I think the dishwasher is dying.
Normally this would be irritating adult life rather than worthy of an Editor’s Letter … except it has become the third member of our household appliance old guard to shuffle off this mortal coil in the last year. We’re beginning to see a pattern, and I feel it my duty to share the wisdom I’ve learned.
First went the enormous range cooker. It had spent 18 years feeding six Hitchcocks without complaint – including the years when four teenagers regarded the kitchen as an all-you-can-eat restaurant with unusually lax opening hours. I bloody loved that cooker. So when it finally died, obviously we bought the latest version of exactly the same model. Only it’s not the same at all.
If the old one had lived through a gas explosion, we’d have found it gently smouldering in the garden, still roasting the chicken.
The new one shivers in fear if you storm past it to wipe the toast crumbs off the kitchen surface for the 37th time that morning (three of the four grown-up children still live with us, plus one has added a wife) (it’s a lot of toast). The tick-tick-tick-tick when you light the hob makes my brain cells quiver with rage. And the clock is still wrong because none of us can work out how to reset it after a power cut.
Next came our fridge-freezer. Our beautiful, big, double-doored, we’re-posh-now-we-have-an-ice-dispenser fridge-freezer. Twelve years of sterling service, much of it groaning beneath enough milk, cheese and leftovers to sustain a small expeditionary force. It finally surrendered during this summer’s heatwave.
We loved it. Why wouldn’t we buy the latest version of the same model?
Fool me once, etc.
I’m now missing a salad drawer, the freezer barely fits one loaf and a bag of fries on a shelf, and the ice dispenser operates like a tiny frozen roulette wheel. One cube? Nine? A gentle clink into the glass? Or a large handful of ice cubes rapid-fired at your feet? Nobody knows.
Every drink is jeopardy.
And so we return to the dishwasher. It has recently decided the top tray is an optional extra in its wash cycle. It seems it will lazily slap some water upwards, and think Bob’s your uncle, job’s a good ‘un. Only we’re not wild fans of dried-on leftovers in our cereal bowls nor of yesterday’s coffee dregs adorning the inside of a ‘clean’ mug.
This time, however, we’re wise to them.
We are absolutely NOT buying the latest version of the dishwasher we have relied on for years. That’s how they get you.
So. If anyone can recommend a dishwasher that does nothing remotely innovative, has no interest in talking to my phone, can handle four amateur chefs cooking separate meals in the same kitchen on the same night and will remain a faithful assistant until roughly 2040, I’m listening. Until then, nobody breathe near the current one.
Laura x
PS: Somewhere along the way, without anyone consulting me, I have become the sort of person who stands in the kitchen saying, ‘Well, the old one was much better.’ This is disturbing. I assume complaining about the price of biscuits is next.
On Thomas Gargrave’s opinions
We at Space Youth Project (SYP) were very disheartened to see the article you published by Mr Gargrave on page 50 of your Dorset Life July 26 issue.
Dorset Life is a reputable and very informative magazine and for you to publish such an inflammatory and factually incorrect article is very disappointing. Especially as there are not any articles in the same issue from a trans person or LGBT+ organisations to balance the words of Mr Gargrave. It appears from Mr Gargrave’s words he has not actually spoken to anyone in the trans community before he has formed his opinion and maybe if he had his opinions would differ.
At SYP we would really like to see people engage with the LGBT+ community, especially those people making decisions that have a direct impact on individuals in the LGBT+ community.
By engaging and having those conversations they will have far more balanced information to be able to make more informed decisions.
Most of all SYP would like everyone to be kind, to others and themselves
Space Youth Project Admin Team
Ed: Thomas Gargrave writes for Dorset Life as a political opinion columnist. The views expressed in his column are his own and do not represent those of Dorset Life. We do not seek to balance every opinion column with an opposing article, but our letters pages are always open to readers and organisations wishing to challenge or respond to views expressed in them.
On the housing ‘crisis’
In reference to your comments on Dorset’s housing problems, you agree that Dorset needs more homes yet then go on to argue that they should be affordable.
This is ridiculous.
The more homes available, the lower the price will be.
