The old have reminiscences of what never happened…..

“Hell is very likely to be modernisation infinitely extended” – Tom Stoppard

A dog food company’s TV advertisement tells us that it offers “over a million” menu variations. Many might feel it is hard to imagine that there is a need for such a wide choice. So, is the demand for such extravagant options led by dogs? Has the dog population been consulted?  We know that our canine friends have a superpower smelling capability but can they really differentiate between over a million food variations? Have dogs participated in lengthy trials of each variation? I wonder. Our last family dog ate half a large tin of Chappie plus two Bonios per day and she lived, for the most part healthily, for over eighteen years – not bad for a Labrador whose breed inclinations are to eat as often and as much as possible.

Such meanderings raise another fundamental question – do the progressives and/or modernisers decide what humans should eat and how they should conduct their lives? Progress and its derivatives have come to mean different rather than an indication of improvement; factitious changes, such as a football team introducing a new strip every year, seem to rule the day.

ARCHITECTS          

At the time of his election as President of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1989, Maxwell (Max) Hutchinson subjected himself to an interview on BBC TV. In the interview it became clear that Max was a dedicated devotee of modern architecture. Such devotion took a credibility knock with the revelation that he lived in a capacious Tudor house in the Cotswolds. Many will sympathise with his choice of domicile, being inclined to eschew the brutal, hard-edged look and feel of modern architecture, especially where a flat roof is the preferred option.  Some might argue that the brutality is more evident when modern buildings are juxtaposed with, say, classic Georgian buildings; they might even suggest that the angular look of a modern building is wholly inappropriate in a rural setting, as it counters nature’s creative subtle backdrop of splendiferous trees.

It might also be suggested that some leading architects became more engaged in social engineering than in the creation of building structures that might be ‘easy on the eye’. The tower block boxes flung up in the 1950s and 1960s, embedded in labyrinths of concrete, may have seemed a way ahead that would improve living conditions but, somehow, that did not prove to be the case. In London, parts of families were plucked from their roots and parachuted into places like Basingstoke thereby breaking their historical links with families, friends and long-term neighbours. Others were corralled into those soulless tower boxes. Glasgow went down a similar route although dumping the human victims in Basingstoke was not part of its plan.

As for the erstwhile glass boxes proposal for the re-generation of Chelsea Barracks, many of us, including Prince Charles, were left dismayed, not to say speechless. Perhaps the real question about that location is: Why were the solidly built, not unattractive, Victorian era barracks razed in the 1960s? The razing of the Victorian barracks in Aldershot offers another example of the wanton destruction of well-constructed buildings. The MOD replaced those Victorian built-to-last entities with concrete slabs held together with, soon to be visible, metal ties.  That progressive rebuild decision proved to be costly as the concrete soon became unfit for purpose, leading to evacuation some fifty years later.

Such thoughts do not represent a Lone Ranger’s view. In a recent article in the Daily Telegraph (12 January 2022), farmer and writer Jamie Blackett offers this view:

“When I look at the beautiful houses built before 1947*, and the architecture of houses built since, it is very hard to conclude that the planning laws have actually enhanced the landscape. If anything I would say it is the reverse”

*The year of the Town and Country Planning Act.

The look of many of the millions of homes, bereft of any personality or character, thrown up in the 1950s and 1960s is, at best, disappointing. In most cases houses did not, in any way, match or fit in with the properties that pre-existed (except perhaps in parts of Oxfordshire where some worthy efforts were made to so do). In the case of semi-detached properties, the design inexplicably replicated earlier editions with the noisiest rooms on the ground and first floors juxtaposed, namely the sitting room and the master bedroom (admittedly noise in the latter may not always pertain, particularly with older neighbours!). To an unskilled observer, a better solution presents itself: Build the garages in the middle of the overall structure, place the spare bedrooms above the garage and locate the sitting rooms on the flanks.  With the respective front doors being well separated intrusive neighbours have a reduced opportunity to meddle in the lives of others. To be fair some architects have adhered to such thinking.

While changing the living environment of people, architects also turned their attention to places of work. A particularly notorious example being the Late Lord Richard Rogers’s ‘inside out’ ugly Lloyds Insurance building in London which experienced teething problems from the word go. The concerns about the building live on and in 2014 these comments were published:

“Lloyds has made no secret of its frustrations with its headquarters, which has lifts and services outside the building,…” According to the paper, Lloyd’s former chief executive Richard Ward said last year: “There is a fundamental problem with this building. Everything is exposed to the elements, and that makes it very costly.”

Perhaps the design concept has proved to be too clever by half.

