Walter Hess Bodle: Fool of a Man

I love electricity me. Electricity is good. Well done to Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, EDF or whoever would like to claim responsibility I salute you or yous.

But Walter Hess Bodle -inventor of the freestanding electric tin opener- I can not applaud you. It’s a no from me. You’re not my Pop Idol. I’m out. Adding electricity to a tin opener is clever in a 1950s: ‘look world, I’ve made a robot. By the year 2000 we’ll all be flying’ way, but largely pointless.

My main gripe with the electric tin-opener is that there is nothing wrong with an ordinary tin-opener. It is a simple and effective design. It takes a second to find in the drawer, doesn’t need to be plugged in or faffed with. Opening a tin is no hardship, it is a quick and easy job that has been made annoying and time consuming by the so-called ‘convenience’ of a bulky piece of kit.

Its like inventing a new colour, another breed of dog* or the kindle.

BC, Mr A only ate tins of tuna for his tea, it seems fair enough he would require one fancy pants piece of kitchen equipment and that the only piece befitting would be tin related. His electric tin opener is the equivalent of a dad’s bread maker or a beautiful much coveted Kitchenaid, the difference being the electric tin opener is utterly futile.

The offending item lives in the cupboard and it’s cable always gets wrapped around a million other things, its top always falls off and hides behind things in said cupboard meaning a scramble and general kerfuffle. We have only 2 plugs which means the shiny new toaster or his sister the kettle have to be unplugged and in order to pull the lid off the extra-strong magnet you have to use sufficient force that the brine/juice spills.

I curse the day I lost the cheap bog-standard tin-opener in the divorce.

Ermal Fraze had the best idea: ring pull. So, treasured reader, the moral of the story is this: stop being like Walter and try to be a touch more like Ermal. And don’t get an electric tin-opener.

*NB. If the new breed of dog is crossed with a komodo dragon. I’m in.