Hoovering is Back!

 So lovely to read our interview with Alison Hammond on the return of The Great British Bake Off and her joy at being its new presenter. I am such a Goggleboxer and with Strictly back would normally have said, “I now have appointments to view” But my habits have changed and I’ve started to view programmes like my girls do, when I want to. I remember when Claudia, my youngest Stepdaughter and I moved from our family home to an apartment. We were both so excited as our new home came together, I did what you’d expect bought a large TV for the main living space with smaller ones for our respective bedrooms. Nothing like watching a film in bed or my guilty pleasure ‘Saturday Kitchen’ with tea and toast being inspired by all the wonderful dishes that appear so easy to create. Claudia though was ambivalent about her bedroom tv saying “Don’t worry about me if I’m in my room I watch everything on my laptop” And she did, on there she had Netflix, BBC iPlayer our Sky Account, she was her own tv scheduler. So has “Sorry need to get home for bake off” completely disappeared? This week I was filming for ‘Bargain Hunt’ in celebration of Blue Peter’s 65th Birthday. The young crew I was working with were glowing, as they revelled in their childhood memories of coming home from school and sitting down to watch the adventures of myself (yes, I felt old) Diane Louise Jordan, John Leslie and Bonnie our golden retriever. Their evenings might have involved pulling together craft items spurred on by something we had made, but the real joy was, next day at school everyone else in the class had watched the same programme including the teacher who would create a lesson knowing the children all had a priceless subject incite. You can’t put the Genie back in the bottle, but I am sad that children now will never know the joy of being a positive television lead team.

Slightly on the same subject, how many times do you say words to the effect “Just going to do some vacuuming” I seldom use the word ‘vacuum’ I say ‘Hoover’ yet like Sellotape and Kleenex they are product names we’ve appropriated over the years into a verb. I remember in the 60’s my mum pushing around the classic Hoover with the big smelly bag I even had my own toy version which gave me hours of pleasure. But what if you’re in your 20’s why would you know this? You wouldn’t, my lovely bright assistant Georgia had no idea, yet she uses the word constantly. How annoying must it be for Miele and Dyson. But the good news is they are back with that old familiar logo but a machine so sophisticated and far from the original it would make William Henry Hoover tap dance around his office proud of the part he played in cleaning our homes.