THE one thing which really annoys me is the modern trend to change things for the sake of change.
It applies to all sorts of things, from television programmes to the name of the post service. I'm still getting over, or rather still not getting over, the ludicrous decision to alter our telephone books and put them into two sections.
Now why, when it is perfectly simple to look up the name of a person or a business when they are listed in alphabetical order did anyone in their right mind decide to list businesses and private addresses in different sections?
I can't tell you how many times I have spent looking down lists of names for a number only to realise I'm looking in the wrong section. It wasn't necessary and it cost a lot of money. Two things which seem to go together quite a lot.
My latest annoyance is the changing of the perfectly entertaining Masterchef programme on television from its original highly successful format to a new format, getting rid of presenter Loyd Grossman in the process.
Now thousands of people enjoyed Masterchef as it was - a programme featuring ordinary people who had the courage to enter a competition to demonstrate their cooking prowess on television.
Loyd Grossman, once you got over his strange accent, was an ideal host, neither patronising nor too show-bizzy.
The contestants were given a budget and chose their own menus, their ingenuity and skill was frequently mind-boggling and the judges, usually sensible and interesting people involved in cookery, were fair and just in their appraisals.
There was not one thing wrong with this programme, nor the Junior Masterchef one either, but somewhere in the BBC a little Smart Alec, who is probably about 14-years-old, decided the whole concept had to be re-vamped and poor old Loyd just didn't fit the bill.
In comes Gary Rhodes, who is fast becoming the Alan Titchmarch of the cookery world, and I only mean that in the sense that we are seeing far too much of him and his hair, along with 'celebrity' chefs. The contestants have the menu chosen for them and the whole focus of the programme is on Gary and Co. I suspect it is another exercise in showing us that ordinary people shouldn't be the stars of the show, you have to have a celeb to do that. I'm cross, and I'm not watching it any more.
Cornwall county council's waste department (please don't fall asleep, it gets better) is in the process of mounting a campaign in the opposite direction. They want to change the new for the old. And in the bottom department too. So they have declared this week to be Real Nappy Week.
Their campaign is to persuade mothers that instead of using disposable nappies they should return to the old fashioned but very environmentally friendly nappies of old. The reason being that disposable nappies take up a huge amount of space in landfill sites, around 7,000 tonnes a year, and the council wants to reduce the burden.
I wish them luck, but I fear it's going to be about as tough a job as being Saddam Hussein's public relations officer.
Having written this I realise that I shouldn't perhaps be treating what is called a 'serious waste minimisation initiative' in a less than serious manner. But it's a free country and I can honestly see both sides of the problem.
The ironic thing about Terry nappies is that they went out at around the same time as automatic washing machines came in. So the advantage today is that at least you can wash the things quickly and hygienically and tumble dry them in winter. In the old days the nappy bucket was a dreadful household item, always there to remind less than perfect housewives that they were somehow lacking in some areas of domestic skill.
My first child was born in a brand new hospital which had a supply of disposables long before they were available in the shops. And I know because when I returned home after the obligatory and restful ten days in hospital (yes, TEN days, not the grudging ten or so hours you get now) I scoured every shop in town for a new supply. In vain.
When they did come into the shops I think I was at the head of the queue on the first morning.
I do remember the health visitor was very tight lipped about them, pointing out that there was nothing so refreshing as a line of snowy white nappies blowing dry on the line (I personally thought that the sort of person who had a line of snowy white nappies on the line used to keep a special dozen pack unused to put on the line and dry the grey ones indoors).
She also mentioned the dire consequences on my baby's bottom of being next to something which wasn't pure Terry cotton. But then she was also the health visitor who nearly fainted when she realised I was wearing a black maternity bra and warned that baby-gro outfits would stunt my child's growth.
Please don't think I'm pooh-pooing (couldn't resist that) the campaign. We all have too much waste and if we can do something about it then all well and good.
Perhaps one of the better ideas would be to find a way to recycle disposables at home. Remember all those little machines for re-cycling old newspapers into 'bricks' which you could eventually burn on your fire?
Marvellous idea, you soaked the paper, made it into a sort of papier maché, piled it into the machine and produced dozens of rectangles which were then put on one side to dry. Then they could be burnt.
Super theory. The trouble was that three years later you had a pile of totally undried newspaper bricks the size of your garage and you could have used napalm to try to light them and it still wouldn't work.
Maybe someone could come up with something a little more workable.
To amend for this article I will point out that disposable nappies are not only a nuisance to get rid of, they are very expensive. Friendly non-disposable nappy products are practically a one-off buy and last for years.
And, as one of my colleagues says, they make wonderful dusters when your child has finished with them. Washed, of course.