Every now and again we all need to let off a bit of steam, and the only real question when you're in the mood for a modern-life-sucks rant is... who gets to be the target?
Could be the idiot motorcyclist who gave me the finger this morning for no other reason than my lane choice may have slowed up his arrival at his destination by about 15s.
But no, I get the fundamental stress of driving in south coast traffic.
So today it's all about kettles with useless spouts. Actually, not just useless spouts, but downright dangerous ones. Spouts and kettles that splash boiling hot water all over anything that happens to be within a foot of them.
What is it about kettle design? I mean, really, how hard is it to design a kettle with a spout that doesn't flood water all over the counter top every time you try to make a cup of tea?
There are only two components to good spout design, and it didn't take a three day consultancy with the computational fluid dynamics guys here at work to figure it out either:
1. A sharp edge at the point where the water breaks off from the spout and heads for the cup.
2. A concave shape to the exit ramp that the water flows down before it hits the aforementioned sharp edge.
That's it - and given modern plastic and metal moulding and pressing techniques you would think it would be just as easy to make a kettle with a good spout as a bad one... but apparently not.
So to all you kettle spout designers out there, and for that matter, teapot, milk and measuring jug designers too -- do the basics first, just make it pour well before you worry about what it looks like.
Ok, that's it. Nothing more to see here, move along quietly please.