Buckets are interesting things aren't they? It is certainly true that if some people had taken less interest in politics and more interest in buckets the world would be a better place. Jeremy Corbyn for example. His abilities are far more suited to the study of buckets.
I just counted our buckets and to my surprise we have six, although two have holes in them so maybe they don’t count. Although even a bucket with holes in it can be useful for collecting weeds and dead leaves in the garden. We have an old galvanised bucket with holes in it but it can still be used to burn paperwork such as old bills. In fact that is probably what caused the holes in the first place.
Buckets are cheap too, but maybe that is just as well. We recently bought a bucket online for a fiver delivered. Why bother going to the shop for one at that price? Yet imagine a situation where we had never worked out how to make cheap buckets. Sounds unlikely but if the manufacture of buckets were to be a monopoly government function we’d soon see some expensive buckets If Mr Corbyn had been given the opportunity to create a National Bucket Authority for example –
We’d see green buckets made in a sustainable way from biodegradable materials with lots of health and safety information about basic bucket functionality, the correct use of buckets, bucket-handling posture, inappropriate bucket usage, bucket maintenance, repair and ultimate disposal via approved bucket recycling outlets or preferably the gifting of used buckets to the third world. What fun that would be.
But as with many other things buckets have become less interesting over the years. We are unlikely to visit the local hardware store expecting to see wooden buckets, leather buckets or those old enamel buckets although there are still some of those around. On the whole though we rarely see anything apart from mass-produced plastic buckets.
We do see some innovations such as folding buckets for camping, buckets of popcorn for the modern cinema-goer and quite a range of shapes, sizes and colours. All in all maybe we should accept the changes as promoting a healthy bucket situation in spite of the ubiquitous plastic.
I just counted our buckets and to my surprise we have six, although two have holes in them so maybe they don’t count. Although even a bucket with holes in it can be useful for collecting weeds and dead leaves in the garden. We have an old galvanised bucket with holes in it but it can still be used to burn paperwork such as old bills. In fact that is probably what caused the holes in the first place.
Buckets are cheap too, but maybe that is just as well. We recently bought a bucket online for a fiver delivered. Why bother going to the shop for one at that price? Yet imagine a situation where we had never worked out how to make cheap buckets. Sounds unlikely but if the manufacture of buckets were to be a monopoly government function we’d soon see some expensive buckets If Mr Corbyn had been given the opportunity to create a National Bucket Authority for example –
We’d see green buckets made in a sustainable way from biodegradable materials with lots of health and safety information about basic bucket functionality, the correct use of buckets, bucket-handling posture, inappropriate bucket usage, bucket maintenance, repair and ultimate disposal via approved bucket recycling outlets or preferably the gifting of used buckets to the third world. What fun that would be.
But as with many other things buckets have become less interesting over the years. We are unlikely to visit the local hardware store expecting to see wooden buckets, leather buckets or those old enamel buckets although there are still some of those around. On the whole though we rarely see anything apart from mass-produced plastic buckets.
We do see some innovations such as folding buckets for camping, buckets of popcorn for the modern cinema-goer and quite a range of shapes, sizes and colours. All in all maybe we should accept the changes as promoting a healthy bucket situation in spite of the ubiquitous plastic.
5 comments:
Corbyn does, of course, have an interest in manhole covers - he collects them.
https://news.sky.com/story/corbyn-yes-i-collect-manhole-covers-10339360
We left a lovely old galvanised metal bucket in the outhouse when we moved out and let the property. I often worry about it. Will our tenant have got rid of it?
We've got several of those squishy all-plastic rubble/gardening thingies, but I don't know if they count. Certainly, they are useful. You can carry water in them, or washing, and my children carry the cat around in them.
We've only got one proper bucket. A black plastic one. If Sir Keir Starmer ever came canvassing here, I'd ask him if he thought its life mattered.
B and Q were flogging plastic buckets for a few pence (black not orange), and I bought half a dozen to grow carrots in!
Carrots need to be well off the ground (to obviate carrot fly), and like you say, any with drilled holes in the bottom, are useful instead of a trug basket or barrow.
I use a galvanised bucket for the hot ashes, and stand it in the coal shed, where it keeps the place over freezing-point too!
All in all, I am a confirmed bucketist, and will count them all again today, just to be on the safe side...
Sam - that old galvanised metal bucket was worth hanging on to. In the garden they make a pleasant clatter as you drop stones into them so it sounds as if you are hard at it.
If you ever have the opportunity to put your question to Sir Keir Starmer he'll appear to be baffled by it, but that's the expression he does best anyway.
Scrobs - I'll tell Mrs H about growing carrots in buckets. At the moment she is growing beetroot in one of those plastic recycling bins.
It's a useful word when there are children around when something goes wrong, as you can say,"oh, bucket!" instead of swearing.
And how's your bucket list?
I'll get my coat
Ed - oh bucket! I wish I'd thought of bucket list.
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