Nothing clever about many new ideas
APPARENTLY builders are running short of roof slates because of the craze for trendy plates! Reinventing to improve something I get. But this obsession for reinventing things that in no way improve on the original is getting more than a bit daft.
I remember the first time I had a rather splendid salad served up on slate. Once the dressing had been added it was an allotment in oil slick and by the time I had finished it looked like a hyperactive two-yearold had just been fed by a chimpanzee.
What’s wrong with a circular ceramic plate, which according to a YouGov poll is preferred by 99 per cent of the people polled?
That goes for the slices of driftwood, the tin buckets and the shoes…yes shoes that so-called trendy restaurateurs are serving your food in. I’ve just had a good old scout around the house to see what else fits into this ‘newer but not cleverer’ category.
Let’s start in the bathroom. Toilet seats. Remember when they sat firmly in place no matter how much you
I’ve just had a good old scout around to see what fits into this ‘newer but not cleverer’ category. As for the mixer tap in the kitchen. Instead of a washer costing a few pennies I have to replace the whole thing.
reassembled your best accessories? When they were fixed solid with metal butterfly screws not dreadful plastic ones with dodgy threads? Toilets with proper heavy-duty flushes like chains or handles that worked every time. To use less water you just put a house brick in the cistern and even I could unscrew and replace a ballcock. Not like these modern push in things that frequently get stuck eventually requiring you to replace the whole gubbins.
Then there’s the sink. Sinks with a bit of depth to them instead of these saucer like vessels, which act as a water-slide with the water shooting out as soon as it hits the blessed thing. Sinks with proper plugs attached to them that you could take out easily to clean the plughole instead of these press down pop up jobbies, which invariably cease to press down or pop up after a while.
Then there’s multi-headed showers that require you to read a manual before you can work them. I stayed in a hotel last month and had to call ‘maintenance’ to work out how to turn the bath taps on without the overhead rain shower, the size of a dinner plate, porcelain naturally, drenching me and the extra handset firing directly into my face. ‘Maintenance’ arrived and he looked at me like I was a half-wit…and left soaked to the skin!
Oh and these dreadful ‘inspection pits’ in walk-in showers that save every little bit of muck and guts for you to see and then convert it into a nice thick black mulch instead of draining away. I don’t empty vats of chicken fat ‘n feathers down there, its only my personal secretions.
As for the mixer tap in the kitchen. Instead of a washer costing a few pennies I have to replace the whole thing. The oven and hob temperature dial details have all but worn away. The company wanted over £100 to replace them.
What about hard- wired electric plugs?
OK so they help prevent colourblind people and people like me fiddling around with a butter knife from getting electrocuted, but what about if they only need a fuse changing? They don’t all allow you to do that. So something else for the plastic mountain.
My husband has just come in and added to my rant.
“Any ideas about the dent on the front of the car?”
Ah yes. What happened to bumpers designed to be bumped …and changed? Now everything’s ‘integrated’ to make the car more streamlined more dynamic.
More expensive more like it. That’s a whole flippin’ wing now!