Thursday, January 22, 2009

26 January - Clothes washing

This one is boring but I still make this mistake so I should probably print it on a card in huge letters and hang it above the washing machine.

Don’t mix your washing. Ok, you don’t do it deliberately and usually it's just one rogue pair of pants /panties that will ruin a bunch of nice clothes. You didn’t see them getting in there or if you did you had one of those ‘It’ll be ok’ moments and look at it now! Why did you buy red or emerald green? Do those people that only have whites or only blacks – ok, blacks and greys which is probably some former whites - know best?

Think back how many times in your long or short life this has happened and work out some statistics of stuff that you didn't care got ruined (2%) and stuff that was expensive or much loved and got ruined (98%) since you left home… these accidents never happen when your washing is handled by your mother, and consider if this is a lesson you still have to learn?

Am afraid I don't have a funny anectdote to provide to illustrate this lesson because as I said it is a boring one and I won't waste time thinking of something to make it less so, but maybe there's some said shocked at the washing machine/drying line moment in some movie?

24 January - Sales Techniques

If a salesman in a foreign country offers you tea or a drink etc, he’s scammed you already or about to do so. So Stop! It’s not too late to negotiate prices. In his haste and pre-degustation of the money he’s made off you, he’s celebrating already, the five minutes you spend having tea, will give hm time to read you better and evaluate how naive you are. But as you may yet have to sing on credit card, calmly put the cup, or glass down, and say ‘Now that we appear to be friends… this pair of earrings you want to charge me $30 for… they’re really worth $5 right?'

This in light of a recent (and not the first) trip to India – but could equally have been in any African country, in the Middle East, or Mexico… or even London perhaps in a recession come to it. Am reminded of some expensive double glazing it took me ten years to pay off. Yes folks, it was not the double glazing that cost me so much money after all, but the ten year long finance agreement taken out at a ridiculous interest rate. Sure, even in those days there was some 15 or 30 day period to rescind the agreement signed if you’d bothered to do your sums, but I never bothered with it because… the guy who sold me the windows and the loan was jolly nice. He came from my neck of the woods and why would someone I could have gone to school with or sports practice with want to trick me? I mean, we’re sitting in my kitchen working out what we have in common over a glass of wine, which I have provided. How stupid was I? I should add that I was 26 at the time and a recent homeowner, so you'd think I were a bit wiser but no, I fell for it.

Between these occasions there is a gap of many years and the sums in question are different and yes, these earrings would still cost more in London than they do in India and I'm all for helping grease the local economy and I have a phobia of haggling, but if a kg of rice is approx 0.5p then surely a few beads and related man hours are not worth what I'm being asked to pay? The same goes for whatever end product you're being sold from rugs to furniture etc.

This is clearly a lesson not learnt yet as I only got him to knock down a paltry 10% and am not ecstatic to be wearing these earrings now as they are a visual reminder of this particular lesson I still have to learn.

23 January - Droning on.... and on...

You listen to your girlfriend/wife droning on in that particular brand of chatter that sweep/crosses many levels (deep, superficial, light, serious, instruction giving, confessional, whining, chiming etc) that your girlfriend/wife seems to be able to keep up effortlessly and for long stretches of time on end. You can’t quite zone out because she’ll be intermittently checking you for reactions, demand answers and contributions and you can’t just say ‘Yes dear’ all the time. But… if you put more than one woman together, 2 is ok, but 3 even better, you can really just be there in body and think about something else entirely: the precise percentage of pigments that form that particular shade of rust nt hat wreck over there, you did it get there, how long has it been there and is there anything still salvageable from it, perhaps a screw of that size you need to fix something else long held in your garage and you simply never went to the store to get a bag of them. You’re not being thrifty, but you really only need one.

