The modern way

For a variety of reasons – including personal preference – I am not a great one for fuss, bother and partying at the best of times and this year’s festive period has revolved around a somewhat low-key but warm and close family set-up.

A while back it was agreed that, in contrast to previous practice and possibly as an antidote to the traditional frenzy of Christmas overspending and our current political crises, this year we adopt a pledge to give but simple presents to each other.

Which has worked out quite well.

Rather than a retreat into a dog-in-the-manger attitude “It’s the thought that counts”, this has prompted an appreciation that choosing an appropriate inexpensive gift for those nearest and dearest to us can take as at least much effort and consideration as splurging out upon hundreds if not thousands of pounds on some vacuous luxury item that may or not be of use or interest.

In this regard (call me Scrooge if you like) I’ve long held the view that I already have all I need or require to conduct my life and therefore nobody need ever spend serious money upon some item they feel might enhance my existence: to be blunt, if that was the case, I’d have already bought it myself!

Nevertheless, one can occasionally gain the impression that some are trying to send a message by their choice of Christmas or birthday gift(s).

Yesterday, for example, my two primary presents were an electric blanket (as I understand it, advertising itself as costing the householder no more than 5p per day) and a modern electric nose-hair clipper.

If I had been a glass-half-empty individual (which is not the case, by the way) I might have taken these as yet another indicator that – two years from entering my eighth decade – in the eyes of the world I have now become nothing more than yet another oldie on the verge of his slide into senility and therefore in need of loving comfort and support on that journey into my dotage.

I don’t mind confessing that last night, as I was confronted – with pride and excitement – by a younger member of the family playing for my benefit her smartphone-captured video of our earlier Christmas lunch at its height, I suffered a significant dip in self-confidence and happiness.

Or rather perhaps that should be a ‘cold water-like shock confrontation with reality’.

Amongst the high-volume revellers in their Christmas-cracker paper hats enthusiastically engaged at the trough and with their wine glasses, swapping banter with abandon – all of whose faces, figures and voices were exactly as they are – inexplicably and surprisingly, into the seat in which I had been sitting some ancient old geezer (bearing an uncanny likeness to my long-deceased Uncle Peter who parted this life as a somewhat bemused, portly, bald, white-haired eccentric) had apparently been Photo-Shopped.

However, as they say, sometimes when one door shuts, another opens.

For some years now, when at my toiletries, from time to time I have been deploying a near-decade old battery-operated nose-hair clipper. Its blade is worn down, its machinery rickety and working only intermittently.

Just after tea yesterday, having used the book of instructions to find out the location of the battery port on my new (Christmas present) equivalent, I disappeared upstairs to give it a first outing.

Here is my review:

A thoroughly modern appliance, it oozes class, efficiency and sleekness – using phones as an equivalent comparison, a 2019 smartphone to my previous 1930s rotary dial ‘sit up and beg’ home appliance.

It also works.

I duly took off its protective top, pushed the starter slider and, with a loud whirring sound and insistent vibration, it sprang into life.

Without further ado, watching myself in the bathroom mirror, I thrust it up my left nostril with assertive panache.

There followed an immediate explosion of effect and sensation.

First, a high-volume crashing sound resembling a lumberjack’s industrial-strength saw scything through a forest of pine trees.

Second, a sharp pain and sensation of metal going through flesh which caused me to cease the process immediately, followed swiftly by a small but steady trickle of claret dripping onto my upper lip.

After a pause for reflection and the application of a tissue, I resumed the task at hand.

Eventually I returned downstairs for a cup of tea in front of the television, now feeling ‘entirely naked’ (if that is the correct expression) in the nose area.

Plonking myself down on a sofa, I portentously announced to the assembled the success of my new present’s first outing, adding that – if its effect was anything to go by – I very much doubted that I would be needing its service again for at least the next five years.

I did not take entirely kindly to the reaction of the gentleman then sitting to my right, who commented in an airy and offhand, as if helping, fashion “You can use them on your ears as well, you know …”