A Plea for Quality
- johnriley1uk
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A Plea for Quality
I bought yet another tin opener today. £1.25. I don't want to pay £1.25, I want to pay £2.50, but in exchange I want one that works well and lasts and doesn't fall apart within three weeks.
We buy tins of beans and suchlike. I want to pay more, but I want a tin that will open reliably without splintering metal into the food and bending and twisting because the metal is too thin.
Don't even start me on tins of Corned Beef.....
Everything is cheap these days. Cheap, we can do it cheaper....but what I actually want are things that work. Things may be cheap but they are poor value.
Let's have a swing back to things being good value because they are well made and do the job properly.
We buy tins of beans and suchlike. I want to pay more, but I want a tin that will open reliably without splintering metal into the food and bending and twisting because the metal is too thin.
Don't even start me on tins of Corned Beef.....
Everything is cheap these days. Cheap, we can do it cheaper....but what I actually want are things that work. Things may be cheap but they are poor value.
Let's have a swing back to things being good value because they are well made and do the job properly.
- Mike
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Re: A Plea for Quality
Worryingly buildings are now of the same vein. When did it happen? When contractors started employing Architects. We need to go back to Architect's leading the process and getting the value back into construction.
As true today as it was then!John Ruskin wrote:There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on price alone is this man's lawful prey.
Mike
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Re: A Plea for Quality
Try buying a tin opener from Finland is my random piece of advice for the day. I had a few finnish flatmates in the church and they always suggest stocking up on finnish utensils as they last, unlike english ones.
- Mike
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Re: A Plea for Quality
Internet shopping ahoy!
Mike
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- Master of the North Wind
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Re: A Plea for Quality
Too True!! I've got lots of lakeland utensils, my tin opener has lasted since 1st year of uni (1998!) and is STILL going strong.The Sam Vimes "Boots" Theory of Economic Injustice runs thus:
At the time of Men at Arms, Samuel Vimes earnt thirty-eight dollars a month as a Captain of the Watch, plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots, the sort that would last years and years, cost fifty dollars. This was beyond his pocket and the most he, Vimes, could hope for was an affordable pair of boots costing ten dollars, which might with luck last a year or so before he, Vimes, would need to resort to makeshift cardboard insoles so as to prolong the moment of shelling out another ten dollars.
Therefore over a period of ten years, he, Vimes, might have paid out a hundred dollars on boots, twice as much as the man who could afford fifty dollars up front ten years before. And he would still have wet feet.
Without any especial rancour, Vimes stretched this theory to explain why Sybil Ramkin lived twice as comfortably as he did by spending about half as much every month.
HEY! HO! Lets go!
Re: A Plea for Quality
Phil, I have never heard that anecdote but I agree wholeheartedly with its message. Quality lasts, cheap immitations fail.
"A word to the wise ain't necessary -- it's the stupid ones that need the advice." Bill Cosby
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Re: A Plea for Quality
I'm quite a fan of Terry Pratchett, especially the "Guards" stories, Sam Vimes appears to share my views on a lot of things! Pratchett is frequently very perceptive in his satire. I also like some of the more silly gags...
One strange character starts going on about currency and something called the "Reflected sound of underground spirits"... economics!
Just to put the discussion back as it was...
EEEEEeeeeeee by gum... They don't make em like they did back in my day.
One strange character starts going on about currency and something called the "Reflected sound of underground spirits"... economics!
Just to put the discussion back as it was...
EEEEEeeeeeee by gum... They don't make em like they did back in my day.
HEY! HO! Lets go!
Re: A Plea for Quality
Excellent quotes from Ruskin and Pratchett gentlemen! Being concerned about this stuff may seem very "grumpy old man", but if you consider how much energy and raw materials are wasted by replacing shite products there's a real environmental-care aspect to it as well.
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- johnriley1uk
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Re: A Plea for Quality
That is exactly the point. We have become intoxicated by the desire for cheapness and cheapness is often what we end up with, in the worst sense of the word.if you consider how much energy and raw materials are wasted by replacing shite products there's a real environmental-care aspect to it
- Mike
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Re: A Plea for Quality
Another example is my really cheap dvd player. We thought it would be a good stop gap until high def becomes streamable over the internet. However, it was so cheap it came without some very important features. We should have done more research but there you do. For £20 it was good cheapness but in terms of usablility it is very annoying.
There is another obvious example. I don't have to say it, everyone will know what I mean.
There is another obvious example. I don't have to say it, everyone will know what I mean.
Mike
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Also see: http://www.dragonsfoot.org
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http://www.rileyuk.co.uk
Also see: http://www.dragonsfoot.org