Brand Old

In Sri Lanka these factories are banging out jeans. That’s the easy bit. What takes time is all the extra effort they have to go to, to rub the jeans with sandpaper and wash them over and over to get them looking really old. But the Sri Lankan's don’t mind because they get to charge more for older shittier looking clothes. Mental when you think about it.
Imagine if the same trend took off with cars. You could buy a brand new Ferrari and for a bit more cash they could get little men to take to it with rocks and car keys. After scratching and denting the body they would attach doors that had been soaking in seawater so they were all rusty.
You would even have the option of a cracked windscreen so when you drove that car down mainstreet it looked like it had been places. If that trend took off it would be great for the makers of Humvees. The new H3 sucks. It looks like a suburban mums kid bus. Why not ad a little credibility by giving every new H3 a tour in Iraq to ‘age’ it. Nothing like real bullet holes and blood stained seats to add to that authentic all terrain look. Forget the cup holder and cigarette lighter. In a genuine Iraq conditioned Humvee you get an M16 gun rack and a place to stick your field dressings. Of course the war worn H3 would cost a little more depending on how many tours it had done. And maybe you pay more for a Humvee out of Iraq than Afghanistan because that is a more popular war. By popular I mean Iraq is in the news more. Maybe when America gets round to bombing Iran the Humvee people will be able to put a few H3’s near the Iranian nuclear plants to soak up some of those cruise missiles blasts. Imagine being the first stockbroker on your block to be driving a humvee that was conditioned in Iran with genuine US military hardware.

My Italian design disaster.

Some clever Italian design guy realized that the shape of Italy would make a very handy bottle opener. Brilliant! But you would expect a cool design idea like that, from a country that prides itself on great design. What was even better about this was it also doubled as a fridge magnet. Now the fridge is where my beer lives and the opener is for the beer so having the two living as neighbors is brilliant. It saves me the walk across the kitchen to the draw with the unmagnetised bottle openers.
Just one problem. The hole that you put over the bottle cap is slightly too small. So rather than whipping the top off in one quick often practiced manner it take three or four attempts to loosen the little sucker.
How hard is it to make a bottle opener that works? Bottle caps aren’t like railway tracks or power points. They don’t have different gauges and types around the world. I know. I have opened beer across this lovely planets and I have never seen a bottle top come in anything other than the standard international agreed bottle top size. That’s why they sell so many souvenir bottle openers in airports. Because the souvenir people know it is a gift that can be used anywhere. Am I to believe that the Italian bottle opener fridge magnet design team didn’t bother to test their creation? What about the launch party? Didn’t anyone think to serve beer? Was it just wine? My grandad told me the Italians had lots of experience drinking beer. Every time they changed sides in the war they celebrated by opening a few bottles.
How can a bottle opener designer hope to have any credibility if he doesn’t open a fricken bottle of beer at least once. It would be like a group of Jehovah Witnesses starting up a business making Birthday cards.
I have been devastated by the performance of my Italian opener. Quite frankly it has left a bad taste in my mouth, although that could be the case of Sri Lankan beer I have had to work my way through this week. I don’t really rate Sri Lankan beer, but their country would make a nice ergonomically shaped bottle opener. Italy’s fuck up could be Sri Lanka’s gain.