Grey is the new white

Monday 17th September

For a short while it was black, but now it is grey, and a funny silvery dense grey at that, not even a wispy pale grey, or that grey that you cannot quite discern from blue.  In the trade they have always been known as ‘white goods’, fridges, washing machines, tumble dryers and now dishwashers, but if you happen to be wandering around an electrical store over half of them are this muddy non-colour of grey.  Of course unless you are buying new ‘white goods’ you are hardly likely to be browsing through them anyway.  Almost nobody nowadays buys a new fridge or washing machine or whatever unless they are moving house, or the old one has just broken down.   But I can remember when they were desirable items, when they weren’t absolute essentials that everyone had anyway.  They even used to be advertised on the telly back in the sixties.  We had a fridge and a twin tub long before most of our neighbours.  My mother was always an excellent saver, thrift was elevated to a high science in our household.  I can even remember my mother showing her twin tub off to admiring neighbours (elegantly swinging the mangle rollers from the sink over to the tub) – something you would never dream of today.  I suppose things have shifted upwards and you might just invite the neighbours round to look at or even to sit in your hot-tub, though I certainly would neither have one, nor having bought one actually admit to it, and ask others to join me for a winters evening dip, but there is no shaming the young.

Recently our washing machine broke, it was about time having just passed its warranty date.  Without question we hot-footed it to Curry’s for a replacement, and guess what – the only one they had in store and that we could take away was a grey one.  How infuriating that the models you see, and think are reasonable value, having discounted all the extra’s you don’t need which seem to double the price – these models are always out of stock, or are in a central warehouse and can be delivered in two weeks time.   We didn’t really mind as we keep our machine in the cupboard under the stairs, and no-one ever sees it.  But if you really cared about these things would you then have to change your fridge and dishwasher and tumble-dryer for grey ones to match.