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November 18, 2004
stuck kettles
There comes a time in the lives of all men [and women] when the kettle, having finally given up its sole purpose in life, namely: heating water, has to be replaced.
The kettle is an object used many times everyday, so its function is clear. You have to get cold water in, you have to apply energy to heat it and you have to get hot water out. Not too complicated I feel.
And there have been remarkable inroads to this function. We’ve gone from a blackened, heavy, hand-scalding pot that hung on a chain over the flames, to an un-tethered, light, jug-like object. But the evolution of the kettle has peaked.
Once we got the handle to the back, the cord to the front, and the whole thing totally un-pluggable the kettle was nearly unstuck. But they wouldn’t leave it there would they?
I went to buy a new kettle, an electric kettle. Nothing fancy. And I am faced with the nightmares of a deranged product designer. Things with wooden bits, things that look like plastic jugs which have been left too close to the fire, things that look like flip top waste bins, things that look like the sort of thing Ronald Reagan buried in the ground to defend the Land of the Free, things that look like they could play cds while heating the water, things that don’t look like they could heat water if thrown onto a bonfire, things that look like toasters – oh, hang on that is a toaster, isn’t it?
Shelves [for they are many] stacked with kettles which only seem to be trying to stand out among all the other kettles that are trying to stand out. THIS IS A VERY DIFFICULT SITUATION. Once you start trying to be different for the sake of being different the meaning of life as we know it is in the balance, and kettles become useless.
Posted by john at November 18, 2004 09:59 AM
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