While accepting that the ghastly Gherkin is a poor replacement for the Listed Baltic Exchange, not all modern buildings deserve to be roundly criticised – perhaps only those that prove to be impractical or are simply plain ugly or are juxtaposed with old(er) buildings of undeniable beauty. The glass box in London with a tilted upper section that focused the sun’s rays on the door-mat of another block thereby igniting it, managed to combine ugliness with impracticality. Given there had been at least one other example of such an ‘explosive’ design achieving ignition, it seems curious that an architect should seek to ignore the lessons of history and the laws of physics. Despite such observations, there are some modern buildings that are undeniably pleasing on the eye, principally in the airport sector.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) seems to be throwing up airport buildings with the same sense of purpose as her hewing of new coalmines. Anyone who has travelled around the PRC in the last decade or so cannot fail to be impressed by the design and functionality of her C21st airports. Those new airports can justifiably claim to be cathedral-like in their grandeur and capaciousness; even more gratifying perhaps, is that they have eschewed the relentless canned music so favoured in the West, preferring to leave the ‘music’ to the soothing sound of fountains. The curiosity underlining the PRC’s achievement is that British architects have played a leading role in the design of her airports.

Moving on from the rarefied atmosphere of PRC airports to the High Street where alleged ‘progress’ might be challenged. Today, in many shops, automatic doors grant access or, in many cases, are needlessly triggered by passing pedestrians. Above those doors, in colder weather, a blanket of hot air is thrown over the customer under high pressure, most of which disappears into the atmosphere as the doors open and close. In the modern world of the Net Zero imperative, this seem to be a wanton waste of energy. Whatever became of the revolving doors that were commonplace in stores during the first half of the twentieth century?

DESIGN

“[New technology] is the stuff that doesn’t work yet” – Douglas Adams

As with architects, designers exert a profound influence on our surroundings and everyday life. Again, many might question whether designers live in the real world and whether they actually inflict some of their clever progressive ideas on themselves. In the same way that some modern architects prefer to live in Tudor mansions, is it the case that designers prefer to surround themselves with practical ideas emanating from the Victorian age. The suspicion exists that modern designers prioritise a ‘sexy look’ over functionality. Around the home there follows some examples of where modern designers seem to part company with practical common sense with their otiose products.

For example, it seems bizarre that a designer should locate inlaid soap dishes at the tap end of the bath thereby, requiring the bather to lean forward the full length of the bath to pick up or replace the soap. To digress for a moment on the issue of soap: Why is it that, as we strive to achieve net zero, trying to purchase a bar of soap is akin to buying an adult magazine in a newsagent’s shop? Bars of soap are hidden away whereas there are rows and rows of liquid soap in plastic containers, smaller versions of which are sprayed around hotel bedrooms like confetti.

The genius who designed hand basins the width of a US aircraft carrier needs a kicking. The slant or pitch of their floor is invariably almost undetectable, requiring manual intervention to swill the water around in a desperate bid to accelerate the water’s departure. Failure to so swill also means that detritus such as hair shavings and toothpaste lumps are left behind in the basin.  Apart from the practical inconvenience of all this, is the fact that space is wasted in rooms that are generally short of it.  Too often these trendy offerings are fitted with a rotating drain plug, requiring the user to fish around in murky waters to press it in the correct place. To alleviate the chances of something ‘going wrong’, it generally makes sense for fixtures to have minimal moving parts. What on earth was wrong with the plug on a chain?

The modern public or hotel lavatory design offers a prime example of the mania for concealment at the cost of practicality; to the designer, appearance trumps all other considerations. It is now the case that many cisterns are boxed up and inaccessible to the homeowner who can no longer, with ease, fiddle around with his ballcock. Equally mystifying is the introduction of the push button flusher. What could be more user-friendly than a handle? As for loo cubicles, many of us oldies recall the traditional cubicles which were blessed with side walls and doors that all reached to the floor and often enhanced with an individual window. Such sensible design thinking, offering both privacy and odour control, has given way to Formica-clad doors and walls that are six inches shy of the floor.

Showers, in the ‘good old days’ were simple to operate via a hot tap and a cold tap which were clearly labelled as such.  Nowadays every shower unit is different and many are unnecessarily complicated. The challenge of delivering the water to one’s body at a suitable temperature can occupy many frustrating minutes during which time the water temperature can range from boiling hot to near freezing. Of course, setting the right temperature, with or without the help a hotel Receptionist, is the tip of an iceberg of problems.

Because the lip on the shower’s base unit is regularly too low, water cascades onto the floor of the general bathroom area, rendering stepping on the floor after the shower a precarious move. Second, rather than having the soap dishes inset into the wall out of harm’s way, large plastic or metal dishes protrude into the shower’s already limited space, with the result that the user is repeatedly banging into them, dislodging the soap and then having to bend down to recover it – a hazardous procedure.  Third, and the greatest challenge of all, is how best to wash the feet when bending down; this requires serious decision-making thought before taking the risk (the alternative of standing on one leg and raising the other foot is a dangerous strategy in old age particularly).

