Why? Why do motor manufacturers not as a matter of course have a visual indicator which tells you what gear you are driving in? Engine torque these days is such that noise is unlikely to give you that information.
If you have to accelerate suddenly, you might need to change down, but how can you know without feeling for the gear-stick? Why don't motor manufacturers provide this vital information on the dashboard?
They tell you the warmth outside, how efficient your fuel consumption is, your altitude, your speed, your engine temperature, whether your door is open, whether your indicators are on, and your oil pressure. So why don't they tell you what gear you're in?
No seatbelts
Why aren't trains and coaches fitted with seatbelts? If it is mandatory by law for me to wear a seat-belt in a car and taxi, why am I not merely exempt by law from such an obligation, but also quite incapable of wearing one, simply because seatbelts are never fitted in vehicles of mass-transport? Regardless of my opinions on the matter, I have no choice.
So what is the logic? Moreover, why are the seats on buses, trains and planes, not facing backwards? The safety advantage conferred by such arrangements is huge; instead of passengers undergoing the joys of snapped necks or a face full of shattering windscreen, they are simply pressed more firmly and more comfortably into the backs of their seats. So why are rearward facing seats not the norm? There is no argument in favour of keeping forward-facing ones, other than frivolous customer-preference; yet forward-facing seats remain the international norm, in spite of all reason and commonsense.
Why, after all these years, do some airlines still charge less for return fares if a Saturday night intrudes between the two legs? Where lies the logic, morality or law in all this? Why do most airlines still allocate seats at check-in? Why is it possible for a train to load a thousand people without allocated seats, and a bus do so with 20, but not an airliner? Is it because allocation of berth was a necessary tradition from the steamships which airlines inherited, and which culturally they cannot even now discard?
Is there any reason for allocation of seats for an entire jumbo of 500 people? There is? What is it? And is there any reason, other than lazy habit (not to speak of the extraordinary power of licensed vintners), why cafes and coffee shops shouldn't sell alcohol?
Sales of alcohol
No particular skill is required: after all, the skill involved is what most of us do at home without thinking every day of our lives. So why is it all right for us to do privately at home something that publicans and expensively licensed restarauteurs do in their place of work, but which is illegal for anyone else to do in a public place?
So what is the logic? What is the justification? And on the issue of alcohol, why is it the law that the manufacturer of any foodstuff must declare on the wrapping what is contained within, unless it is alcohol? If it is orange squash, cola, tinned peas, corned beef, bread, rashers, sausages, rice pudding, the law insists you declare the ingredients. But if it is alcohol, you are spared such analytic honesty. All you need declare is the alcoholic content, without further reference to the preservatives, flavourings and taste-enhancers you might have slipped in.
Why is this? What political power enabled the manufacturers of lethal drinks escape the laws which are utterly sovereign over baby-food?
Any declaration of the contents of prescription-medicines would be wasted on most of us, to be sure. But why are such medicines supplied without a description on the wrapping of what they do? Aulin, for example, is a pain-killer; but the tablets come in silver foil which merely declares their proprietory name, without reminding us of its purpose, which we will probably soon forget.
Unmarked pills
Most homes will have left-over tablets for diarrhoea, sleeplessness, pain, cold relief, coughs, athlete's foot, baldness, toenail-rot, etc., but their purpose is not announced on their packaging. Why? Does the pharmaceutical industry of the world want us to engage in futile binges of pills for the squits when we have ear-ache? Is it its secret desire that insomniacs attack their sleeplessness with a gastric potion which could purge the Suez Canal of a scuttled concrete-vessel?
Though the wonders of new technology may provide instant word-search accuracy, the thorough index is all but dead in modern books. Why? Famished Protestant curates once provided indexes for a pittance. Computers should be more efficient. They aren't. Please: why? And why do so many books have blank pages in the beginning, middle and end?
Why do history-volumes in which a sense of geography is essential merely content themselves with a couple of little unmoveable maps, instead of having plastic bound-in maps as book-marks?
Why in Irish villages is it impossible to buy rabbit, brown trout, eel, pike, hare, wildfowl, and the wild harvest of the hedges and the virtuous foods of the fields? Across mainland Europe, the natural produce of the countryside is much cherished. In Ireland, not. Why? Why will a country restaurant which promises the natural bounty of the countryside be certain to go broke?
But most of all: why do shoes which fitted you perfectly in the shop shrink to a cripplingly smaller size once you have unreturnably scuffed them? Why?