pumpkinstrokemarrow

This interesting piece of the drawer's art has been on display in Horton Lane for the past few days, leading me to reflect on the changing fashions in these matters.

So 256 years ago, drawer fronts would have been made of oak or mahogany and half blind dovetailed to the sides.

Then 128 years ago, far too many people aspired to this type of furniture in their dwellings, oak and mahogany became expensive and the bog standard dropped back to red pine.

By 64 years ago, we had dropped even further back to white pine.

Then a mere 32 years ago, to birch ply. A good strong material, now expensive and not much used.

16 years ago to chipboard.

8 years ago to moulded white plastic.

And then, a mere 4 years ago we reached the stage of a white plastic version of brown corrugated cardboard, the stuff used for cardboard boxes the world over. The white plastic version being mainly used for estate agents' house for sale signs - and for the drawers illustrated.

Since then, drawer fronts disappeared into their very own exponential singularity and no-one knows what fashions rule there. But one could write an interesting essay about the interaction between drawer aspirations, the prices of the raw materials, the falling prices and rising capability of woodworking machinery and the rising prices and falling capability of woodworkers. But maybe that is for another day.

In the meantime my eye was caught by two nuggets from the Economist.

First, I was amused to read that despite the noisy national aspirations of some Scots, other Scots are very keen to join more fully into English life so that their 1.5 decent football teams can participate in a more worthy competition than that available to them now. Good that there should be this reminder of the disadvantages of being small and puny.

Second, I was very sorry to read that the maintenance money paid to the Royal Parks is steadily declining. We might have £20b to spend on running and jumping and £500m to spend on a big tent - but we can't find the £20m or so needed each year to do a good job on keeping up our Royal Parks, for me a really important part of our national life and heritage. As a result, whoever operates the parks these days finds it necessary to host all kinds of paying events - often noisy - with the result that much of the time much of the parks are not available for normal park life, partly because much of the grass has been destroyed by the eventers tramping around in the rain.