Saturday 10 June 2017

Cutting Remarks

I didn't have a Useless Gadget of the month in May. I was going to mention the Muggi, which is a strange plastic tray - like the ones full of flowerpots outside the garden centre. It is designed to help you carry 4 mugs without spilling.
I thought it looked ugly, would probably need two hands to carry it, took up too much space in the cupboard, and the indentations were too small to fit some of my mugs. To many cons, not enough pros for me.
However, I decided that some people really would benefit from this one. It was originally designed for people on boats, where you may need to carry four drinks up on deck. You don't want them sliding on a tray, you do want a free hand to grab the rail if the boat yaws [I think yaw is the word I mean] Then disabled groups found they were very useful for people with limited mobility, in wheelchairs, or suffering from arthritis or Parkinson's.
So actually, although I currently have no use for a Muggi myself, I am not putting it into my useless list. I acknowledge it may have a genuine use and purpose for some other folk.
But for June, on the other hand, I present you with the Clever Cutter.
 A knife and chopping board combined, with a scissor action.
This seems beyond silliness to me. Why not use a knife and a board?
For a start, you can only cut things which will fit onto the clever cutter board.
So no big potatoes, butternut squashes, or large red peppers.


Yes, you can chop 'straight into the pan or onto the plate' - but what about the end of the cucumber, carrot or spring onion? You may want that to go into a bin or stockpot.
The ad says 'slice and dice' - but as I understand it, dicing requires two sets of perpendicular cuts - you'd find it hard and fiddly to do that.
A knife and a board is much better - you can wash the separate parts properly, you can sharpen the blade when you need to, you can manipulate the knife to cut larger or smaller pieces.
This costs upwards of £9 depending on where you purchase it. 
I could never bring myself to buy something advertised as 'just like using a scissor' anyway. One uses a pair of scissors. That's plural. It should only be used in the singular as an adjective for the word action - "The figure skater moved his legs in a scissor action" "This post-hole-borer works with a scissor action"
We were enjoying a cup of tea in The Range the other week, and they were showing ads on the TV screen for the various products they sell. There were kinky extending curly garden hoses, depilators which could make Bryan Blessed look like Matt Lucas, frying pans which never stick even when women like me regularly burn the sausages, strange graters which remove hard skin from heels, but will probably work on a block of Parmesan too... and then they kept repeating this 'clever cutter' ad. In the end, Bob had to tell me off, for my continual ranting about the pointlessness of them all!

2 comments:

  1. I once asked for a pair of scissors from someone and she said she had only one! She was quite serious, too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is a seriously dumb product which I'd probably end up cutting my fingers off with by mistake!!x

    ReplyDelete

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