All these challenges were uniquely met in the shower at the RAC Club of Australia, by: Hot and cold taps – simply labelled; a lip on the base some 8 inches high; a soap dish inset into the wall; and, the most user-friendly attribute of all – a foot rest inset into the wall to facilitate washing the most remote parts of the body in. Built in 1903, the conclusion might be drawn that Edwardian designers could teach their successors a thing or two.

There are some odd design decisions that impact on our lives in the kitchen as well as the bathroom. Some questions are offered: Why produce plates with inlaid ribs that are difficult to dry and harbour germs? Why produce washing up bowls with artistic nooks and crannies that require more cleaning than their dirty contents?  Why are the stickers on supermarket apples and pears deployed with super glue? It seems likely that the answer to these, and many other design questions, is probably: Because looking sexy takes priority over practicality.

Away from the home, offices, hotels and the high street, attention might usefully turn to car design. It is understood that the ergonomics of cars are influenced by psychologists which, in turn, presumably influences the designer – a combination that produces a few curiosities. For example, why locate the electric window control buttons on the dashboard just above the four-way flasher control? Concentrating on the road, not infrequently the driver turns on the latter with a potentially confusing result. Another car design oddity is locating the seat belt retaining buckle in the middle of the vehicle, after all, if it caught fire in an accident there would be no chance of a rescuer quickly releasing either the driver or the passenger.

The most difficult car design trends to understand are light clusters and the default option of blazing headlights in daylight.  In the Sunday Telegraph on 1st January 2017, a Mr Graves makes a valid observation on, to use his words: “The most ridiculous configuration of [vehicle] tail lights.” In so doing, he raised an issue that deserves a wider debate not only because of the safety implications of the indiscriminate burgeoning display of vehicle lights but also of the wanton disregard for the costs of replacing, for example, damaged bumpers and wing mirrors that house indicators – an inane cosmetic embellishment. Even by day, especially for those travelling in small cars, it is becoming increasingly stressful to follow the Blackpool Illuminations of the preceding vehicle – tiring one’s eyes and sapping concentration.

 Of equal concern is that the daylight default option for most drivers is to keep their vehicle headlights on; this is equally tiring, perhaps more so, to oncoming traffic and is a pointless exercise on motorways and dual carriageways. The use of headlights in broad daylight is particularly hazardous to oncoming traffic in narrow roads and lanes since, unlike in darkness, there is no warning of oncoming vehicles; so, a driver is momentarily blinded as  contra-flow traffic as a vehicle crests a hill or suddenly emerges round a bend. So, in the round, the excessive use of lights both in daylight or darkness is potentially dangerous to other road users and, in some cases, can increase fuel costs by up to 12% – not a good idea in our new Net Zero world.

Customer Service Design

Customer service is sometimes referred to as customer care but, in both cases, they are oxymoronic terms. Companies’ design policy for these alleged services are underscored by the all-embracing principle of off-loading administrative costs on to the customer without any commensurate cost reduction to him or her. So, the assumptions are made that every customer has: Access to the Internet; owns a printer and an inexhaustible supply of A4 paper as well as a mobile phone signal. In many cases none of those assumptions are valid. For example a recent survey published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that 5.3million Britons have either never gone online or not used the internet in the last three months (see below for more details). As for mobile phone signals that assumption is patently untrue. This author is now on his – preferred pronoun – property that is devoid of a mobile phone signal although that presents the advantage of not being obliged to submit to a Smart Meter that can tell him that boiling a kettle is expensive.   But the real mobile phone irritation is that many companies’ proformae telephone field default, and only option, is to submit a mobile phone number.

Other common features of companies’ operations include:

Erecting communications barriers to protect them from having to deal with  customers. Up to the point of product sale companies are very communicative but  immediately after the point of sale, the barriers go up.

Making any payment system as complicated as possible. By imposing difficulties on   the customer, companies presumably hope to generate an overdue payment that will attract a default penalty. Consider this payment instruction received by a 79 – year-old pensioner: “…you need to scan the Code at the top of this letter with the camera of a compatible mobile device and follow the pop-up link….” Until reading this instruction his only contact with a mobile device had been his Zimmer-frame. However, he does remember the simpler halcyon days of the cheque book. Companies seem content to ignore statistics such as these: “6.3% of adults in the UK  had never used the internet in 2020” Odd how other statistically ‘minor dogs’ such as Trans issues, wag the national dog while those not on the Internet are roundly ignored.

Conclusions

Irrational rants, such as this, rarely merit the production of sensible conclusions.  Perhaps this author should bear this wisdom in mind:  “The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened.” – H H Munroe