Friday, May 23, 2008

Bouncy Castle Bollocks

It’s hard being a parent. As well as remembering to feed them and check on them when you leave them locked in the car out in the pub car park, you have to find things to do with them at the weekends.
Time waster of choice in our house at the moment is the bouncy castle, and the sprog and I fit in some bounce time most weekends. But here’s the thing. It isn’t a bouncy castle; it’s a bouncy teapot. Whoever heard of a bouncy teapot? No one. That’s why we all still call it a bouncy castle. Luckily Frankie hasn’t asked me why we refer to it as a bouncy castle, but what if she does? That’s something they haven’t covered on Doctor Phil or Oprah. And it does beg the question why someone felt compelled to bother creating another bouncy object when the castle has served the children of the world so well.
Was it an entrepreneurial bouncy castle employee who spied a niche in the market? Did he talk to some kids and find out that while the castle and its princess and dragon connotations were all well and good, what they really fantasized about bouncing inside, was a teapot? Did he take this idea to his boss in the form of a power point presentation? Was he laughed out of the bouncy boardroom? Or bounced out??? Did that propel him to go out and form his own bouncy business. Is he the apple to Microsoft in the bouncy shit for children to play on world? Just seems like a waste of time. Especially when there are so many untapped opportunities in the bouncy castle world. For example, why not build houses the way they make bouncy castles? In earthquake prone places, like china, you wouldn’t get horrific body counts. The buildings would wobble around, which would be fun for the kids, and then it would be all over. In a hurricane the houses wouldn’t blow over and debris wouldn’t blow around and hurt people. The houses would just blow away. Come home drunk to a bouncy house and it doesn’t matter is you fall over on the stairs. Drive home drunk and run into the side of your house and you just bouncy off. Next morning when the wife throws the toaster at you that will hurt like hell, but when you hit the floor unconscious, you don’t end up with secondary injuries.
I guess what I am getting at is the bouncy castle industry needs to stop jumping around and have a good think about what they already have. There is so much unexplored potential with the castles; I just don’t see the need to go off designing teapots.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Instruction book bollocks

You know that feeling when you buy something electronic and it comes with a really big, thick instruction book and you think ‘shit, I didn’t realise this half toaster half fax machine was going to be so hard to earn to operate’ and then you open the book and it turns out there is only one page of instructions but it is translated into 85 other languages and that’s why it’s so thick…… I love that feeling. I wish you could get that in a pill (legally) or a drink.