So the lesson here is to always have your g/friend/wife accompanied by other women: her sister, your sister, her friends .. I know, easier said than done as this is not some small 50’s community we live in or the Bennett family from Pride and Prejudice but… Whenever possible encourage them to stay for dinner (during the day you’re both out at works so you’re safe. Ok there’s phone calls but they don’t last too long), come over at the week end, travel with you, come along on the trip to Ikea and so on. Just invent some affliction that means they have to keep their voices level, no screechings, no crescendos or this makes it really difficult to be able to zone out.

This may appear odd to some of your other friends/acquaintances. But once you take one or two other men into your confidence and tell them your solution to a common affliction, they’ll replicate it and pass it on and before you know it… inner peace. This is not a misogynist lesson by the way (though those polygamistic societies surely know a thing or two) at any one point you can ‘send the other women away’ so to speak and have quality time with the g/friend/wife who will be /should be suitably enchanted with having your undivided attention back and thankful for it. You on the other hand will now have a fresh clean slate and be able to rapturously listen to her for a sustained stretch.

Essential info will go in (what???? Joey has got a place at Oxford? Susannah is no longer seeing the crack cocaine addict??) and be retained and acted upon. Ladies, it’s proven science that he’s wired up differently to us so don’t argue endlessly with this lesson and don’t write me complaint letters.

22 January - Back in 2006

Back in 2006 I had started a blog where I was going to peg useful stuff I came across from own experinece and other people's and without being too patronising I was going to turn their 'incidents' into a humorous (and useful) lesson, one of those that would subsitute that boring, but true old wisdom that people older than you pass on but you think it's just old people's interfering.
As it happens I am now well on the way to turn into that old person.

Below is what I had written on the dashboard of that blog, as of couse I had loftier ambitions to turn it into a book or some such. But the longer I take the more books get published to weigh down the advice sections of bookshops or get turned into movies like 'He's just not that into you' or er.. that one.

I didn't want mine to be in the advice section in any case as I don't buy those books. Ok, liar! of course I did, but back in that decade when people care about those things, ie their thirties - at least it's my experience that when younger than that you really don't think you need any advice, and older than that, well, you should have learnt it by then don't you think? Which is where my blog came in...

For now, I'll resume and limit myself to add on each lesson as I had gathered a good thirty or so to start.

But here goes.... the past good intentions,now if I could find that old memory stick where it all is stored....


1000 LESSONS- Where to start?
This blog is on the net to hold the blueprint of a semi-fictional, semi-authobiographical, semi-self-help, semi-entertaining book I'm writing.

I plan to gather some good old fashioned 'lessons' that could make our lives easier. Unfortunately, it is in the nature of human beings not to learn anything that fast or without peril. Sure, we all learn not to stick our fingers in the socket after the first electric shock - if we've survived, that is - but life presents more complicated situations than that. Has anyone learnt not to dial ex lovers when drunk for example? .... ..... Didn't think so!

Below is the ad by which I'm happily soliciting any examples you may want to offer or see added to this blog. If you have a story to contribute, post a comment with your email address or how to contact you and I'll be in touch. And though you will be acknowledged and thanked, ultimately the copyright rests with me. Hope you're happy with this.

Writer/TV production company collecting '1000 Lessons You Haven't Learnt Yet' (or have finally learnt, or wish you'd learnt or will learn in the next lifetimes - hopefully) for a partly serious and partly tongue in cheek project comprising a book and possibly a TV series to follow.

If you can't figure this out, use the recent 'Is it just me or is Everything Shit?' by Alan MacArthur (described on book jacket as 'A life-affirming guide to the modern world') for bookmark/inspiration. These ‘lessons’ can be from any stage of your life or from someone else’s. They can be practical or philosophical, light or deep, funny or tragic. Please submit as many as you like: they can be one liners or if possible you could tell a simple anecdote or write the 'lesson' out into a fuller/longer story.

Please give your age/sex/location and state if you wish to be contacted eventually - should we choose to elaborate further on one of your lessons and want to ask you for more details/clearance prior to any inclusion in publishable format. Regrettably there is no payment for submissions.

You can post a comment here with suggestions or write to: jajonesy@hotmail.co.uk
(and no, that's not Lisa's real name, of course not)