To build just affordable homes will result in lower price and lower quality constructions that no one will want to buy. Dorset needs more homes because it’s a desirable place for people from towns and cities to retire to. This leaves local people priced out of the area.
The people objecting the most are those who’ve already moved to Dorset for a quiet life, and now want to pull the drawbridge up.
The population is expanding, and the entire country needs to accept that many more new homes are needed in every corner of the land. If the NIMBYs hadn’t been in control for so long, houses would have been built gradually and the need wouldn’t be so urgent. I have lived in Dorset for 62 years (all my life), so I think I should have more of a say than those townies who’ve appeared out of nowhere, driving house prices up and then demanding that no further homes are built.
It’s utter hypocrisy.
S Richards, Sturminster Newton
On Maiden Newton station
Further to last month’s history piece on Maiden Newton railway station, readers may enjoy spotting it in a 1979 episode of To the Manor Born. The episode, appropriately about British Rail closing the local station, actually opens there. It’s still available on iPlayer: series 3, episode 2.
Mary W, Maiden Newton
Ed: you can watch it here
On giving up
I no longer believe the planning system is broken. I believe it is working exactly as intended.
It gives communities just enough of a voice to pretend they have been heard, while ensuring those with the money almost always get what they want. Volunteers who are squeezing the work around other commitments are the people fighting hardest for our communities. The people with all the power are paid to destroy them.
After decades as a parish councillor, I am sick of being invited to ‘consultations’ whose outcome appears predetermined. We volunteer hundreds of hours because we love where we live. Developers spend millions because they love profit. Guess who wins? We are expected to defend our communities with nothing more than local knowledge and goodwill, while facing planning consultants, barristers and government targets. It is not a fair fight.
What’s the point any more? We can see the outcome before the first meeting even starts. Local democracy has become theatre.
Name and address supplied.
On Sherborne Library
I would like to say a big thank you to Sherborne library’s dedicated team who, for 11 months, have valiantly kept the town’s library service running from the lobby of the Digby Hall.
When the library closed on 5th September 2025 to enable the building to be adapted to provide ‘Extended Access’ we were told it would reopen the next month. Sadly, it had not occurred to Dorset Council that a building dating from the early 1970s might contain asbestos and, as a result, the closure of the library has been extended several times as we awaited the completion of the ‘essential asbestos removal’ and related works.
Thankfully, the library has now reopened, and we can look forward to the benefits of ‘Extended Access’. Unfortunately, one casualty of providing extended access has been the drastic reduction by Dorset Council, without any consultation, of Sherborne library’s comprehensive local history collection which once was an invaluable resource to the town, school children, visitors and the wider community, and is much missed.
Si hotum in bibliotheca habes, nihil deerit.
George Tatham, Sherborne.
On AI and water
We’re being warned about severe water shortages and asked to take shorter showers and use watering cans … while at the same time there is no concern about the enormous data centres consuming vast amounts of water and energy so we can generate AI pictures for jokes, clickbait and endless social media posts. I’m not anti-AI. It’s an extraordinary tool. But perhaps we should start treating it as something with a real cost, rather than an unlimited free resource? Use AI to solve problems, improve productivity and do genuinely useful things.
But do we really need another sloppily-generated cat with a bee on its head?
Name and address supplied
On being 80
Your correspondent complaining about being treated as elderly at 60 made me laugh. Try being 80.
There seems to be an assumption that once you reach your eighties you spend your days sitting quietly in an armchair reminiscing about the war.
May I remind you that today’s 80-year-olds were young in the 1960s? We wore miniskirts! We listened to the Rolling Stones, we marched, protested, went to university, built careers and were part of the first great wave of modern feminism. Some of us were considerably less respectable than our grandchildren are.
And plenty of us are still volunteering, travelling, following politics and generally getting on with life. There are even octogenarian social media influencers.
We’re not bewildered relics from another age. We helped create the modern one!
I sympathise with your 60-year-old correspondent. But tell him or her they have another 20 years before the really irritating assumptions begin.
Name and address supplied
Want to reply? Read something you feel needs commenting on? Our postbag is open! Please send emails to [email protected].
When writing, please include your full name and address; we will not print this, but do require it.
