The Boycott

My Dyson cordless vacuum cleaner died. One day it worked fine. The next day it did not. It’d had a good innings I suppose. We’ve been sucking dust out of our carpets with it for over a decade. I had to get it a new battery about five years ago, and I also needed to buy a new motorhead when I accidentally dropped the original one into a bucket of water. Other than that it’s worked wonderfully. And I’d buy a new Dyson to replace it with, but alas, James Dyson is a Brexit supporting buffoon. So I’m not buying Dyson products. I needed to look elsewhere. Bosch make superb cordless vacuums, but bloody hell. It’s a German brand. Don’t mention the war and all that, but we’re not quite ready to buy Jerry just yet. Too soon. Same for Panasonic. The Death Railway is too fresh in the memory.

I’d have considered a French vacuum, because France passed the ‘British Grudge Time Limit’ a few weeks ago. The misadventures of Joan and her Arc can now be overlooked. But the French don’t seem to make any decent cordless vacuums. I searched Amazon and found a ton of bargain vacuums with unpronounceable names and full sets of five star reviews. All made in China. But how can I be sure these units aren’t picking up fragments of my dried skin, analysing them, decoding my DNA and sending back data to a Beijing lab that is currently developing Covid 27 - the UK Variant. I don’t know. And I can’t take the risk. Which is a shame, because they did look awfully flash and they were temptingly inexpensive. 

But that’s all ok, because SharkNinja make excellent cordless vacuums.  I’ve got a whole bunch of brilliant Ninja products. Problem solved. And then Trump got re-elected, allied himself with Putin against Europe and launched a trade war against us. So I’m boycotting American products. Which left me with only one course of action. I went into the forest, gathered up an armful of twigs and made myself a fine and sturdy broomstick. Cost nothing, helps me keep fit and environmentally friendly. Absolutely rubbish at cleaning carpets, but you can’t have it all, can you.

Fortunately, before binning my old Dyson, I did what I always do. I went online and searched for a cure to see if I couldn’t nurse my vacuum back to life. YouTube is a treasure trove of useful guides and tutorials. I found the solution and the emergency is over. Obviously I should be boycotting YouTube as well, because they’ve been murdering small children around the world for their blood and organs or something or other. But I don’t actually do boycotts. I simply exercise preferences. I use YouTube because there’s no real alternative, and they probably aren’t doing murdering anyway.I would quite like to buy an MG electric car, but I won’t because I don’t trust China and there’s other options available. And there are American products that I would have bought, but haven’t. I know a lot of people who are declaring that they won’t visit the US while Vlad’s Agent Orange sits in the White House. I suspect most of them weren’t going anyway. There’ll be a couple who do go anyway. But there’s definitely some who have genuinely changed their plans.

Trust is hard earned and easily lost. The reputational damage Trump has done to the US and its citizens is generational. It will (and already is) translating into tangible economic damage. And it’s all so insane and unnecessary, it blows my mind. But at least I still have clean carpets.