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…

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One of many reasons I dislike umbrellas. There's a rant about them in Hikaru no Go - they're bulky, you have to hold them while in use, you have to find somewhere to put them.

A nice broad-brimmed hat solves nearly all the problems.

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.)

We've got a couple of random umbrellas hanging around from way back - I think one of them even came from Manhatten Drive, because noone knew it wasn't ours. Do you think one of those is a previous Simon umbrella?

It's possible, I suppose. I'm certain I've seen the current one since after I last visited Milton Road, though, so if anything it'll be a historical umbrella :-)

I'm forever losing them too, last one ended up on a train between Leeds and London on the way back from Keighley. This is why I only ever buy 3 quid umbrellas, and only then when desperate.

Yes, you twerp, it's at ours, I told you! Is deaf one, this one :)

Except the one where you look really silly - like an Australian farmhand who once had a picture of Carl McCoy..

My disorganisational skills would cunningly circumvent that by ensuring I forgot the bag as well.

Ooh, OK. Thanks. When did you tell me that? Is it long enough ago that I've forgotten, or recently enough that I must have not been listening? :-)

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…

There's an April 1st RFC in this, I reckon. Let's see; one umbrella, one GPS unit... :)

Ah, well, in that case you need a transponder in the bag too, and fasten the beeper end of the mechanism to some item of your clothing. Then you could only forget either one if you somehow managed to forget (for example) your underwear. Do you think your disorganisational skills are up to that? :-)

On the phone last week. So somewhere between the two :)

I've lost a lot fewer umbrellas since I marked mine with my surname using nail varnish. This did at least deter casual theives, and the extra distinctiveness helped.

It has been known to happen, yes. You underestimate my disorganisational skills.

I've got an umbrella with a plastic cover, so you can put it back in your bag wet and dry it when you get home.

Works pretty well, but you do have to remember the drying when you get home bit, or it starts to smell.

I had one of those, only I lost the cover. I still have the umbrella, though.