I put away my paint tins and then the light changes and I see a bit I have missed: I take out the paint tins, fix the missed bit and put the tins away. Then the light changes and I see a bit I have missed: I take out the paint tins, fix the missed bit and put the tins away. I take out the paint tins, fix the missed bit and put the tins away. Then the light changes and I see a bit I have missed: I take out the paint tins, fix the missed bit and put the tins away. I take out the paint tins, fix the missed bit and put the tins away. Then the light changes and I see a bit I have missed: I take out the paint tins, fix the missed bit and put the tins away.
It gets to be very frustrating. Light, like a fox, is very trixie.
For much of the last few days painting I have been thinking about 'utility', and as so often is the case things I thought ordinary, even trivial, are in fact highly complex and interrelated. I tried to think of the simplest of tools I had been using. Hammer and nails. Setting aside the hammer, I concentrated on the simple nail. On consideration I was not choosing my nails on the basis of their utility alone but also for a good number of other reasons. The obvious one is aesthetics. A large nail head would be most effective but is also, for interesting reasons - you can think of them - is considered ugly. So I make the job more difficult by choosing the slender nail with the smallest possible head. The brass vs steel screw is another example where aesthetics trump utility. I have never thought about the history of the nail before, and I may be wrong here, but it seems that the general design of the nail did not change for... well since they were first used. They looked more like tacks. As did the Victorian nails I had to remove in the process of redecoration. I assume the shape of the nail changed with mass production and the use of new alloys. But there may be more to it than that. Cost, for example, economics in the Age of Capital may well be more of a shaping force than utility in the case of the nail.
Another example arose as I took a bath to wash off the ecrusted grime and paint of two weeks work I noticed that the tool Liz used to wipe the condensation off the glass shower panel was one of those rubber blades used for cleaning windows. No doubt of the utility, and normally I would have applauded such cross over tool use, but this did not suit my newly decorated bathroom. The new bathroom was not the place for a rather masculine window wiper. - You will have guessed from the previous entry that it was red and larger than it needed to be -. I shall drop into IKEA to see if I can find something more suitable.
Such things would be better called toolettes. ( The suffix 'ette' deserves a blog too itself.)
But that is too close to the sound of 'toilet'. A word that has drifted far from its moorings.
It also struck me that the chosen words for kitchen tools are often 'implements, equipment or utensils.' All follow the rule of high status from a Latin or French origin. Is this because of the Normans with their fancy French cooking, or just because the kitchen is part of the household?
Names associated with tools is another rich vein to mine. Think of the use and associations connected with the word 'tool' itself. Redolent with status, class and gender prejudices. I can hardly bring myself to use it.
I shall, from now on, talk about my utensil box.
Time to go and pack my bag.