I love newspaper and magazine cartoons. To amuse readers with a small drawing, accompanied by a brief caption, is an art.
I’d like to create one made up of two panels.
The first shows an immaculate female assistant in a babywear shop that has a sign saying ‘MOTHERCARE’.
The adjoining panel would show a similar shop, but the assistant has curlers in her hair, scruffy clothes and a ciggie dangling from the corner of her mouth. The sign behind her says ‘MOTHER DON’T CARE’.
If that didn’t make you smile, as Frankie Howerd used to say, “Oh, please yourselves!”
Talking of ‘Care’, when you phone large companies for information there seems to be a lack of customer care.
A mate of mine had cause to phone his insurance company, the name of which I will not  mention.
Older readers will know which one, if I reveal the company’s HQ is in the city where Nicholas Parsons’ ‘Quiz of the week . . . Sale Of The Century’ came from.
That day he’d received a letter from the company containing information completely contradicting the contents of a letter they’d sent him two weeks previously. So, he phoned them for clarification.
After going through the tortuous ‘Press 1 for this, Press 5 for that’ (Press 99 for aspirins’ procedure!), he was put through to a real person.
A real person with a real attitude as it turned out.
My mate’s initial “Hello?” was met with silence for a few seconds.
Then a rather disinterested male voice said, “Yes?” . . . like Basil Fawlty being interrupted during his tea break.
Each attempt by my mate to explain why he was calling was met with a (seemingly) contemptuous silence before the male voice responded in a desultory manner.
Fearing he still hadn’t explained himself clearly, my mate continued to elaborate, only to be rudely interrupted by a waspish “If you let me finish!”
Oh boy!
Hardly the ‘caring’ way to address a customer whose ‘Call is important to us’?
After hearing the full story, I suggested the chap’s name might be the same as his manner . . . Curt!
Oh, please yourselves!