And while I was scrubbling about in the archive looking for Babbage, I came upon this, from 28 January 2004:
“It is a curious fact that the crowbar is one of the very few tools to be named after our avian cousins. Things have come to a pretty pass when our habits of nomenclature are so bereft. It is in an attempt to rectify this sorry state of affairs that the manufacturing arm of the Hooting Yard Foundation is working on the production of an exciting new range of ironmongery products, to wit: guillemot bolts; lapwing nozzles; lark basins; coot clips; teal pins; bittern jacks; little bittern jacks; snow bunting tacks; flamingo hasps; grebe locks; moorhen horns; corncrake hinges; raven sticks; tern rotors; buzzard extractors; and pipit wrenches.”
With much shame, and rending of garments, I have to confess that in the five years since that was written, not a single one of these fabulous products has yet appeared on the shelves of our credit crunchy mongers.
Grebe locks have been available on the black market for a few months now. Indeed, I believe that the most recent Uzbekistani version of Cluedo contains a miniature, allowing the eager gamester to suspect Professor Khasimov in the goat pen with the grebe lock.
I remember buying duck boards and Swan Vestas from our local ironmongery monger … before he was run down by a Robin Reliant on a pelican crossing.
And there’s the Swanndri, a curious piece of rainwear that allows you to be soaked wet immediately, but ensures you stay warm afterwards.
Glyn : I would have thought the Swanndri’s name derived from Proust, rather than from single-‘n’ed swans.
I’m sure many a disappointed whooper has purchased the first volume of Proust, only to fling it in disgust at the nearest coot
Ah ha..!
Maybe you should put your ideas forward to a “Dragon’s Den” style committee, demonstrating your worthy ideas to several plutocrats who will then humiliate and exploit you and your proposed products for commercial gain…
I look forward to visiting Hubberman’s ironmongery dept. and selecting some of your sensible products to improve my hovel…
O.S.M.
Speaking of the crowbar – why has the crow’s name been given to a tool whose purpose is to jemmy things open and knock-unconscious those who might spy you doing so? Has our friend the Crow been unfairly tarred by association with this most brutish of tools?