You may remember…. Who am I kidding? You almost certainly won’t remember that last week’s post dealt with the fact that, to quote a wise man (me) ‘what increasingly passes for progress these days… is actually nothing other than sales generation.’ Vance Packard, over 60 years ago, coined the term ‘planned obsolescence’ to describe what was even then a disturbing trend.

As I was pondering what to write about this week, it struck me that there was at least one more excellent example of one step forward, two steps back that I had originally planned to discuss, but had eventually left out, and, also, that there were a couple of follow-ups to last week’s post that I could easily bring up.

It then occurred to me that if, in a constant search for a new topic, I discarded a perfectly good topic from last week that still had lots of wear in it, I would be committing the same offence as the plastic packagers of batteries and the manufacturers of Velcro-fastened sandals.

So, in the interests of saving the planet, and to avoid appearing a hypocrite, I offer you a recycling of last week’s post.

First, let’s revisit the sandals. Lots to report here. I adopted the suggestion of my friend Joe in a comment he made last week, that I comb the Velcro to remove the fluff. Sadly, my last comb was sent for recycling decades ago. However, we still have, for no good reason, a nit comb, and so I have been dutifully combing my sandals. (Fortunately, I have a spare couple of minutes in the morning that I don’t need to spend combing my hair.) I must say, the Velcro is now sticking better, and it is a comfort to know that my feet will no longer face the threat of being attacked by lice. Thank you, Joe!

However, this feels like a short-term solution, and so on Sunday, as part of an exhaustive and exhausting day’s shopping in Jerusalem, I decided to pop into a long-established family shoestore in the city centre, to ask whether they had any sandals with a buckled heel-strap.

Of course, just before walking in I had to consult Google Translate to discover that the Hebrew for a buckle is ‘avzam’. Armed with this nugget, I walked in, and the first person I saw was, I assumed, a little boy whose mother had brought him in because he had grown out of his sandals.

I had to revise this assumption when he asked whether he could help me. I asked my buckle question, wondering whether he would even know what a buckle was. I was smugly gratified to note that he couldn’t answer my question, and had to ask the owner, who advised him to show me the Shakespeare model from the summer catalogue.

While I was trying to think of marketing puns for a Shakespeare sandal (I couldn’t come up with anything better than Two Gentlemen of Veruca, which can’t be easy to put a positive spin on), the infant found the catalogue and showed me the sandal, which did, indeed, sport a fine buckle. Before even bothering to ask to try it on, I asked the price. On discovering it was 450 shekels, I feigned a sneezing attack and beat a hasty retreat.

If past experience is anything to go by, I will hunt unsuccessfully elsewhere for a few weeks and then make my way back, wearing a mask this time so as not to be recognized, try them on, fall in love with them and buy them. (Oh! An-toenail and Cleopatra.)

And so to yet another backwards advance. Imagine, for a moment, that you have recently bought a new car. After a few weeks, when the weather suddenly gets much hotter, you decide you should really check the air pressure. So, when you are next filling up, you drive on to the air-pump, tooty down (that’s another wonderful Welsh word, particularly favoured in South Wales, that rhymes with ‘footy’ rather than ‘booty’, and that describes squatting, while sounding much more affectionate and less ugly than ‘squat’.)

You tooty down, as I said, by the front passenger tyre and search for the air valve. After a minute of fruitless searching, you decide to move to the rear passenger tyre, so you painfully pull yourself up by the door handle, wondering how South Wales miners were able to tooty down effortlessly for hours on end, well into their 70s) but on the rear tyre, as well, there is no air valve to be seen. Eventually, you call over an attendant, and, rather embarrassedly, explain your predicament. ‘I can’t seem to find the air valves.’ He looks at you as at a very young child, and calmly explains: ‘That’s because there aren’t any.’

‘What do you mean?’
‘There aren’t any air valves.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because the tyres on this car don’t have them.’
‘But then, how can I check the tyre pressure?’
‘You can’t.’
‘So how do I know if the tyre needs more air?’
‘The tyre goes flat.’
‘Anod how do I top up the pressure then.’
‘You can’t.’
‘So what do I do then? I can’t drive on a flat tyre.’
‘You buy a new tyre.’

I realise that this sounds completely surreal. I couldn’t really believe it myself as I was typing it just now. But think for a minute. This is exactly the stunt that the manufacturers have pulled on us, except they have pulled it not with tyres but with batteries.

Decades ago, you always carried in your boot three topping-up liquids: a bottle of water for the cooling system, a can of engine oil, and a bottle of distilled water, bought from the garage for a few pence, for topping up the cells of the battery. Dutifully unscrewing the cap of each of the six cells and carefully topping each one up made even me feel like a bona fide car mechanic. At some point, the six caps were replaced by a single bar with the six caps affixed, and removing and replacing the caps became a simpler task.

And then, suddenly, batteries were sold that had no removable caps, and we discovered that we were no longer able to top them up. The reason, we were told, was because the battery no longer required topping up; it would run, we were encouraged to believe, forever.

Except, of course, it doesn’t. Instead, it waits for the first wet November evening when you are 100 kilometres from home on an isolated and unlit stretch of the Jordan Valley road, and, if you are foolish enough to stop the car to hop out for a bathroom break, you find that the car won’t start again. Of course, the battery cannot be repaired. It is a sealed unit. You have to throw it away and buy a new one (which comes in considerably more expensive than a few bottles of distilled water, let me tell you).

Is there any logic in this, other than maximizing battery sales. And if that is the only logic, how long do you really think it will be before you are sold your first no-maintenance tyre, which never loses air,…until it does? Exactly.

(Ah! Awl’s Well that Ends Well and The Taming of the Shoe.)

I’ve just discovered another benefit of recycling last week’s topic. I already have a new topic for next week! Watch this space.

Finally, in the spirit of this week’s post, I am tempted to reprint last week’s photos of our two grandsons, but I couldn’t do that to you. So, instead, here are two brand-new holiday snaps (from two separate holidays).