News just in - Man Uses Vacuum Cleaner

I rashly volunteered to hoover the whole house this morning. Before proceeding any further I should explain for the benefit of the thousands of Americans who read this Blog that by "hoovering" I mean vacuum cleaning. There was a time when anyone who owned a vacuum cleaner owned one made by Mr Hoover, and in the UK at least this became one of those surnames that became both a description of a piece of equipment, and a verb.

By the way, Mr Hoover is frequently credited with the whole idea of vacuum cleaning, but wrongly. The idea came from a certain Mr Spangler. But Mr Hoover was a wily old salesman who knew a good thing to market when he saw one, and talked Mr Spangler into letting him take on that side of things. From that point on Spangler found himself consigned to the dustbin of popular ignorance.

So, strictly speaking, I have this morning been "spangling", and what a job it was. The trouble is, I cannot vacuum clean a room (or indeed a house) superficially. There is nothing that annoys me more than bits of furniture getting in the way of my fevered activity with the howling machine. So it all has to go: chairs, occasional tables, and so on, are gathered up and consigned to another room. I'm not satisfied until I have a clear run at every available inch of carpet. Then, away I go, and as I go I succomb to the usual ridiculous activities of picking up by hand those stubborn bits that cling on to the carpet in spite of the considerable negative pressure being applied to it. I then throw them back on to the floor for the howling machine to fail at its allotted task all over again.

Having completed the push-pull part of the task I then pull out the auxiliary tools and reassemble the machine so that I am armed with the device for digging into those inaccessible corners and sucking them from here to kingdom come. Then, stick that brush device on the end and fly around all things fabric. Come to think of it, while I'm at it I'll use it to "dust" the furniture as well - so much more effective than a duster (and less likely to cause sneezing).

One room done, then repeat the procedure in every other room - pieces of furniture in temporary transit. Why do I do it like this? Do other men do it like this? Is it because we are supposedly unable to multi-task? We are constantly told that women can multi-task. This means they can vacuum the kitchen floor with one hand, ironing the shirts with the other, whilst kicking the dog out of the way with one leg. They are wise enough to know not to use both legs for this, a process that leads to something called falling over.

The male of the species is supposedly a mono-tasker which I suggest is the reason that whatever task they are involved in gets done properly. The trouble is, it takes longer. Of course that was Mr Spangler's problem: had he been a multi-tasker he could have seen to both the invention and the marketing of the vacuum cleaner, instead of consigning the marketing to another mono-tasker Mr Hoover who could only concentrate on one thing .. persuading the population at large to spend money on something that sucks.

I've hurt my back.