Domestic 'bleeping' Appliances.

OK, I'm sitting here at some time before 0600 to ask the question "Why, for the love of Mike, do domestic appliances have to bleep?" And it's at this god-forsaken hour because, for about the fifth time this week, I've been woken by my telephone. Now, we all follow the same rules, don't we. You don't phone anyone in the night, after, say, about 2200 and before 0900 unless it's something really important. Like, for example, announcements of death, or birth - after all, difficult to get the little brutes to arrive when you want them. But I digress. Who, you're wondering, can have woken me at this hour, before the birds are even truly chirping, and before I'd ever consider getting up under normal circumstances. Well, that's the point of this diatribe. Not a who at all, just the ruddy phone itself. Because, you see, this phone, a fancy-pants new digital phone, with crystal clear reception, and long distance roaming capabilities (I could make calls at the end of a 200 foot garden, if I had one) feels that it must let me know if one of the handsets looses its signal to the mother-phone. But does it show a discreet message on the large, easy to read display? No, it gives me a very loud double bleep. And then, a few moments later, when it's found the signal again, obviously in order to reassure me that all is well in it's little electronic world, it gives me an equally loud "beedle-beedle", just in case I was worried! And, of course, for convenience sake, the handset in question is by my bed. This is not a new thing. We all want to be able to make calls from our bed. After all, since call costs are no longer wince-makingly high, chatting to people no longer has to be done in a draughty hall in order to keep the conversations short.

But I have to ask myself - "Do I give a rat's arse if my phone looses its signal to the mother-phone?" And I have to be honest with you (and anyway, I'm not good at lying at this time in the morning) and say NO!

Dammit, why do ANY domestic appliances have to bleep at all? OK, the microwave and the oven, I can understand this one - especially the oven, which is letting you know that your fabulous souffle is now burning to an indedible crisp, that I can cope with. My father tells me that his microwave gets a little strident if you don't go and deal with the food in there, and bleeps again a little later, although we thought, after some discussion, that it might be about a minute later, because many ready meals need a minute wait after they've completed. But that's OK - you want to know when your tea, cold because you forgot about it, has re-heated. After all, you wouldn't want to forget about it. Again.

But by all that's sacred, why would I want to know when my dishwasher has finished.? Are you like me? Do you just load the thing up before you go to bed, shove in a tablet, and press the button? There's got to be a good percentage nodding sagely right now. This means that when I do finally surface in the morning (but not now!) I've got a fresh cup for my morning tea. The dishwasher washes up for me, at a time that's convenient to me. And I don't actually need to know when it's finished. I don't care - if I should set it going during the day, then I'll deal with it when I'm good and ready.. However, this dishwasher has other ideas - it bleeps to let me know it's finished. And then it continues to bleep noisily (although the frequency seems to die down - I have tried to ignore it, you know!) for quite some time. I've not yet timed it. But get this, it's louder and longer than the oven. How logical is this? The appliance which is burning my food to a black sacrifice has the most apologetic bleep on the face of the planet. You've set the timer, so that you don't have to explain to your long suffering children that "the chips aren't burnt dear, just browner than perhaps you might want!" and you're off doing something else (after all, this is what domestic appliances allow you to do - multitask, or watch tv - whatever), but because someone has managed to shut the kitchen door after them, you just can't hear the pathetic little bleep. And then it stops after just 1 minute. 1 minute of telling me that I have a chance of setting my beautiful Victorian home alight if I don't go and check this out RIGHT NOW. My dishwasher, honest guv, bleeps longer and louder.

However, it seems I'm lucky in not having a washing machine that bleeps. And since I chose wisely (or German, which amounts to the same thing), I should be spared that annoyance for some years to come.. But they all make their toys bleep now. The new dishwasher, made by the same people as the washing machine, bleeps, but my old one didn't. And there's no way of turning these things off. The phone that started all this, is customisable to a point. I've managed to turn off the annoying bleep which announces I've pressed a button (what, is this congratulating me?) but I cannot persuade the ruddy thing that I really don't care if it's lost its signal, and I'm equally indifferent to the fact that it's found it again - "Oh No! I've lost my signal!" . . . "Oooh, ooh, no, it's OK, I've got it again, no worries, all OK now - go back to sleep if you can!"