In Other Words...
Here are a few of my other writings: short pieces, articles and stories that have been previously published elsewhere.
Previously published in
'Spiral' Gliding Magazine.
Connection
It was a connection all right. A white Peugeot was connected to our back end by interlaced bumpers. When we felt and heard the crash my wife said “Mon Dieu!” but in English. Allegedly I am the linguist, but the gift of tongues deserted me in the moment of crisis, English that is.
I can’t remember what my children said.
It was a long hard drive from somewhere. Loubressac, perhaps, Souillac, Pinsac, Carennac, one of those places ending in “ac”. Now, with the seaport at Calais still half a day’s drive, time and money running out, we had made this unscheduled stop, in dusk, the rush hour and the city of Angers (9th cent, castle, slate quarries and foul beer).
Angers, in addition to containing 130,000 Frenchmen, all eager to get home quick at that hour, was once the ancient capital of Anjou, birthplace of Fulk the Red (rouge to non-linguists), and source by obscure channels of our Plantagenet kings.
What did come to the surface of my thinking, as I sat there reviewing the situation – in the time, that is, between the actual impact and the sound of my rear lights tinkling into the roadway – was that the French are notably excitable even in circumstances of calm. Even the British motorist, to be fair, loses a drop of his sang-froid on these occasions. Any minute now – any second now – this French man would be at my driving window, with wild-eyed yammering, his moustaches bristling and the little sticking up bit on top of his beret stiff with Gallic rage. As if it were my fault!!!
Short Articles
I have written on a variety of topics. Here are a few examples.
GOOD HEALTH AND SAFETY IS GOOD BUSINESS
A few years ago I was giving a presentation to the local Round Table on the benefits of health and safety at work. Concluding the lecture, I displayed the final slide on the screen, ‘Good Health and Safety at Work is Good Business. I summed up the main points of the lecture and spoke the words depicted on the screen. There was a moment’s pause and voice spoke up from the back. “Blimey Tony, I certainly hope not, that would be bad for my business”. As one the room erupted into laughter, I too followed when the speaker came to the front of the audience, it was a friend Gideon, who was the local undertaker!
WHISKAS – CAT FOOD SUPREME OR NOT?
Over fifty years now I have shared my life with a succession of wonderful cats both male and female. Each and every one has given me and my family much joy and pleasure and they continue to do so.
Feeding was never a problem; most cats enjoyed their food hunted and caught amongst the local population of mice, birds, moles, voles and small rabbits. Here in France their food chain also included lizards, but now these micro dinosaurs around the house and grounds scurry about unmolested, as the cats took a bad reaction to them. However, when it came to branded foods, there were some strong likes and dislikes. Particularly with the cat food that boasts, ‘nine cats out of ten prefer Whiskas’.
For as long as Whiskas has been available in our shops and supermarkets I can honestly say that the behaviour of our cats challenged this quite outrageous claim. Furthermore, all our cat-owning friends share the same reaction, albeit one or two owned up that their pets would merely lick at Whiskas if there was nothing else available but it was certainly not the cat food of preference. In statistics, nine out of ten is almost as ‘purrfect’ as one could get. Just how do Mars, the owners, and their food producer, Pedigree Foods, justify this ridiculous claim?
As far as I can ascertain, their statistical analysis emerged from a survey of the distribution of over a million pouch samples but less than twelve percent responded. Of those respondents, the majority were in favour for the pouches over tinned food, which in fact was the raison d’être of the survey - pouches or tins? The television watchdog, The Independent Television Commission, found this research as being unscientific, misleading and ambiguous. As a lady in Florida remarked on the internet, nine cats out of ten prefer Whiskas, of course they will – try pulling them out!
The most easily digested (no pun intended) statistics, are the ones most used and naturally this leads to an increased robustness in frequency of model results. The sample size and population can be anything the advertiser wants it to be to fit their marketing intentions. Whiskas television adverts have always been cute and the cats in the clips simply adorable. How do they get the animals to eat the bowl of Whiskas as soon as it is squeezed into the dish? In my experience the initial smell of the contents is off-putting: our cats literally turned up their noses and walked away to some dry food, but not the Whiskas brand.
We have now lived in France for several years and played foster family to six cats all very hungry, lost, arriving at our house for shelter and feeding. They too turned up their noses at the presented dish of Whiskas. Is the French or European product inferior to the United Kingdom or American versions? Why do Whiskas keep re-formatting this quite obvious Munchausenesque strap line in their advertising?
Pedigree Foods also produce other well-known brands; Felix has been our cats’ favourite, as far as they are concerned the claim made for Whiskas could be swapped for Felix. I asked one of the floor managers in our local hypermarket which, including some very popular Continental brands, was the most popular choice for cat-owners. She replied that Friskies and Felix were the most popular and Whiskas was on par with their own brand tinned food and pouches.
Nine out of ten cats? No way! It is now time for Pedigree Foods to pull this misleading and outrageous baloney, keep the advert with the adorable cats and kittens but steer clear from impossible statistical claims, they are not helpful and have been the target of jokes, for example: “Why do cats not like shaving? Because nine cats out of ten prefer Whiskas”.