pumpkinstrokemarrow

So moving onto my icon project, I find that a jar of Marmite sports four of the things, not counting registered trade mark signs, repeats, logos, medals or coats of arms (the things denoting royal favours of the purchasing variety). A jar of marmalade from Mr S. a measly two. But there is a very small diagram which almost counts. So say two and a half. A tin of baked beans from Mr H. runs to five. A box of mustard flour from Mr C. two. A tin shaped container made of cardboard and plastic containing drinking chocolate from another Mr C. is up to seven. A bottle of anchovy essence from Mr B. (Burgess for those who are going to fail to guess) is so old fashioned that it does not seem to have any. Whereas a tin of black treacle from Mr L. has kept up with the times, despite being a rather ancient product, and sports four. But the laurels have to go to a packet of pearl barley from Mr S. which has not only seven icons but also two small diagrams. Clearly a job creation scheme for all those artists piling out of art schools who are reduced to earning a crust as commercial artists (as opposed to the arty sort of artist).

The disease is in a particularly advanced state among the people who design the controls on cars and on computers. In the case of the former there is a related disease which consists in seeing how many functions you can hang off a stick hanging off the steering column. We have been driving a new Ford for getting on for a year now and I still have trouble with the sticks on the steering column, although on a good day I can now turn the windscreen wipers on and off.

Perhaps this is all evidence for the updated version of Parkinson's Law which states that the complexity of consumer facing systems varies as the square of the ability of computer systems to support them.

So when I get some ridiculously complicated document from EDF about my electricity charges, it is not at all that they are trying to bamboozle me with facts so that I do not have a clue about what I am actually paying, it is merely an unfortunate side effect of said updated version of Parkinson's Law.

And while we are on pet hates, I ought to mention the great double yellow line project being run by the council. Not sure if it is the borough or the county which is responsible. They have clearly been put up to it by the the Grand Federation of Road Marking Contractors and as a result we seem to have an army of people crawling around the housing estates of Epsom looking for places to plant double yellow lines. They then produce great wadges of consultation document so that we all have that little bit more to put in our recycling bins and, should argument arise, we are unable to argue that we do not have anything to recycle and so have not put the recycling bin out. Then one has lots of consultation and then the road markers are off. On completion, should business be slack, I imagine that some of them morph into double yellow line enforcement officers.

Now it is true that parking in some of said suburbs is a bit of a problem, with the number of vehicles per house reaching uncomfortable proportions. The recycling trucks cannot always get through at their accustomed speed. The Chelsea tractors are having trouble making it to school. But all the council has to do is wait for the relevant residents to come to them and ask for some double yellow lines. No need at all for them to be pro-active.