kettle

hello there

indeed, it is (most decidedly so) that here we are, at what is (at least) the second post of this month which by chance relates to what one may call domestic appliances, look you see. we are, however, removed from the glory of the industrious washing machine, though. perhaps you have picked up on this from the title, but if not, a new kettle has been obtained, and so it should be celebrated here. 

no harm, i must stress, befell or visited the previous kettle. motivations and reasons for the acquisition, or if you will purchase, of another cannot, regrettably, be disclosed at this stage. fear not a lack of such knowledge, rather just appreciate that what is known. 

many of you get unduly but not unreasonably distracted by a thirst for specific information regarding any new purchase i make, with particular (but by no means exclusive) focus on the provenance. very well. this is, as you can presumably tell from the greater glory and good of Commodore 64 mode image above, a jet black branded kettle, purchased off of Tesco for an agreeable price which was centrally north of £20 yet south of £30. 

with regards to costing, in terms of United Kingdom price index stuff, the £25 price (which i am confident you worked out was the actual, real term cost) places this kettle in the central middle class, borderline bourgeois range of such appliances. to this end, those who are in a respectable way classed as being of the working class, such as coal miners or low level civil servants, may purchase a rudimentary similar device for less than half the cost. on, or at, the other end of the class structure of our nature, the elite, the landed gentry and lottery winners may indeed spend two, three or indeed several times more coins of money on a kettle which would essentially do the same job, just with a higher cost for no immediately obvious reason. 

do, or would, i consider (classify) myself as "middle class", then? or in some way bourgeois? it is not really the place of one to declare their status, in truth. rather let others attribute your class status, so that they may let some time from any given day pass in an agreeable way, drawing satisfaction by means of casually judging others. but, that said, i do indeed own at least one (1) Dire Straits album on compact disc format. back in the 80s this was enough for one to be declared a "class traitor" and pegged you as a member of the middle class. should such measurements still be used today, and i suspect that this is not the case, well, there you have it. 

yes, truly, above you are indeed seeing one of them "animated" gif things, in the greater good and glory of Commodore 64 mode, of the kettle in action. that is indeed my finger switching it on; please refrain from copying my fingerprint off of it for fraudulent or any such naughty activities. as you can see, when activated the kettle has a "business end red" light, which differs from the subtle, gentle blue light what has been on most (or at least the one we had) kettles available in the UK for the last couple of decades or so. more on this aspect later on. 

since we are in the realm of colour, however, let us ride with it. this would be partially non non-linear in terms of how i would normally (or usually) write, but once again, here we are. no immediate clarity on why this kettle is named, or described (actually both) as "jet black". an obvious answer is that this is where the black used on it falls in the shade chart on official colour guides. the rather more speculative of us may well instead ponder as to if it is in fact named such as a tribute to Jet Black out of The Stranglers, who you would imagine has used a kettle at some stage (probably not when drumming, though) to make a cup of tea, or similar. or maybe the naming of this kettle is a well intended but controversial effort to associate itself with the celebrated, most famous geology rock thing off of Whitby. all i can say with certainty is that, from what i can see, the colour of the kettle is indeed black. 

how does it perform? as in, does it do what one would reasonably expect a kettle to do? if we assume, even if just for the moment, that your expectation, or should you be more brash demand, of a kettle is that it should boil water, the answer is an unequivocal yes. so, or thus, far, it has been that on a couple of occasions i have filled this kettle with water (out of a tap, but if you have the budget for it by all means go right ahead and use a posh bottle variation of this), boiled it and made myself a cup of tea or coffee (pronounced "coyfie" in certain areas of America). each instance has been agreeable and, if i may say so, satisfactory. 

up to now, no, i have not used the produce of this kettle (boiled water) to do any of the other things what one might use boiled water for. my imagination stretches as far as thinking this would be to make some pot noodles, perhaps, or one of them "cup a soup" things. or gravy, i suppose. anything really which commences in a quite predominantly powder state and requires the addition (or blending, if you are keen on marketing trends) of boiling water to mix or otherwise transform it. 

right, time to address the aspects of this kettle some may consider to be controversial. yet, also, the elements of it which many would say are progressive and good. it is not for me to judge or in any way determine who you are from the basis of what you say to this. a glimpse of the new future for the UK is held within this kettle, as it embraces the fact that it is sold to a nation no longer bound by EU restrictions, requirements and (importantly) limitations. 

one would not, i suspect, need me to tell you or anyone that the UK is no longer part of the EU. this was a change widely agreed upon, and the transition went really, really smoothly and all is good. well, if you say it on the internet then it must be true. many say, or scream (in particular on social media) that they fail to see any benefits of this "Brexit" business, and yet here they are in this kettle. 

a first, practically obvious difference with this kettle and one which is made to comply with the millions of rules and regulations what the EU come up with, often for no apparent reason, is the capacity. it is enormous, or if you like massive. after much (expensive) deliberation, the EU (probably) placed strict limits on the amount of water one may boil at one instance, so as to save some energy and ultimately costs, enabling the funding of perpetual bail outs for member states what are not as clever with coins of money as very nearly as many as two of the current nation states involved in it all are. since the UK is no longer obliged to follow such commandments, and is also perfectly capable of both producing energy and managing finances (kind of), we are free to jolly well boil as much water as we blooming well like, any time we want. 

further, boil fast, too. it is so that this post-EU kettle has a strong, powerful and loud boiling mechanism, or engine, or element, whatever is the correct one to say. under EU regulations, and i believe or assume this was down to the French, harsh limitations were placed on how powerful any domestic appliance should be. the benchmark was a top end (if such a thing exists) citoren car, and nothing one would use in the house could be more powerful that that. which is why for the last few years we have suffered inept vacuum cleaners woefully lacking in power, and quiet, middling kettles which get there eventually. now we can have the beauty of armed and fully operational proper British engineering and power in these devices. splendid. 

lights, too, to reflect back on an earlier point. infamously, the EU (and once again probably the French) decided that lightbulbs could not be too bright, for being so would use too much energy, and also allow people to see just how dire (France) some places really were. once more, presumably, that restriction is gone, which is how come this kettle is allowed to have such an ace bright red light on it to show that it is functioning. 

the light being red is, in itself, also another important aspect of departure from the EU which many may have not noticed or noted. as mentioned earlier, we have had to contend with softer, smoother shades of light on appliances, usually a relaxing blue. one would be find it difficult to doubt that this is yet another instance of French influence, for they probably consider red to be too aggressive or scary. well, we don't, and so now we can have any colour we like for the light on a kettle, thanks. 

quite a lot of this kettle, then, is symbolic of how we may now live in a way what is free of EU rules and regulations, or to be honest about it without worrying so much about what might upset or cause distress for the French. lovely. sure, there is a partial temptation to call them "French tw@ts", but that is rather harsh. besides, it would be a bit like saying "reflective mirror", would it not? by definition a mirror reflects, ergo the idea of suggesting the French are some descriptive word mentioned earlier. 

would i say that i am satisfied, or pleased, with this kettle, in terms of relevant value for money and it doing all that it was purchased to do? yes. i think that is the view which comes across the most in all of the above writing on the subject. sure, there was some subtle moments of departure to say things like, or akin, to "f*** off Frenchie", but do not be distracted by such. this is a lovely kettle which, on my experiences so far, one could buy with confidence.

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!