1 EAGLETON NOTES: A Gadget Too Far

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Monday 22 October 2012

A Gadget Too Far

I came across this gadget the other day.  It's to help you fold your shirts and the like.  I'm a gadget fan but even I really couldn't believe it:


While I'm on the subject of gadgets I was both taken aback and rather complimented this afternoon when someone referred to me a 'someone who is as young as you are'.  Perhaps this doesn't apply to me after all:


And for the Francesses and Adrians of this world I saw this advert the other day.  Ouch.


'Sall for now.

24 comments:

  1. I hope you didn't buy that foldy thing? Looks like a Chinese puzzle!

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  2. I have always laughed at the folding shirt contraption, but to each his own, because I know one person who bought and used it...why I'll never understand.
    The picture with the little baby is the darndest cutest...only yesterday I was mentioning to some folks, that the young ones seem to be born with an inate ability to decipher all the new gadgets....they don't even need the instructions...
    As an aside my new printer did not come with a single instruction sheet....that told me something.

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    1. Very little seems to come with written instructions these days: just all the legal warnings. The rest you have to find on the internet. I have a whole folder on the computer entitled Manuals. Mind you how many of us ever read them?

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  3. As for the shirt folder - what was it Victor MEldrew said - " I don't believe it! "? (You have to have watched 'One Foot in the Grave' to get the intonation of that phrase correctly.)

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    1. I actually have seen and episode or two of 'One Foot in the Grave' (virtually impossible on UK TV not to have at least seen him doing that quote). That's how I felt I have to say.

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    2. I have the DVDs of the complete series and love it! Actually, he doesn't say "I don't believe it" that often, but it made a lasting impression on anyone who watched the series, it seems :-)

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  4. Ha! My Mum owns one of those folding things; when she bought it (from a teleshopping channel...), my sister and I couldn't believe it! But she insists it's a great thing and uses it all the time. I must admit the inside of her wardrobe looks incredibly neat now.

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    1. Oh no, Meike. I love the inside of my cupboards to be neat or, more to the point, I like my shirts to be uncreased when I put them on. I just hope that I never see one in a shop. I may not be able to walk past it. Would I have the courage to admit I'd bought one though?

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  5. Luckily I don't have many shirts, or I might be tempted....

    The little boy plus caption reminds me of Granny Phyl (who had been bought up on a dry stock farm) remarking to her 3-year old grand-daughter and pointing out the window "Oh, look at the pretty cows Emma" Whereupon Emma (who had been bought up on the same farm, post dairy-herd transition) stated articulately "They're not cows Granny, they're heifers."

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    1. Yes, Katherine, nowadays I'm sure they have more confidence and sometimes a lot more knowledge than we ever did at the same age. At other times I recall my parents' words that I was born with my pension book in my hand and would wander up and down the tram talking to people pre-school as if I was an old hand at it. So perhaps nothing really changes except our perceptions.

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  6. We don't fold shirts (except when packing for a trip), we just hang them on hangers and stick them in the closet ....

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    1. I was going to say the same thing Carol. Then I realised that I have all the roll-neck shirts which I don't wear in the summer (which means I've never worn them since I started going to New Zealand in 2005) and half of my polo-shirts too. I also fold shirts when I go on holiday. But I still don't think I could ever buy one.

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  7. Well, Sheldon uses one quite often in "The Big Bang Theory" on TV; he makes it look quite easy!

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    1. That's true!! Sheldon does use his with such aplomb.....Love The Big Bang Theory..watch it all the time.

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  8. If the thing did the work all by itself then I might consider it. But somehow it looks like one of those contraptions that create more work than they save. Well, at least it would for me, as I store my shirts and even most of my soft tops in hanging position!

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    1. Yes Monica one that works by itself is a great idea. But then it would be huge with all the hydraulic wizardry that would be necessary. Perhaps sending everything to the laundry is the solution.

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    2. Now you sent me back in time, trying to recall when I last heard of a "the laundry" that one could send anything to (as a private customer). I landed in the 1950s... In my early childhood, while we were still living in the town-flat, I know my parents would send (or take?) bedlinen away to "the laundry" and they came back white and crisp and even the pillow-case bands neatly pressed.

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    3. Someone mentioned to me recently that we have a laundry on the Island. I assume it does all the care-homes' laundry etc. When I was a child everything went to the laundry: it was taken and collected weekly and came back wrapped in a brown paper parcel with string. Odd what memories get jogged isn't it?

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  9. With all the bag packing you do, Graham, I'm surprised you resisted this. I think I fall in the "I don't believe it" camp. Not surprising as I seem to have quite a few Victor Meldrew tendancies these days.

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    1. Actually, Pauline, the one thing I never do is transfer many clothes between New Zealand and Scotland because I have separate clothes for each to avoid the problem. The irony is that my case when I travel to and from NZ is half the weight of when I go to France for a week.

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  10. The kid pic is very cute!! I never need instructions for any gadget except the washing machine with all those options!!!!

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