Stop the World, I Want to Get Off... Read online

  Stanway, Essex

  SIR — I am reminded of my late father who, upon finding in later years that the sound on his television was not so clear, discovered that holding a scallop shell to the ear offered significant amplification.

  A later modification allowed for an elastic band to be looped over the ear to trap the scallop shell (or latterly shells) in place, thus leaving the hands free.

  Robert Rowland

  Evesham, Worcestershire

  SIR — Some years ago, when my recently divorced mother moved to South London, her widowed neighbour asked if she would like to come to Ascot with him. She was delighted to accept, and turned up for the trip wearing her best frock and a new hat.

  The neighbour complimented her, saying, “My, you look lovely.”

  “Well, I want to look my best for Ascot,” she replied.

  “No, no, I said Asda,” he said, somewhat embarrassed.

  He had had in mind a shopping trip, and my dear mother was somewhat hard of hearing.

  Sadly, she died not long afterwards, and we buried her in Putney Vale cemetery, ironically adjacent to the same supermarket. I suggested putting “Gone to Ascot” on the tombstone, but was overruled by my unamused family.

  A.D.

  Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire

  SIR — After reading your obituaries for many years, I finally find that, in today’s newspaper, I am older than all three who are honoured.

  Is this an achievement?

  Rev Michael A. Bentley (age 81 and one twelfth)

  Bracknell, Berkshire

  SIR — Definition of aged: when your children are discussing their retirement plans with each other.

  Ken Wells

  Bognor Regis, West Sussex

  SIR — I am rather worried by your report that regular churchgoers live longer. I am Jewish.

  P.F.

  Mere, Wiltshire

  SIR — Some years ago, when my father was approaching 80, he needed a new pair of shoes. He made his selection at the shop and asked if the shoes would wear well.

  He was a little hurt when the young assistant replied: “Oh yes, they’ll see you out.”

  Peter Gibbs

  Taunton, Somerset

  SIR — I was delighted when, during a medical check-up following my recent 76th birthday, the doctor told me that I was in good shape for my age.

  I was not so pleased when he added: “The only thing that gives it away is your face.”

  Robert Readman

  Bournemouth, Dorset

  SIR — As an interested party, I note with some concern the number of men who are dying in their seventies. I shall be glad when I turn 80 and the danger is averted.

  Roy Bailey

  Great Shefford, Berkshire

  SIR — Dame Judy Dench has had a tattoo to celebrate her 81st birthday. I can only say that she will probably come to regret it when she grows old.

  Peter Bailey

  Cardiff

  SIR — Your reporter thinks old people are invisible here in the UK. She should come to Swindon: people are forever telling me to get out of the way.

  Jim Brooks

  Stanton Fitzwarren, Wiltshire

  SIR — Your paper urges employers not to consign workers in their seventies to their rocking chairs.

  When I was in my eighties I was employed in the call centre of a housing association. Most of my co-workers were young married women.

  Once I was instructed to attend a seminar organised by my employers on “Harassment at Work”. Two ex-policemen lectured us at length and then asked the attendees in turn whether they had experienced harassment.

  I explained that I had only been in my present position for a short time and had not experienced any sexual harassment to date, but that I was living in hope.

  Sid Davies

  Bramhall, Cheshire

  SIR — I watched with awe the magnificently athletic Angela Rippon presenting How to Stay Young, which seeks to promote a healthy lifestyle for the elderly. One of the “tests for suppleness and core strength” involved lowering oneself to the floor from a standing position and standing up again without using one’s arms.

  I attempted this in the privacy of my own bedroom and managed to lower myself to a cross-legged (and cross-eyed) position on the floor. Sadly, when I attempted to stand up again, I lost my balance and careered backwards into a very substantial solid oak dressing table. I fractured my leg in two places and cracked three ribs.

  Ken Grimrod-Smythe

  Ingbirchworth, South Yorkshire

  SIR — I could not help but be impressed by your photograph of the Rolling Stones. Nature has been kind to these septuagenarians: not an ounce of fat on any of them; they all have a great head of hair; and they look better than most of the old buffers in my golf club living a healthy life in the Algarve sunshine.

  There must be something in all that sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll after all.

  Jane Rackham

  Almancil, Portugal

  SIR — My wife is deaf and we had the following conversation recently:

  “Aren’t you playing golf this morning?”

  “No, I’m not. There is a trolley ban.”

  “What?”

  “THERE IS A TROLLEY BAN.”

  “How come you can’t play golf because of the Taliban?”

  K.H.

  Bollington, Cheshire

  GOLF COURSE BITCHES

  SIR — Muirfield’s decision not to allow women members comes as no surprise to me. In the late 1950s my then fiancée took me to Preswick, his all-male Scottish club, and enquired about paying a green fee.

  “It’s a ten shilling fine to take a dog around the course but nothing for a woman,” came the dour reply.

  My status of being lower than a dog prepared me well for 55 years of marriage, where I have sometimes had to take second place to a series of black Labrador bitches.

