present. | Some of them claim to do that already, but only by a percentage. Again, it's usually 20%. If the bag starts its 20% biodegradation immediately, you're left holding 80% of the bag, with 100% of your purchases all over the road. If the process takes time, then the effects will make little aesthetic difference. Nobody's going to look at the hedgerow lining a narrow country road and cheer that 20% of each plastic bag has gone, while there are still the usual few thousand plastic bags almost entirely present. |
| What industry has to do is come up with a bag that turns to a puff of dust after a certain date, preferably some time before the sea rises to drown civilization. It shouldn't be all that hard and I'm sure some great globalised company is already working on it. | What industry has to do is come up with a bag that turns to a puff of dust after a certain date, preferably some time before the sea rises to drown civilization. It shouldn't be all that hard and I'm sure some great globalised company is already working on it. |
| Until then, boneheads with boom-box cars will go on loading a dozen bulging plastic bags each into the back after the trolley has been abandoned, and will make sure, when they unload them, that the plastic bags are added to the landscape as usual. If people who travel in boom-box cars were open to rational persuasion not to dump their junk, they wouldn't be driving around in a broadcasting station. | Until then, boneheads with boom-box cars will go on loading a dozen bulging plastic bags each into the back after the trolley has been abandoned, and will make sure, when they unload them, that the plastic bags are added to the landscape as usual. If people who travel in boom-box cars were open to rational persuasion not to dump their junk, they wouldn't be driving around in a broadcasting station. |
| Blessed silence | Blessed silence |
| What should be done, then, about boom-box cars? Only a few days ago the car I was a passenger in was trapped just behind a 4x4 boom-box car in a traffic jam. The bass notes of the witless hip-hop anthem it was transmitting along with its emissions hit me repeatedly in the stomach. When I was young I might have walked up and said something to them and got hit in the stomach for real. As things were, I sat there planning the technology to retaliate. | What should be done, then, about boom-box cars? Only a few days ago the car I was a passenger in was trapped just behind a 4x4 boom-box car in a traffic jam. The bass notes of the witless hip-hop anthem it was transmitting along with its emissions hit me repeatedly in the stomach. When I was young I might have walked up and said something to them and got hit in the stomach for real. As things were, I sat there planning the technology to retaliate. |
| Boom chick-a-BOOMIt needs to be introduced into the boom-box car at the point of manufacture. There will be set levels of volume and duration so that the prospective purchaser and his dreadful friends can briefly get the stimulus they find necessary to life, but at anything beyond those levels the air conditioning system will instantly lower the temperature by 150C. Suddenly they'll be sitting there in a block of ice, silent for the first time in their benighted lives. | Boom chick-a-BOOMIt needs to be introduced into the boom-box car at the point of manufacture. There will be set levels of volume and duration so that the prospective purchaser and his dreadful friends can briefly get the stimulus they find necessary to life, but at anything beyond those levels the air conditioning system will instantly lower the temperature by 150C. Suddenly they'll be sitting there in a block of ice, silent for the first time in their benighted lives. |
| Public silence is a dying concept, as we know. We'll never get it back if we rely on the return of good manners, because the people who make a lot of noise have no idea that they are crossing a boundary: they think they are exercising a freedom. People who yell into mobile phones would look sincerely puzzled if you dared to interrupt them. How can you be bothered by a little thing like noise? | Public silence is a dying concept, as we know. We'll never get it back if we rely on the return of good manners, because the people who make a lot of noise have no idea that they are crossing a boundary: they think they are exercising a freedom. People who yell into mobile phones would look sincerely puzzled if you dared to interrupt them. How can you be bothered by a little thing like noise? |
| Only last week I was making a long train journey and there was a man in my carriage who maintained his cacophonous part in a single telephone conversation for 100 miles. During this intermittent uproar I feebly worked on mental plans for the kind of Heath Robinson device that would deal with him. | Only last week I was making a long train journey and there was a man in my carriage who maintained his cacophonous part in a single telephone conversation for 100 miles. During this intermittent uproar I feebly worked on mental plans for the kind of Heath Robinson device that would deal with him. |
| David Cameron, with a mobile phone, on a trainThe carriage would need a noise detector that reacted to any violation of a set limit by tripping a switch under the perpetrator's seat that would eject it and him through a flap in the roof and out into the speeding landscape. But fitting every seat in the train with such a facility would cost too much, and there would be the problem of littering, as the plastic bags in the hedgerows were joined by all those startled bodies. | David Cameron, with a mobile phone, on a trainThe carriage would need a noise detector that reacted to any violation of a set limit by tripping a switch under the perpetrator's seat that would eject it and him through a flap in the roof and out into the speeding landscape. But fitting every seat in the train with such a facility would cost too much, and there would be the problem of littering, as the plastic bags in the hedgerows were joined by all those startled bodies. |
