Steve Gaunt Pontificates
How fashion can make our lives worse
Things change, I for one see that as a good thing, most of the
problems with religion that make our world a dangerous place to
live are caused by some peoples resistance too change. But that’s
another story.
These are about fashion and surprisingly its little
do with clothing. No this is fashion and our homes, more
particularly how good ideas have been replaced with bad ones because
of dictates of fashion
I am sure you will be able to think of some other examples of this
but here are four for starters.
I will start with an idea that was
so bad it quickly bit the dust that goodness
Button Fly’s.
 Yes this is clothing and I put it first because, it would seem
that the stupidity of this quickly caused its demise as a fashion.
The Zip was a wonderful invention, its never really been bettered.
Velcro was a good idea but didn’t fit the bill for real clothing,
and don’t get me wrong buttons are an excellent and simple
idea in many situations.
But who ever thought that bringing back button flys on jeans was
a good idea should be well I’ll leave a suitable punishment
up to you, and I wont dwell on why its such a bad idea that should
be obvious.
Silly Sinks.
 Another good development was the prefabricated sink
and drainer. Made possible by the development of plastics and stainless
steel moulding. It combined the kitchen sink and draining area
into one unit.
Later developments introduced waste disposal areas, double drainer
if you had room. Excellent designs that did the job required. But
now, some numskull has reintroduced tiny little stand alone ceramic
sinks presumable with the concept that this is retro look that
people want. Nonsense, it a massive backward step, these things
don’t allow any integrated drainage system that means leaks
will develop. Ceramics chip, and scratches show over time, space
is limited and well it’s just a bad idea replacing a good
one.
Floor Standing Ovens
 My wife and I have a built
in oven, it’s so good at its
job that we brought it from our old house when we moved. When it
does wear out I intend to get another one of the same design.
The thing about the built in oven is that it lifts everything up
to a height where that make for ease of use. You don’t have
to bend over or kneel down to extract food from the oven and the
grill is at eye level. So you can keep an eye on what’s happening.
Brilliant idea.
So why is the latest fashion for floor standing ovens? This just
brings back all the old-fashioned ideas that the built-in oven
consigned to history.
Roller blinds
 Vertical window blinds were a good idea; they offer two modes
of operation either adjusting the angle of the slats to provide
variable light entry/privacy, or the ability to fold them completely.
The
fashion now is roller blinds, only one form of closure. Once again
a good idea replaced with something less effective for the sake
of fashion.
But is the answer really anything to do with the dictates
of fashion itself?
Or is this because if you can get people to buy stuff they don’t
need, then you can make more profit?
What do you think?
Your views on Steve pontificates.
I would be a hypocrite if I didn't allow any replies to my pontifications
so if you want to contribute send your piece to steve_gaunt@huddersfield1.co.uk
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