  Liz Young

  Long Marston, Hertfordshire

  SIR — Many years ago, as a US Marine Corps Doctor attached to the Grenadier Guards, I remember a young titled officer being asked by a Scottish visitor to the regiment if he was a golfer.

  He recoiled in visible horror and replied: “My father taught me that a golf club was merely a Sergeants’ Mess with Jaguars.”

  Dr Geoffrey Francis

  Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA

  SIR — As the length of my drives has become a problem, I have been wondering if it is too late in life to self-define as a lady golfer and play off their tees. I am in the throes of composing a letter to my club, the R&A. As it now admits ladies it should really only be a question of changing locker-rooms.

  Rev Dr John Cameron

  St Andrews, Fife

  THE DRONE SEASON

  SIR — Your correspondents are wondering how to discourage drones. Just add them to the “shooting list”, as with game. Any game over my land is mine to shoot. There will be no need for seasons as drones are not known to breed.

  What shot size would be recommended?

  Ian Clark

  London SE8

  SIR — Having recently experienced a drone hovering over the roof windows of my large, open-plan kitchen, I too am worried about the invasion of privacy.

  The only consolation was the satisfaction that, on looking at any recorded footage, the operator might be shocked to see my teenage son, dressed in in a black curly wig and 46-inch bell-bottom trousers, preparing for a 1970s fancy-dress party by throwing Saturday Night Fever moves with great gusto, while his mother stuck two fingers up at the drone and shouted obscenities at the drone out of the back door.

  I hope I adequately demonstrated the behaviour of the real housewives of Cheshire.

  Stella Currie

  Bramhall, Cheshire

  SIR — As a member of The Drones Club, Bertie Wooster was clearly well ahead of his time.

  Tony Greenham

  Sutton, Cheshire

  UNHAPPY SHOPPERS

  SIR — Your photogr
aph depicts scores of people on Oxford Street participating in the Boxing Day sales, presumably with a view to saving money or enjoying the experience in some other way which is lost on many of us. What does it tell us about the modern world that every single one of them looks so unhappy?

  Sam Kelly

  Dobcross, Lancashire

  SIR — I saw a photograph of a mass of unkempt and unhappy people pressed against the door of a building. I assumed they were refugees desperate for registration.

  On reading the caption it said they were waiting to purchase the latest iPhone.

  Q.D. McGill

  Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands

  SIR — If only other stores would follow Marks & Spencer’s music ban I could dispense with my earplugs — and my mortified daughter would come shopping with me again. She has refused to do so since 2008 when I called a shop manager outside and asked to be served on the pavement.

  Lesley Thompson

  Lavenham, Suffolk

  SIR — Last year my partner split the seam in her trousers while having to bend down very low to look at the underwear in BHS. In her disgust she put a curse on them. Look what has happened since.

  D.G.

  Norwich

  SIR — It has occurred to me that if the Duchess of Cambridge had been photographed wearing an outfit from BHS perhaps it might have saved the company.

  Stephen Ennis

  Thames Ditton, Surrey

  DEDICATED FAULTFINDERS OF FASHION

  SIR — Could the men’s clothes shown in the Telegraph this week explain why my wife finds it difficult to find curtain material nowadays?

  Bruce Cochrane

  Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire

  SIR — Finally, after 78 years, I have reached the pinnacle of fashion. The surgical stockings I am wearing after a recent operation match the stockings of the Gucci girl on page 11 of yesterday’s Telegraph.

  Margaret Baker

  Poole, Dorset

  SIR — Proof of my husband’s reluctance to buy new clothes was shown when he opened a Father’s Day card showing a picture of him and our then five-year-old daughter. He is wearing a blue and white check shirt which he still wears regularly. Said daughter is now 42 years old.

  Susan Cumber

  Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk

  SIR — I was interested to read the report that Alice bands are returning to fashion. I wonder whether this has been accelerated by the increasing number of people who choose to wear their spectacles and sunglasses, even on dull days, on their heads.

  Richard Baxter

  Shelton, Staffordshire

  SIR — I visit London infrequently, and normally dress in my “tidy London clothes”. I am bewildered by at least half the people I come across being dressed as Michelin men (even in the very mild weather), and/or being wired up to various electronic devices.

  Have the Martians finally arrived?

  Mary von Westenholz

  Ware, Hertfordshire

  SIR — Around 4.15 this evening, in Sloane Square, I walked passed a Met policeman in uniform with his hands in his pockets, an open-neck shirt and no tie. Is this now the norm?

  In despair,

  Simon Davie

  London SW1

  SIR — I read with interest (in your review of Dan Jones’s book on King John) the views of Richard of Devizes following a visit to London in the 12th century. Apparently it was full of “actors, jesters, smooth-skinned lads, Moors, flatterers, pretty boys, effeminates, singing and dancing girls, quacks, beggars and buffoons.”

  I visited London last week…

  Johnny Cameron

  Fyfield, Wiltshire

  SIR — I have happily worn my red corduroy trousers throughout many, many winters. Indeed, when I give them a rest, friends often express disappointment at their absence as they cheer them up. Chums express the same opinion in the summer should I not be wearing my now very faded pink chinos.

