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Prestige and Status
[6 minute read ]
Reading a news story on Sky news online this morning about a man who pretended that his Jaguar I-pace electric car was malfunctioning and kept accelerating on the motorway, I thought I might have a look at the cost of such a vehicle. Apparently, this chap ran into finance difficulties and still had £5,000 to pay on his, so he faked a dangerous malfunction hoping to somehow get relief from the debt. A used I-pace might cost £13,000.
I went to Jaguar's own I-pace website. Just like all television adverts for cars there is no information on the car, just pictures. I was also struck by the focus on allowing the customer to 'build' the car to the customer's specification. Do people really buy only the skin of a car, the look and the prestige that is associated with the name? I think yes. But many people also choose potential partners on the same basis, including the name.
My perspective as far as I know has always been from a functional position. Crudely, this means will the car go from A to B? How much does it cost to run? How reliable is it? Probably the most important factor which likely draws me to a vehicle is, is it suitable for the job I have in mind for it? Much as it might be fun to use an American school bus for the school run, it just isn't practical in the UK, if only because parking is an issue. Ripping fun though. Some girls might like to be delivered and collected to and from school in a pink Sindy or Barbie styled car, as might some boys. Some boys might like being dropped off in a tow truck, just as some girls might. Realistically, the safe bet is probably an expensive SUV though, isn't it?
This is about prestige, not pride. In a world that puts fashion before function I pride myself on repairing my clothes, where I can; and riding a bicycle whenever I can. I pride myself on using only old bicycles that I fix up and haphazardly repair. There is no prestige attached to wearing a pair of shorts with a patch over a back pocket where the habitual placing of house-keys has worn a hole. But I am the sort of person who will just up and go to the local Co-op still wearing muddy clothes from digging the garden. There are no people I want to impress by wearing clean and tidy clothes. That is not to say that I only wear dirty and scruffy clothes. I live in a village and we have two allotments. The only people who I might try to impress are the ones who grow vegetables and cook from scratch. But that is just me. There are plenty of people in my village who are convinced that manicured lawns and perfectly creased clothing is paramount to demonstrating their success. They, credit willing, might see a car in a television advert and think to themselves, 'I like the shape. The maker has a good reputation. It is suitably expensive to be considered an item of prestige.' Just how the television ads ends with a couple of facts, these people might, as an afterthought, recognise that the car will go from A to B when B is 500 miles from A. 'Ah, Jolly good!'
It might seem that I am pillorying these types of people. I am not, Each to their own. I just wouldn't want to be married to one of them, or have one of them at my wedding reception or birthday party. These types of people perceive different problems than I do from the same set of realities. I grow tomato plants in the local clay soil, some people in my road say there is nowhere for them to grow tomato plants. These same people put all their food-waste, grass clippings and hedge trimmings in the green recycling bin, while I put mine on the garden. I fail to understand why people with gardens are allowed to have green bins.
'Gardens are for enjoying. They should have emerald green manicured lawns and a six foot fence all around so no-one can see in. They are private places where the family can relax.'
''Gardens are where food can be grown and relaxing takes the form of nurturing plants and providing a safe place for insects and spiders.' I would counter. 'It is a place where we can dispose of our compostable waste and by doing so improve our environment.'
Plainly, I have a different attachment to my environment than some other people do. I can not fathom why anyone would sweep away the detritus they produce by living a life that realistically is shaped to impress other people; other people, mind, who are carefully selected and have similar values; namely they shape their lives to impress other people who again are selected according to specific criteria, one of which might be for example - they do not take their kids to school in an American school bus. I know, it is me that is weird and not them. They are the modern normal.
My tomato plants have all flopped over and true to their form lie across the ground. They naturally do this and readily grow roots from anywhere the stem or stalk touches the ground. It, however doesn't suit the grower which is why we stake them upright. Usually, I cut the straight young trunks of young ash trees bordering my garden to use as stakes but I have so many plants this year that I have had to forage from wider afield in the village.
'If you are looking for the raspberries and blueberries they are further up that way.'
I had no idea what the dog-walking woman was on about. It is highly unlikely that blueberries are growing in our village and I have never seen wild raspberries.
'No, I am collecting waste branches to act as stakes for my tomato plants, but thanks.'
'Oh, I have just cleared my garden. I had to make three trips to the tip with branches and clippings.'
Oh well, I thought. Chalk and Cheese.
Yesterday, outside ALDI, my favourite place for meeting people, I had a quite long conversation with a woman about why people in North Africa have air-conditioning and we don't in the UK. The conversation moved onto humidity and how her Council had fitted extractor fans in her social housing home that automatically come on when the interior humidity is above 60%. This is the weirdest thing for me. I had already primed myself by previously looking into the efficacy of having these types of extractor fans fitted in our UK homes.
'The average outside humidity level in the UK is 67%.' I told her. 'Simply opening a window will cost you money.' That is almost true in Summer.
'They are constantly on.' she despairingly replied. Well, they would be, Anyone with any sense opens their windows first thing in the morning and in the mid evening to let the cool air in. Right now at 07:29 am, the outside humidity level where I live is 72%. However, I should say that my windows have been open for hours now and the inside humidity level in my living room is only 54% and 4 degrees higher than outside. So, it is not as straightforward as I would like it to be to be able to make a strong point. However, I do know that de-humidifiers used to be really expensive to run. ScrewFix have one for £79.99 that uses 300 Watts per hour (a bit more than a large plasma television). It is programmable. The extractor fans Councils fit in their houses are a similar price. But here is the puzzling bit. A four inch (10cm) hole has to be made for each fan in the wall or ceiling of the home, which work is contracted out to a third party (expensive). I suspect that the cost of this might be close to the price of enough solar panels to charge an appropriate battery that would run a dehumidifier which does not need a huge hole in walls to run. The drawback, of course, is wholly within the scope of my rant. The person who buys a car for the prestige it imbues upon the owner is the same person, I suspect, who just wants to shunt warm air out along with moisture because they cannot lower themselves to manual work such as emptying the dehumidifier of water once it is full. Just like just shoving garden and kitchen waste into green bins is easier than providing a specific area in the garden for its decomposition, forgetting about humidity levels is desirable in the same way. 'Job done, I no longer have to think about it'.
'Empty the water out? Perish the thought, dear!' For me though, that is water I would put on my plants. I would not feel guilty about that since I would have made the water myself. We should consider heat-waves and drought to be the new norm, I hear.
According to https://qualityindoorair.co.uk/how-much-water-should-a-dehumidifier-collect-in-a-day/ a small dehumidifier might collect between 4 and 9 litres of water a day. That in old money is about one to two GALLONS a day for watering tomato plants in a drought! The cost with no solar panels for me would currently be 300 Watts x 24 hours = 7.2 kW x £0.24 per unit = £1.72 + £0.50 standing charge = £2.22 per day. Plainly, I need to seriously think about getting solar panels.
So, are Councils pandering to a modern value that negates concern for the environment? Are they deliberately avoiding supplying efficient methods of reducing damp and mould in homes? We might need to understand that all landlords became directly responsible for damp and mould control in October 2025, and the Councils are still in catch-up mode. I cannot expect someone to have any inclination to come up with a good solution when any solution will do. 'It will do' is, after all, the modern way of doing things.
I think the black Jaguar I-pace in the drive means that guests are not expected to be told to 'mind the dehumidifier' when they go to the bathroom. It really is a status thing, isn't it?
Jaguar's 'Build your car' feature on their website plays on our desire to be in control while being creative. There are video and computer games that were quite successful that use this aspect of humanity, such as 'The Sims' and games that allowed interior home design. It is a modern fantasy-made-real scenario.