Fanzines and Webpages: Quality Of Life Enhancement Devices

< previous

next>

Last Monday I played a gig in Brighton. It all went quite well, thanks for asking, and as I dashed to get the Last Reasonable Train home I thought "Hey! It's not closing time yet and there's a loo on the train, so I shall buy myself a BEER, as REWARD/CELEBRATION for that gig going Quite Well just then. Oh yeah! Let's ROCK! Life on the ROAD!"

It was only when I got into the station, beer bottle in hand, that my self-chuffedness hit an OBSTACLE. I'd bought a BOTTLE of beer! With a bottle top on! What a CHUMP! Filled with that GRIM DETERMINATION and anaesthesia that comes as a Special Free Gift with ANY attack of Vague Drunkenness I thus spent the next 15 minutes ATTACKING the top of the bottle with my keys, oblivious to the fact that I was ripping the skin off ALL my knuckles on both hands in the process, so that by the time I raised the opened bottle to my lips I looked like I had been in a FITE.

After mentioning this on my WEBSITE the next day someone suggested I get myself a KEY-style opener (i.e. a bottle opener that looks like a KEY). I took this suggestion to heart and am now the proud owner of just such an object, and it is BLOODY GRATE. Not only can I open ANY bottle at any time of day and night, but I can do so SECRETLY without having to reveal to passers by the DEEP THIRST for BOOZE that a conventional bottle opener carried about the person might betray. Since buying it I have gone out of my way to find bottles of beer to open, to the surprise and delight of onlookers expecting me to go at it with ordinary keys and hack my hands to a bloody pulp like some sort of IDIOT. BAH! As if I would ever do something so stupid!

The key-style bottle opener has, in fact, achieved what I would otherwise have thought impossible - it has made drinking BEER even MORE exciting and impressive!

I mention this as an EXCELLENT and RECENT example of a QUALITY OF LIFE ENHANCEMENT DEVICE, or QOLED. QOLEDs are the small, usually CHEAP, innovations that make life IMMEASURABLY better. The first example of this I ever noticed was a four-way adaptor I bought about ten years ago from a pound shop (or equivalent - did pound shops exist ten years ago? It is all a BLUR to me). Before then I'd had to unplug my TV and video every time I wanted to plug my stereo in, thus reducing my willingness to listen to music as it would always be tainted by the knowledge that, afterwards, I'd have to re-programme the clock on the video recorder. Getting the four-way was EASY, only took the MINUTEST of efforts to GET (walking past the shop and thinking "Hang on, I might as well BUY that while I'm here), and once done improved the my Quality Of Life in ways UNDREAMT of.

Over the years I've often thought of this, and indeed GONE ON ABOUT IT in pubs, until about a year ago when I thought it was about time I wrote a song about them. The song, called, coincidentally, "Quality of Life Enhancement Device" lists the four-way adaptor along with internet booking for train tickets, vacuum cleaners, and the humble kitchen SIEVE as examples, but when I got to the end of the song I thought "I bet there's LOADS of other examples of this that I've never thought of - I'll get people to TELL me!" THUS the final verse ASKS for examples, in much the same way that Brian Wilson asked people to write to him about their favourite vegetable, although obviously a bit less melodically and a LOT less INSANELY.

To help things along I set up a webpage, www.qoled.com, and sat back and waited for people to send me details. The first came from within the ranks of The Validators, from Rhythm Supremo Tim Pattison (one of "the most important punks in the country" according to The Melody Maker in about 1923), who sent me the following:

I used to stumble blindly up the stairs at night
My life's much better now that I've replaced the light

Not only was it a QOLED, but it RHYMED! I hadn't been expecting that AT ALL, but it was such a GRATE idea that other people followed suit. Next up was Alex Washtell of Southampton who sent me this:

Sitting at my desk sweating was never the coolest plan
So now I'm elated that I've invested in a 4-Speed fan

and THUS was set a trend. We've now got about twenty QOLEDs sent in by people to the website. Not all of them rhyme, not all of them are two liners, and not all qualify technically as QOLEDs, but all of them very much ARE examples of people saluting small aspects of their lives that bring them joy, and doing so with IMAGINATION and FLAIR - two BEAUTIFUL characteristics that we see all too little of in this world of HEPCATS, HAIRCUTS and SNEERERS. Every time a new QOLED comes in it's a little bit of happiness that would otherwise go unnoticed and unshared. Here's another couple of examples, this one from Mr Ray Dann of Dudley:

My lips used to be cracked and sore
So I bought some lip-balm for a pound, no more

and this one from Charlotte Wadsworth of London, addressing the possible downside of some QOLEDs:

We used to feel a bit bad about all the QOLEDs
In our house 'til we switched to green electricity

Lovely, aren't they? SO, when I was asked to write something for this fanzine that would be "interesting stuff to look at and read that'll make a long bus journey pass that little bit easier" I immediately thought "HEY! Why not send these fanzine readers on their OWN QOLED odyssey? What, indeed, could be a MORE delightful way to pass a bus journey than to sit and think about all the tiny little things that make your life RICHER and HAPPIER?"

The answer is "Not many things, I shouldn't think", so GET TO IT! Find yourself a pen and a bit of blank space, write a swift two line poem like the above about a LOVELY device that makes your life BETTER, then either email it qoled1@gmail.com , or visit www.qoled.com and SUBMIT it in a futuristic way. Together we can build a stockpile of JOY for future generations!

(originally appeared in Get Together fanzine)

< previous

next>