| No, once again the matter will have to be dealt with by a technological advance included at the point of manufacture. What every new mobile phone needs is a small, simple, retractable hypodermic syringe to inject barbiturates into the phone user's earlobe when he or she exceeds the volume limit. The howling monologue would thus rapidly be replaced by a deep silence. | No, once again the matter will have to be dealt with by a technological advance included at the point of manufacture. What every new mobile phone needs is a small, simple, retractable hypodermic syringe to inject barbiturates into the phone user's earlobe when he or she exceeds the volume limit. The howling monologue would thus rapidly be replaced by a deep silence. |
| There could be a problem about the same system if the user is at the wheel of a car, because innocent people might be involved in the resulting crash. I'm still working on that, but there is no reason why competent engineers and pharmacologists should not be working already on the technology. | There could be a problem about the same system if the user is at the wheel of a car, because innocent people might be involved in the resulting crash. I'm still working on that, but there is no reason why competent engineers and pharmacologists should not be working already on the technology. |
| Feeling good | Feeling good |
| Public address systems in the park are another threat that could be easily neutralised. The park in front of our house would be bliss in summer if not for a rising incidence, on the weekend, of pre-charity-run gatherings in which the chief irrepressible enthusiast of the local community spirit committee asks the assembled multitude if they are all right. For some reason this worthily motivated pest always asks crowds of any size the same question, and at the top of her voice. | Public address systems in the park are another threat that could be easily neutralised. The park in front of our house would be bliss in summer if not for a rising incidence, on the weekend, of pre-charity-run gatherings in which the chief irrepressible enthusiast of the local community spirit committee asks the assembled multitude if they are all right. For some reason this worthily motivated pest always asks crowds of any size the same question, and at the top of her voice. |
| Keep the noise down, ladiesShe is already yelling when she asks this question of a group of three people she meets in the street, and when she is turned loose behind a microphone in front of 300 people in the park, she makes so much noise asking whether they are all right that she can probably be heard on the moon. What she needs is a microphone with a small attached reservoir primed to react to excess volume by plugging her mouth with a squirt of quick-drying polymer. | Keep the noise down, ladiesShe is already yelling when she asks this question of a group of three people she meets in the street, and when she is turned loose behind a microphone in front of 300 people in the park, she makes so much noise asking whether they are all right that she can probably be heard on the moon. What she needs is a microphone with a small attached reservoir primed to react to excess volume by plugging her mouth with a squirt of quick-drying polymer. |
| I should hasten to say, at this point, that I am not against charity runs. I am just against any attendant noise pollution, which exemplifies the difference between something we hope does good and something we know does damage. | I should hasten to say, at this point, that I am not against charity runs. I am just against any attendant noise pollution, which exemplifies the difference between something we hope does good and something we know does damage. |
| The polymer mouth-plug could be removed upon receipt of a written guarantee of silent behaviour and an undertaking to wear the plug prominently displayed, as a sign of repentance. Quite often the public nuisance is so dumb that he agrees to wear such a sign in advance. This is the useful aspect of the continuing tendency towards flaunting a face full of metal studs. People who do all that are telling you they are imbeciles from 100 yards away and all you have to do is turn down an alley. | The polymer mouth-plug could be removed upon receipt of a written guarantee of silent behaviour and an undertaking to wear the plug prominently displayed, as a sign of repentance. Quite often the public nuisance is so dumb that he agrees to wear such a sign in advance. This is the useful aspect of the continuing tendency towards flaunting a face full of metal studs. People who do all that are telling you they are imbeciles from 100 yards away and all you have to do is turn down an alley. |
| Lohan alert | Lohan alert |
| Another case of visibly identified imbecility proves that Lindsay Lohan has taken positive steps to redeem herself through technology, or anyway steps have been taken on her behalf. | Another case of visibly identified imbecility proves that Lindsay Lohan has taken positive steps to redeem herself through technology, or anyway steps have been taken on her behalf. |
| The tag beeped if Lindsay drankWe are told that an anklet was fitted to Lindsay Lohan in order to monitor how much alcohol she drinks. Before I could figure out whether the anklet told the police or Lindsay Lohan, there was news that some of her fans were already copying her anklet. | The tag beeped if Lindsay drankWe are told that an anklet was fitted to Lindsay Lohan in order to monitor how much alcohol she drinks. Before I could figure out whether the anklet told the police or Lindsay Lohan, there was news that some of her fans were already copying her anklet. |
