Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Wet Legs And so, having exorcised the mini-rant about my poor dead dad and an unfortunate incident involving HMS Tiger I can return to more worthy topics of discussion.*
Umbrellas.
What is the matter with the umbrella manufacturers of the world? It's a simple enough design. Get a pole, shove an up-and-down thing in the middle. Attach some struts at the top. Attach struts to up-and-down thing and the top struts. Stretch some water-resistant material (preferably with hideous design and/or blatant advertising) over the whole thing. Bingo.
So, why is it that 3/4 of the Pogobrollies failed to do their job this morning? The Pink Hippo Brolly (with added ear attachments) has only three bits of working struttage. The Brightly-Coloured Legoland Brolly has only one. The Nondescript Brolly's up-and-down thing had rusted into place.
Result: lots of tutting and mental screaming as the family tried to get out the door to school (being late, as usual). Struts poking through material in pretty-short-lived attempt to produce a servicable brolly or three.
Only the Green Legoland Brolly (mine) is vaguely useable. I say vaguely because it's been blown inside-out so many times now that one side of it had some well bendy struts which have all but snapped.
The worst is that it cost fifteen quid too.
£15!!! For a brolly that lasts five minutes!!!
BROLLY MANUFACTURERS - SORT YOUR ACT OUT!
* Phew. Sorry, I was taking things a bit seriously for a second. That will remain offline, on a little white lappy imaginatively named 'mac2' :-)