Once Works Well was pure technology. Now it seeks merely to divert.
Pansy subjects - Verse! Opera! Domestic trivia! - are now commonplace.
The 300-word limit for posts is retained. The ego is enlarged

Monday 13 December 2010

Painless delivery for corned beef

I’ll brook no argument (a silly verb I grant you). The best tin-opener in the world is the Brabantia Profile. No longer available in this form the model name is still retained and I can’t believe Brabantia has lowered its high – and frequently expensive – standards. It costs £9.32 and passes the ultimate test.

What test? The traditional corned-beef tin is a symmetrical trapezium in frontal elevation, thus one end is smaller in area than the other. OK if you have tag and twisty key; if not you need the Profile. To ensure the contents can be pushed out neatly in one piece, you need to remove both ends and it’s the short-radius corners on the smaller end that test cheapo openers. Easy with the Profile and no jagged edges. One caveat: even the Profile suffers wear, notably the cutting disc and the sprocket that “drives” the tin. Be prepared to replace the Profile in a dozen years or so. But then perhaps you don’t eat corned beef.

BEST WURST Mrs BB is back from her continental Christmas market visit: last year Prague, this year Munich. My prezzie is a Steirische Burgsalami in a dinky hessian sack resembling a bucolic Xmas cracker. Huge flavour, even a huge bouquet. But so, so hard. Denture wearers needn’t apply.

FANCY THAT I write a lot and take a physically active break now and then. Hence the piano keyboard. No big deal, often just hymns. Did you know the seventh and eighth lines and one note of the ninth of Ye Holy Angels Bright:

Or else the theme,
Too high doth seem
For…


are a C-major octave plus one? Makes things easy.