| This seems likely to be the anklet's most desirable function. The anklet was already useful to help tell us that Lindsay Lohan was in the vicinity, if we hadn't already been tipped off by the approaching press conference, and now we will know if anybody who admires Lindsay Lohan has just joined us on the top deck of the bus. | This seems likely to be the anklet's most desirable function. The anklet was already useful to help tell us that Lindsay Lohan was in the vicinity, if we hadn't already been tipped off by the approaching press conference, and now we will know if anybody who admires Lindsay Lohan has just joined us on the top deck of the bus. |
| Put your trust in our powers of invention. If the can of fizzy drink pointlessly carried by every cockily shambling young male dimwit could be rigged so as to degrade suddenly when the can was still half-full, the disposal problem would be solved and the trousers of the can's proud owner would be soaked in a suitably punitive manner. I can't imagine that this smart can technology would cost any more than redesigning the London Olympics logo. | Put your trust in our powers of invention. If the can of fizzy drink pointlessly carried by every cockily shambling young male dimwit could be rigged so as to degrade suddenly when the can was still half-full, the disposal problem would be solved and the trousers of the can's proud owner would be soaked in a suitably punitive manner. I can't imagine that this smart can technology would cost any more than redesigning the London Olympics logo. |
| Add your comments on this story, using the form below. | Add your comments on this story, using the form below. |
| "Also it's undoubtedly a huge fuss always to remember to take your durable shopping bag with you to the store." "Undoubtedly" and "a huge fuss" mustn't mean what I think they mean any more. I don't find it a fuss to carry money or a watch because I recognise the value of carrying those things. My Gran for example didn't consider having needle, thread, salt and vinegar on her person nearly every day of her adult life a fuss because they came in useful so often (one particularly pleasant afternoon on the beach with chips can attest to this for me). Similarly ever since I started carrying a bag of one sort or another most of the time I've found it a life-saver on (to use Clive's hyperbole) innumerable occasions. I don't believe that banning or reducing the accessibility of plastic bags will solve the problems of the world in one fell swoop. Importantly though it will help a bit and when this comes in exchange for only a little inconvenience that doesn't seem a bad dealPaul D'Ambra, Manchester | |
| But where IS the supermarket red line? Purely in the interests of self knowledge and scientific enquiry I surreptitiously search around for it every time I go to Tesco, but haven't found one yet. I have come to the sad conclusion that it's the supermarket equivalent of your Granny's dire warnings about eating apple pips, picking spots or going out without a cardigan in April, you know it's not really true but you don't do it - just in case. Vicky, East london | |
| An absolute gem, Clive. I am in tears of laughter.Oliver Hale, Wallingford, UK | |
| I use my faithful shopping bag when I only need a few items, but am paranoid about dropping something into the bag rather than the store's wire basket, and find myself making a production out of proving the bag is empty when I reach the checkout. If you're shopping for a family for a week, you need quite a few bags but where do you put them while you're shopping? If you lay them in the bottom of the trolley you can't pack as the food goes through the till and you hold up the queue. If you carry them around your hands are too full to steer and select what you want. Bio-degradable plastic is better than nothing, but all that will happen is rather than one carrier bag caught up in a tree, as it disintigrates there will be dozens of bits flapping away instead. Di Rayburn, Bracknell, UK. | |
| There's only one problem with the red line trolley concept. With a large number of grocery sacks I do need to wheel it to my car. And yes, I do put it back in the designated return area. Perhaps it could drive itself back? Or perhaps the young people that gather them up could be given a radio control device to drive them back? It would certainly liven up their jobs by circling the shoppers and following them round to the sound of the Jaws theme.Candace, New Jersey, US | |
| I can't help with all your problems but at the very least a pocket mobile phone jammer would keep the train carriage quiet, thats providing you're ok with radio frequency noise, well at least its quietAlex, | |
| Oh yes!! I must say that this is one of the wittiest of Clive's renewed series so far - so much so that I am hoping no-one comes into the office until I have stopped crying with laughter!! Boom box cars frozen into solid blocks of ice, ejectors seats in trains - hysterical!!! Of course, no doubt that my laughter at these things is a sign of my getting older, but who cares!! Keep up the good work Clive, you are keeping us young with all this laughter!Chris, Nazareth, Israel | |
| I used to enjoy the train journey from London to deepest Essex, taking in the landscape in silent admiration, but the advent of mobile phones has ended that pleasure. I now listen to an MP3 player to drown out the inane chatter, but with special in-ear phones so I don't noise pollute, as I have manners, unlike some.Foday Kamara, London | |
| Just a short thought for Clive.'a bag that turns to a puff of dust after a certain date, preferably some time before the sea rises to drown civilization'. The carbon locked up in those non degrading bags is one of the things helping to stop the sea rising to drown civilisation.Mike, york | |