If the word, Grumpy, is not enough to turn me off, I gather that Germaine Greer is one of the Grumpy eminent persons. Another of my strict rules is never to watch a TV show with Germaine Greer in it.
One of the problems I have with these shows is that they are an excuse for old farts to whinge that ‘things aren’t what they used to be’. Of course, they’re not, but whinging about it won’t change anything. Most things change for very good reasons. And, of course, the programs are generally made by the BBC, so the whingers are Pommy Whingers, a subset of society which ought to be locked up, and kept silent.
If I were really honest, my problem with grumpy TV series is that I recognize myself too often in the characters. However, I only complain about changes which don’t make sense and result in objects which do not function as well as they used to before the design gurus got involved. Take the toothbrush, for example. When I was at school, toothbrushes were straight little pieces of plastic with a wodge of bristles at one end. Some bristles were softer than others and the plastic bits came in a range of pretty colours. Generally, they were about the same size so that school students could make toothbrush holders in woodwork lessons in the safe knowledge that the toothbrushes they had at home would fit.
Not any more: toothbrushes come in a variety of lengths and dynamic shapes contoured to fit your hand. Some have spaces to fit a battery, and there is no toothbrush holder in existence which can cater for the range you might find in a typical bathroom. What do woodwork students make now in their first semester?
Marilyn and I have a favourite toothbrush container which we take on our trips. It comfortably takes 2 circa-1975 brushes and a smallish tube of toothpaste. Our old brushes are starting to look a little tatty but do you think we can replace them? No, sir! Everything today is too long, or too fat, or is too bent.
And what about toothpaste? Once upon a time, toothpaste came in metal tubes (which were reputed to be made of lead, but I’m sure they weren’t), and when you rolled the tube up from the bottom, it stayed there so it was easy to, eventually, get the last squeeze out of the tube.
The invention of plastic tubes which always returned to their original length was NOT an improvement. When you’re down to the last quarter, you have to push and squeeze every day to get the remaining toothpaste to the top so you can get a wee bit more out. It’s even worse if you have one of those maverick people in your house who squeeze the tube from the top, rather than up from the bottom. At that time in the morning 
when you need to be calming your mind for the travails of the day, you don’t need the hassle of fighting with a toothpaste tube. Who wants to be bothered with this sort of nonsense?I suspect, though, that toothpaste tubes are becoming a thing of the past. Our latest paste dispenser looks like a mini-aerosol. It’s pressurized and impossible to predict how much paste will come out each time it’s used. I generally get too much so look like a rabid dog when I brush my teeth. And the residue left on the nozzle (which, by the way, is uncovered between uses) is disgusting. The air trapped in it makes a horrible froth which must attract the worst of bacteria. And, of course, they won’t fit in our travelling toothbrush container. Heaven knows what will happen if one of these modern monstrosities is packed in a suitcase and doesn’t cope with an un-pressurised aircraft hold. These new toothpaste dispensers are NOT an improvement.
And yet, we will be led blindly to use them, even though they will add to our stress and make no difference to the quality of our daily oral hygiene.
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