The street I lived in in Brussels was never quiet in the daytime. This was mainly due to the reversal of fortune that has come upon the rakes among us. For so many years, the rake's progress seemed unstoppable, but now the damnable leaf blower has put it in decline.
Like so much else that is called progress, I find this development baffling. We live in a world where we are harangued about plastic bags and about not using too much pollutionary energy on this that and the other - and simultaneously made constantly anxious about the rise of obesity and indolence among our ranks. And yet everyone happily acquiesces to the increasing use of a pollutionary machine that reduces the amount of exercise its manipulator takes and doesn't actually do an effective job - if you regard collecting up leaves as the purpose of the exercise, rather than simply blowing them elsewhere.
While I'm having a moan, I'd also like to register how annoying I find the increasing tendency to pronounce issue not as 'ishue' but as 'is-sue'. I heard Rory Stewart is-suing a way madly on Any Questions and thought it might just be a thing of his class - something the rather unappetising Jacob Rees Mogg might be found guilty of but restricted to men who went to Eton or similar. However, yesterday I heard Jack Straw on the Today programme, hissing his way through issue, as if there were no other way of saying the word. Why does it annoy me? I think it is because I cannot convince myself it isn't an affectation. It also sounds prissy.
I really need to get a better perspective on existence and stop wasting my energy on things that don't matter. I know. I know.
We may well purchase a leaf blower this year. We have used rakes every fall since we moved here, but K. insists on raking the garden. This is awkward work, and brings a great deal of mulch onto the lawn. We suppose that an electric leaf blower would be more efficient, both in time and in increasing the ratio of leaves to mulch removed. We shall see.
ReplyDeleteI have read in the newspaper accounts of well-off towns that have discussed banning leaf blowers. I believe that Greenwich, Connecticut, was one. When this happens the users of leaf blowers look to frame it as a matter of class, the blue collar lawn guys v. the rentiers disturbed in their leisure. But I imagine that a lawn service would quote a rakes-only price for leaf clearing, or broom-only price for cleaning up after the lawn is mowed. For a place our size, I imagine that the premium for raking might be an hour of labor plus overhead, and for sweeping might be fifteen minutes. I doubt many householders inquire about this.
You are right about both of those things. Leaf blowers are really idiotic Sisyphean devices. I believe "iss-you" is an affectation and the same goes for "tiss-you". The people who pronounce it this way know very well that ordinary people do not; it is prissy and pretentious.
ReplyDeleteSome unknown functionary of David Cameron who fell foul of Theresa May's pre-election staff was at it with iss-you this morning on the radio. I think it is going to take over as the way these words are said. In which case, I will buy a leafblower and run amok blowing it in the faces of anyone who uses that pronunciation in my presence. Which I suppose will prove that the contraptions do have some reason to exist.
DeleteBy the way, there is a bill before the Washington, DC, City Council to ban gasoline-powered leaf blowers from 2022 on. The bill is sponsored by members from three of the eight wards, and both members at large, so perhaps it will be passed.
ReplyDeleteWell now I'm torn, because I don't want you to choose to get a leaf-blower, but I also don't want you to be able to exercise your right to choose to get one, should you make such a poor decision, which I'm sure in the long run you wouldn't.
DeleteWe would get an electric leaf blower, which the council does not propose to ban. But I noticed this morning that they are pretty loud when one is close to them.
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