simont | (no subject)

Blast and botheration. I've managed to lose another umbrella.

I don't suppose anyone reading this might have found a black M&S one-person umbrella lying around their home? It's one of the cool double-spring-loaded ones which opens automatically at the touch of one button, and folds the fabric back up at the touch of another.

Fortunately, fivemack left his umbrella in the boot of my car when I gave him a lift from Pizza Express on Monday, and has now apparently wandered off to the other side of the world, so I used that to avoid actually getting soaked while walking to Tesco. Thanks for the accidental loan, Tom, if you're reading this :-)

I really must find a way to stop losing umbrellas. I think the main problem is the way you have to leave them out to dry once you've used them – my guess is that that's what makes them unlike any other random thing you can carry around in a bag, because most other things you can put straight back in the bag after using them. Perhaps I need an umbrella with a short-range radio link to a locator in my bag, so it can go beep if I pick up everything except the brolly and leave…

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm not convinced by that. I suppose if your main worry is your hair getting wet, it makes sense, but that's not a serious problem for me these days - even if I go to bed with wet hair it doesn't do any harm :-) For my money, the major value of an umbrella is keeping as much water as possible out of my clothes, which I'm likely to have to wear for the rest of the day and can't sensibly dry. So a hat would have to be really quite broad before it was worthwhile...

(Umbrellas still aren't optimal because they don't protect your legs well, of course, but the thick jeans I wear even in summer at least have the virtue of being difficult to waterlog.)