Alessi - God's way of telling us to get another storage solution

My house is full of crap. Crap crap crap crap crap. I don't even know I how got so much crap.

But I have a hunch...
Pointless Crap

Alessi is one of those companies that does design. Its the kind of design where you know that the item has been designed. Your friends will comment on the beautiful design. They will know it has been designed by Alessi. Welcome to the cult of the beautifully pointless. Let us worship the great god design, for we too are beautiful and beauty is our home and our home is our shrine.

But hang on a minute. Where are you going to put this wonderful erm lemon squeezer? With the rest of the crap, that's where. For Christmas, Alessi fans can get a nutcracker in the shape of a Squirrel. That's how design works. Take a perfectly ordinary thing like a nutcracker and turn it into something that takes up more space than it is worth.
Seasonal pointless crap
This nutcracker only cracks nuts. At Christmas. After that it can go away in a drawer with all the other shite.
 If Western Civilisation as we know it, collapses, future beardies in hand-knitted hippie jumpers, having dug it from the earth, will take one look at the squirrel nutcracker and tell the children of tomorrow that it was probably used for ritual purposes.

And do you know, he would not be far from the mark.

12 comments:

Richard said...

Haha - my house is full of crap too. Only mine isn't designed crap, it's old crap. Useless crap. Dusty crap. The drawers are full of crap, so we store the extra crap on the floor, on the computer desk, the dining room table, the bathroom, any surface that's horizontal and some that aren't ("bank statement landslide!").

I would give my right arm for some decent properly designed crap. Nice, shiny crap, perhaps in the shape of cute animals.

You people don't know you're born.

Wrinkled Weasel said...

You will be relieved to know Richard that I do not have anything from Alessi. Most of my crap is old ugly crap too. Currently, my workshop stuff is scattered all over the study, next to fresh laundry and a raclette machine.

Jim said...

There are whole armies of people whose sole job is to get us all to buy crap, watch crap and accept crap.
It goes to the very top and is called perception management. If we don't have the latest crap or can join a discussion on the latest must watch crap on tv then we are seen as odd and outsiders.
It has always been thus and allows them to walk us blindly into wars, fight for the latest fashion designs, watch X factor, vote for political parties that are all the same and the best thing is by the time we realise all of this we will soon be dead.
Then our children will walk into the same traps as they will think they're cool with the latest crap and will rush to fight someone 'over there' and they don't do history so won't know it's all been done before.

Woodsy42 said...

Keeping the debris saves writing a diary. All you have to do is look around to be reminded of every point of your life.

Richard said...

My workshiop stuff is still in the workshop, but buried under piles of crap which comes from the clearing of my mother's flat. I have to climb over furniture to, for example, get to a workbench with a vice. She died in 2002, which gives you some idea of my level of organisation.

Jim: never a truer word spoken.

Woodsy: I would need an archaeologist to interpret some of my stuff. It's that old. One example: a road atlas taking up bookshelf space that was printed in 1982. We have five more recent atlases (and a satnav), but it hasn't found its way to the bin yet. It's a book, you see. You don't throw away books.i

Jim Baxter said...

I don't seem to own any crap at all. My 150+ assorted DIN plugs and sockets, my 3.6-6.5 mm and back again stereo to mono, mono to mono, sterep to stereo jack adaptors, male and female in combinations that Noah would boggle at, my dozen or so bifurcated phono (RCA) adaptors, are all essential. Even my foam headfoams, though I complain about them, at least work. Sort of.

I also own a detached chair leg but not the chair it is detached from, and several sawn-up blocks of wood whic I sawed myself.

Dave said...

I have two children, My daughter (when she lived at home) was an excessively tidy person. She used to clear up her room and dump piles of stuff she didn't need anymore outside the door- every week. Her mum would wait until she'd gone out and put it all back.
My son is the opposite. He's a hoarder and an untidy one at that. His universe is filled with half finished and half started projects, several weeks worth of discarded clothing, cups, plates and pint glasses all encrusted with something once edible or drinkable. His mum wades in every now and then to fill several laundry baskets and also because we've run out of plates and cutlery.
I'd consider both my offspring to be normal- that is normal for our family.
Me? I put up with the mess for just so long, then have a mad clean up. I'm so worn out by the exertion that I lay exhausted as the crud settles around me. Finally I spring into action, thus repeating the endless cycle.
It's life Ged, but not as we know it.

Twig said...

@Richard 5:23
snap!

strapworld said...

WW. Gosh, Thank you for introducing me to the wonderful world of Alessi!

I take pride in giving presents to my relations and friends that they will find difficulty in both using and hiding!

Normally | visit household auctions to buy, at bargain prices, the largest bowls/vases/jugs/statuettes/ yes crap indeed to surprise them all at Christmas Time. The joy on their faces when we arrive with my carefully wrapped presents (in newspapers) brings joy to my heart.

Now I can go our at buy something, albeit more expensive, is flash crap indeed!

Thank you and a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Wrinkled Weasel said...

Strapworld I think the nutcracker comes in at about £60. I could go into Edinburgh, get a prozzie, get drunk on single malt, get a fish supper and still have change. Or, just have the fish supper and one drink and get a taxi back, which costs £40.

Richard said...

They must be charging a lot for fish suppers and single malts in Edinburgh.

Jim said...

Richard..
" They must be charging a lot for fish suppers and single malts in Edinburgh."
I was thinking the same about the prozzies ;)
Best visiting the 'pubic triangle'.
half price mon - thurs ;)