21st Century Dodos: A Collection of Endangered Objects (and Other Stuff) (8 page)

OK, so there aren’t
that
many of them around, but there are still over 25,000 people in the UK who own a black and white TV licence. It costs about a third of a colour licence, which may explain the attraction.

A fair proportion of black and white owners are elderly people who own an old set and haven’t upgraded, but the old monochrome idiot’s lantern remains popular with cheapskate students and for use on boats and caravans.

Colour television didn’t really take hold in the UK until the late 1960s. Up till then, black and white held sway – it was the only option, and millions of homes had a set sitting in the corner of the living room. And despite the domination of colour in the 1970s, it was still fairly common to find black and white tellies in use, especially if you were visiting your grandparents, until a fair way into the 1980s.

Of course, by then it was a proper disadvantage to be devoid of colour, as this classic line from Ted Lowe during a snooker commentary proves:

‘And for those of you watching in black and white, the blue ball is just behind the pink.’

The number of people owning a black and white licence is dropping by almost 10,000 every year, so we are very soon to see the eradication of this historic piece of technology. I trust we will all stage a minute’s silence when that happens.

Dodo Rating:

IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD

Where we walked and played, commuted from, and came home to …

White Dog Poo

I am willing to bet that few entries in this book will get readers (of a certain age, at least) more nostalgic than this collection of paragraphs on dog shit.

The younger ones among you may find this hard to believe, but mention those three magic words to anyone over the age of 35 or so, and their eyes will glaze over, a strange smile will cross their lips, and they will be transported down memory lane to summer days of yesteryear when the nation’s pavements were littered with canine fragrant parcels baking quietly in the hot sun.

You still see a lot of dog shit around these days, and frankly the culprits – or, more correctly, the culprits’ owners – should be taken outside and shot, but the offending pile is usually a shade of brown. This was not always the case. There are no statistics available (which is a further outrage), but my completely unscientific method (which involves casting my mind back and having a guess) would suggest that around 30% of crap on the pavement pre-1985 was white.

Here’s the science bit: Dogs used to eat a lot more bone and bone meal in days gone by. A dog with a bone is a classic image, but you don’t actually see it in real life all that much any more. Bones, as any school kid knows, have lots of calcium in them, and white dog poo was basically the calcium left behind when all the other component parts of the turd had evaporated, been eaten by flies, or otherwise broken down.

We are also, as a nation, a lot more disciplined about picking up after our dogs, so steaming piles of doings are rarely left on the pavement for long enough to turn into ghost-like versions of themselves.

Fascinating, isn’t it? Sort of.

Dodo Rating:

Whistling

When is the last time you heard someone whistling? Think about it. I don’t mean a quick wolf-whistle (although now I mention it, you don’t hear many of them these days, either), or a builder sucking air through his teeth just before giving you an outrageous quote for a new extension, but a full-on, high decibel, cheerful tune from start to finish.

Chances are it’s been a while.

But everyone used to be at it once upon a time: window cleaners, policemen, school janitors, milkmen, taxi drivers, all sorts of people. Now it appears to be something of a dying art.

Now, I accept that this won’t be a source of regret to everyone. Miserable sods who don’t like a cheerful tune emitting from ’twixt the lips of manual labourers are quite possibly overjoyed at the dearth of ‘Waltzing Matilda’s or ‘My Darling Clementine’s, and that is fair enough.

Personally, as someone who can’t whistle at all, I kind of miss it. Perhaps I could call upon the musically lipped readers of this book to pucker up and belt out a tune at some point in the near future, just to improve the rarity rating of this sadly neglected art form?

Of course, just because you don’t hear window cleaners performing a wind solo while you walk down the street doesn’t mean there aren’t still people who take the fine art of whistling seriously. The International Whistlers’ Convention takes place on a weekend in April every year, usually in Louisburg, North Carolina, although it tours occasionally and has been held in Japan and China – a truly global event. There are Child, Teen and Adult age groups, and entrants can perform in either Classical or Popular categories.

There is also a Whistlers’ Hall of Fame which includes such luminaries as Bobbejaan Schoepen, Quingyao Cao, and Marge
Carlson. Their occupations are not given but I am guessing at least one of them is a milkman.

Dodo Rating:

Bob-a-Job Week

From the end of the Second World War right up to the mid-1990s, Bob-a-Job Week thrived around the country. Cubs and Scouts would roam the neighbourhood, knocking on doors and offering to do any odd jobs in return for a nominal payment – the ‘bob’ in Bob-a-Job being slang for an old shilling.

Washing cars, mowing the lawn, walking the dog, helping the elderly with their shopping, anything was up for grabs. One Scout troop even cleaned jumbo jets at Heathrow, although they probably got paid a fair bit more than five pence for that. Unless they were cleaning Ryanair planes, in which case Michael O’Leary would almost certainly have charged them for the privilege.

It was a great concept and very much a win-win situation. The Scouts raised some money for new woggles or books about knots, and members of the public got some annoying jobs sorted out for a pittance.

Sadly, the practice died out as our country became more and more obsessed with child safety, and the idea of unaccompanied children knocking on the doors of strangers didn’t seem such a good one any more.

It is, however, scheduled to return, albeit in a new form. The Scout Community Challenge will involve groups of cubs and Scouts, rather than individuals or pairs, teaming up to work on community projects. Quite how that helps the old dear who has been waiting for nearly 20 years for a nice young man to clean her windows remains to be seen.

Dodo Rating:

Raleigh Chopper

The Chopper was, without any shadow of a doubt,
the
bike of the 1970s.

Designed to echo the look and feel of a chopper motorcycle (think
Easy Rider
), it was the coolest bike on the streets. It was also the most impractical.

The laid-back aesthetics led to an unstable ride, especially at speed. The high-backed saddle was great for giving ‘backsies’ but that made it even more accident-prone and, if you ever dismounted at speed, the gear stick was strategically placed to castrate the male rider. The rear wheel was larger than the front and the high handlebars made few riding positions comfortable for more than a few minutes.

All that aside, it became a cultural icon and was the ubiquitous mode of transport for the suburban ’70s teenager.

By the time the 1980s came round, the Chopper was overtaken by BMX culture. The appetite for bunny hops, 360s, and half pipes rendered the Chopper obsolete. That, and the desire to cycle for more than half a mile without killing yourself.

Believe it or not, the Chopper was relaunched in 2004 with a tweaked (for which, read ‘boring’) design. The seat had been lowered to discourage passengers and the gear controls were moved to the handlebars. Sensible, but dull. It has not made a significant impact.

Dodo Rating:

Raleigh Grifter