I'll think of a good title later

I smell. Quite badly sometimes.

Up until a few weeks ago I used to use one of many bog standard antiperspirants & was finding that they really didn't work for me anymore, mornings would be fine, but by the afternoon I was ponging. Fortunately, I could credibly blame my customers, but I knew where it was coming from so I started looking into more powerful alternatives.

Through this research I was quite shocked to find out what antiperspirant actually is. According to my can it is specifically: Butane, Isobutane, Propane, Cyclomethicone, Aluminium Chlorohydrate, Parfum, Disteardimonium Hectorite, Dimethiconol, modified corn starch, Mannitol, BHT, Citric Acid, Sodium Ascorbate, Calcium Disodium EDTA, Silica, Aqua, Propylene Carbonate, Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Benzyl Alcohol, Benzyl Benzoate, Benzyl Salicylate, Butylphenyl Methylpropional, Citral Citroneliol, Coumarin, Eugenol, Geraniol, Hydroxyisoheyl 3-Cyclohexene Carboxaldehyde, Limonene, Linalool.

My spell check & I haven't the faintest idea what most of these ingredients are. Yet in a classic case of complacency I have been bathing myself in this concoction for years. I'd never put any thought into what this cocktail actually does. Turns out the major active ingredient is the Aluminium Chlorohydrate which reacts with electrolytes in your sweat to form a gel which clogs up your pores so that you physically can't sweat.

But thinking about it, sweating is a Good Thing™. It is a natural process that cools the body when necessary & disposes of waste that builds up in your system.

I am now using a roll on deodourant made up of: Propylene Glycol, Purified Water (I know what that is!), Sodium Stearate, Stabilised Aloe Vera Gel, fragrance & Triclosan.

The amount that I don't understand about this new product is considerably less than the amount I don't understand about the old one.

Plus as a bonus I don't smell so bad anymore.

What a fun week this has been...

I put my car (Ford) in for a repair that was covered under warranty. When it came out it was suddenly not under warranty & I was told that I'd have to pay £800 to get my car back. I refused because I hadn't given the go ahead for any paid work. I had a very heated exchange with the garage owner but ended up leaving without my car.

The next day I spoke to another Ford dealership who confirmed what I was told before that the repair should be covered under warranty, they checked with their own warranty department who said the same thing, I talked to the Ford Customer Relations Department who also agreed that it should be a warranty repair. Excellent. Could someone please talk to the garage & ask them to release my car. Yes of course they could. Would the garage release my car? No because the Ford Warranty department said no. Err... ok. Could I talk to the warranty department? Yes of course. Could I actually get through to them or find someone who could put me through? No of course not. Back on to customer relations & demanded that someone sort this mess out. The garage was told that they couldn't charge me because I had not consented to have any chargeable work done & that they had to put the old faulty rack back in & I'll take my car elsewhere. The garage agreed but they wouldn't be able to do the work until next week & then the car would have to be taken elsewhere by a recovery truck because it would be unfit to drive. Which I found funny because they were perfectly happy for me to drive around in it for two weeks without calling me about getting it repaired.

Later that night I got a call from the garage asking if I could get someone to visit the garage to inspect the faulty part as a second opinion so that Ford would release payment for the repair. So the day after I got onto customer relations again & asked if that would be acceptable & they said yes & told me to get in touch with another dealership to organise an engineer to take a look at the faulty part. I called the other dealership & they said they'd get back to me. Which they didn't. So I called again the next day & was told that no they couldn't send an engineer out because it was against their territory rules. I was then told that I could get on to customer relations who would be able to organise an engineer to visit the garage for me. Back on to customer relations again & they told me that they couldn't organise what I was told they could organise.

Quite understandably I was angry, confused & totally at a loss for what to do. At this point I rang Trading Standards & I have to say these people were great & have given me a great deal of advice. Hopefully none of which I will need to use.

Later on in the day I got a call from customer relations informing me that the garage would start again with the warranty department & that Ford has agreed for the faulty part to be taken away for a second opinion. I'd have to pay to release my car but I will get a full refund if the outcome of the new inspection goes my way. One of my family members is needing hospital treatment at the moment & I really need my car to help out on the transportation front, so I didn't really have much of a choice.

After five days of bouncing around inside the unfathomable internal structure of Ford I have finally got my car back. But the ordeal is still not over yet

I really wish I lived close enough to my place of work to cycle in.