  I was wearing both colours long before the so-called “hipster” upstarts arrived and, God and my tailor willing, will still be wearing them long after their silly sartorial tastes have moved on.

  Robert Warner

  Ramsbury, Wiltshire

  SIR — I wish to report a rare sighting: a youth wearing neither drainpipe trousers, nor sporting an apology for a beard. Presumably nobody has acquainted him with the age-old dictum that young people express their individuality by copying each other.

  Tony Lawson

  Langley, Berkshire

  SIR — The interest in what parents wear to take children to school reminds me of a friend who, when going to pick up his teenage daughter from a party late at night, always wears his pyjamas.

  Pulling up outside the party he attracts the attention of someone coming out and asks if they will go in and tell his daughter that he is waiting outside, adding the rider that if she doesn’t come out, straight away, he will come in to collect her.

  She appears like the cork out of a bottle.

  Peter Smales

  Swallowcliffe, Wiltshire

  SIR — You report that vicars may be allowed to conduct services in tracksuits and hoodies.

  Why not pyjamas and dressing gowns for that homely feel beloved of the school gate?

  Or if the House of Bishops really want to wake up church congregations, it’s got to be mankinis.

  Doff Hughes

  Wickham Market, Suffolk

  SIR — Pleas to be allowed to wear hats in church remind me of a priest who once stalked up to the pulpit, took the microphone from the rather surprised younger priest and barked: “People are claiming it is cold in church. Well, it’s hotter in hell.”

  The matter was closed (and so, finally, were the church doors).

  Noeleen Murphy

  London SE22

  SIR — Your fashion article, “Trainers now suitable for work and play”, reminds me of a response from a member of the Norfolk aristocracy when asked if he had any trainers.

  “Yes,” he replied. “One in Newmarket for the flat horses, two in Lambourn for the jumpers, and a local gel who keeps a couple of point to pointers for us.”

  Nicky Samengo-Turner

  Gazeley, Suffolk

  TRAILER TRASH

  SIR — My grandmother used to tell me that litter is a measure of how you are brought up: the working classes leave their litter behind, the middle classes take their litter home with them and the upper classes pick up other people’s litter.

  Gilbert Dunlop

  Great Offley, Hertfordshire

  SIR — My original irritation at having to pay for supermarket bags has turned to great delight.

  The looks from my poorer neighbours, “the Joneses”, when my husband places our Waitrose bags for life in the dustbin are almost as funny as those from “the Greens”, on the other side, who know that, because of the thicker bags, we are also able to hide all the things we no longer need to make the effort to recycle.

  Alison (Hyacinth) Benham

  Salford

  SIR — I suspect I am not alone in now having two kitchen drawers filled with carrier bags that have been lovingly saved as if they were precious heirlooms. May I remind your readers, and my wife in particular, that the new law has only set their value at 5p, not £50.

  Steve Baldock

  Handcross, West Sussex

  SIR — I refuse to use my Aldi or Lidl carrier bags in Waitrose — am I a snob?

  Keith Davies

  Telford, Shropshire

  DIGITAL DISEASES

  SIR — My wife’s two-year-old grandson lives in Perth, Australia, and currently has conjunctivitis. I now have conjunctivitis. He is the only person I know who also has it. I can only conclude that I have caught it via FaceTime.

  Garry Gibson

  Jedburgh, Roxburghshire

  SIR — I understand that there is a proposal to use lasers to highlight people using mobile phones in the theatre.

  I would like to suggest tasers as more appropriate.

  Ian Wats
on

  Warlingham, Surrey

  SIR — Now I have seen everything: a horse rider ambling slowly up the road while texting on her phone.

  R.S.

  Langport, Somerset

  SIR — I have developed a theory along the lines of Darwinian evolution. Another few thousand years down the road man will have developed a third eye half way between the crown of the head and the forehead. This will prevent bumping into things when texting with the head bowed.

  D.A.

  Broadstone, Dorset

  SIR — Recently, my wife was struggling with her iPad and inadvertently activated Siri, who asked if help was needed.

  My wife muttered under her breath, “Oh, b***** off.”

  Siri replied, rather reproachfully, “‘Goodbye’ would be more polite.”

  Clever things these machines.

  (I am withholding my name for fear of marital retribution.)

  P.B.

  Kennington, Oxfordshire

  SIR — Watching Google’s AI AlphaGo programme defeating Lee Se-dol at the ancient Chinese board game of Go, I was reminded of the American comedian Emo Philips: “A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.”

  Keith Gilmour

  Glasgow

  SIR — Many years ago, when I worked in the nuclear and offshore industries, it was always cynically remarked that no product would be accepted by the client until the weight of the documentation was equal to that of the product itself.

  I have just bought a digital voice recorder. The recorder weighs 66 grams; the instruction manual, which runs to over 250 pages, and which is written in no fewer than 31 languages, weighs over 160 grams.

  Andrew McEwen

  Poole, Dorset

  SIR — My computer screen keeps going black. Have I inadvertently found the dark web?

  Hugh Collins