Peter Rhodes on Chinese goods, dancing in jail and why we still love our old phones
In the week that Britain ceased to be one of the world's top ten manufacturing companies, I bought an item from the competition. It is a replacement computer keyboard made, like pretty much everything else, in China.
I have suspected for some time that consumer goods from China are now so cheap that it would cost less to buy them than to post them back to China. According to Royal Mail, an item of this size would cost £17.70 to post to China. The keyboard cost £9.99.
Funny things, keyboards. Unless you can touch-type (I can't, a lifelong regret), they become progressively useless as the symbols wear off the most-tapped keys. This time with my old keyboard, H, T and S were the first to vanish. No suggestions, thanks.
Two jailed Just Stop Oil activists report that they are dancing in their cells at the start of their four-year terms. They would be well-advised to concentrate on the quickstep, the polka and other fast and furious dances. Thanks to the prisons crisis the system is releasing non-violent prisoners before you can say Strictly. There is not a cat in hell's chance of this pair being in clink for more than a fraction of those sentences. Before they have time to master their stately slow waltz, they may well be shown the door. I dare say they will be dancing on the M25 by Christmas.
Despite the march of the mobile, it is reported this week that nearly half of all households, and 80 per cent of over-65s, still have a traditional landline. Why? One reason is safety. Landlines keep working in a power cut long after your mobile's battery has faded. But is there another explanation?
Take a look at your old landline phone. Unlike the awkward, four-cornered mobile, the traditional phone is designed for comfort. It sits neatly in your palm and cradles your ear. It is the right size, shape and weight for that joyous, traditional, community-bonding event, a good old chinwag.
The landline phone is an old friend; who would willingly chuck it out? Especially when it comes with a guarantee that no mobile can match: you will never, ever lose it,
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