Ornaments.

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

I fucking hate ornaments. To me they symblise everything that is stupid and impotent about the working class, the reason the proles will never rise up and cause a revolution, a useless, joyless, not-even-aesthetically-pleasing black-hole for the hard-earned wages of the proletariat. I look around my mum & dad's house and I see ornaments everywhere and it makes me so damn sad. They must've spent thousands and thousands of pounds over the years on glass owls and badly hand-painted plates and resin elephants and atrociously-carved wooden cats. They don't even have ironic kitsch value because they're too shit! If my parents hadn't spent so much money on fucking ornametns we could've had a bigger hosue or a better car or I could've been sent to private school and my life would be so much better. So from this day forth I pledge to never, ever, ever buy an ornament, either for myself or for anyone else as a gift unless it has some kind of positive utility which I am certain will be facilitated; ie; it's no good buying someone a cool-looking bottle-opener if they never open bottles with it, because then it's utility is neglected and it becomes just another useless piece-of-crap ornament, and therefore ,font size=7>evil.

That's all.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 07:25 (twenty-two years ago)

That's evil, obviously.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 07:25 (twenty-two years ago)

This is another reason I hate Christmas.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 07:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Ornaments suck, tis true!

― Pinkpanther (Pinkpanther), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 07:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Christmas ornaments are moderately acceptable, because you stuff the fuckers in a box in the loft for 94% of the year and you don't have to look at them mocking the impotent impulsiveness of your social class all the fucking time.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 07:29 (twenty-two years ago)

But Nick, surely you'd just feel better if you had a little porcelain pig to look at?!! *ducks*

― Pinkpanther (Pinkpanther), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 07:31 (twenty-two years ago)

so...ornaments=knick knacks?

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 07:31 (twenty-two years ago)

"knick-knacks", "keepsakes", "paperweights" anyfuckingthing you wanna call them, those little useless pieces of tat that cost you money and have no utility.

*Nick is now hoping Emma doens't post to this thread and say "wot like you?"*

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 07:33 (twenty-two years ago)

This might give my ornamental rage some context this morning.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 07:33 (twenty-two years ago)

I didn't mean Christmas oprnaments, I just meant that your tirade about buying useless shit aligns with my tirade about buying useless Christmas shit, in a kinda general way. The argument could be made that they both serve an important emotional purpose, and bring joy into people's lives, blah blah blah. Fuck that. I'm poor. I can't afford joy unless it's free.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 07:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Exactly. Plus anyone who gets joy from ornaments doens't deserve fucking joy in the first fucking place.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 07:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Exactly. Try giving someone a hug.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 07:38 (twenty-two years ago)

I heart Nick.

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 07:43 (twenty-two years ago)

But wtf else are you gonna get Aunt Eileen for Xmas if not a Precious Moments figurine?

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 07:45 (twenty-two years ago)

They work as emotional batteries, just like records.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 07:45 (twenty-two years ago)

I have no truck with emotional batteries, and even if I did I don't think ornaments would be effective emotional batteries.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 07:53 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd buy Aunt Eileen a book or a film or a bottle of fucking sherry. Even booze is better than ornaments because at least it causes sensation.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 07:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Emotional batteries are great Nick! They saved my relationship on a couple of occasions. The human impulse to sentimentality is a wonderful thing when used wisely, and I distrust (or suspect of immaturity) anyone who denies it.

I do agree though that ornaments are usually overpriced and exploitative, especially those packaged as a 'collectors series' etc.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 07:57 (twenty-two years ago)

The human impulse to sentimentality is a wonderful thing when used wisely

While I agree wholeheartedly with the idea behind this statement, Im can't help but think that the juxtaposition of "sentimentality" and "wisely" is (more than) slightly oxymoronic. Sentiment seems to me to almost be the antithesis of wisdom.

Maybe my harshness towards emotional batteries per se is a touch callow and swift; I'm not the type of person who attaches a great deal of sentiment to objects and things, I think as much as anything else because I'm very forgetful and lazy. I still hold that ornaments are a particularly malicious form of Althusserian social control. Porcelain owls as ideological state apparatus.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 08:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I was at a friend's house the other day, and his mother collects spoons. That's right, spoons. I'm not kidding. There are spoons hanging on the wall in the hallway.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 08:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Is she a junkie?

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 08:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah you might be right that sentiment and wisdom contradict - maybe the wise man knows when to be unwise (grasshopper).

I don't buy the class stuff because I come from a respectable middle/upper-middle class family and my parents' house (and my aunts and uncles and in-laws houses) are still full of tat.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 08:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Ok so are the ornaments that you're so upset about tacky things you don't care for, or any 'object with no utility' that exists for the sake of decoration? While I'm not a fan of porcelain owls, I think having pretty, interesting objects around the house is essential, and brings me much pleasure.

― Sean (Sean), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 08:09 (twenty-two years ago)

It's good to have pretty/interesting/beautiful stuff around the house, but pretty/interesting/beautiful stuff has utility simply by being pretty/interesting/beautiful. Buying a badly-crafted small china dog because it looks like your dead dog is wrong. And probably psychologically dangerous.

Tom, your parents' and aunts' houses may be full of tat too, but do any of them have front rooms you're not allowed to go in and that are full of ornaments and shit and a 70s TV that's been watched three times (Royal Wedding, Rumbelows Cup Final 1991, Dian's Funeral) and that gets treated basically like a museum? Cos my aunt & uncle do. And they live in a small house. And my aunt wears a house-coat (read: apron) most of the time, even when she's relaxing, so as to not get stuff dirty. It's the total lack of wider perspective that causes ludicrous foolishness liek this to become important that I think is the root of my problem with ornaments.

And the wise man does indeed know when to be unwise.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 08:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Nick, CALM DOWN. You're sounding like an ANGRY COMEDIAN.

Tom is very much on the money here.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 08:32 (twenty-two years ago)

If the ornaments are owned by upper class or rich people, do we call them objets d'art?

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 12:04 (twenty-two years ago)

And what if they are 'ethnic'?

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 12:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Martin, Dastoor, you've opened a whole world of hurt.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 12:14 (twenty-two years ago)

William Morris to thread.

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 12:39 (twenty-two years ago)

What hurt?

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 12:45 (twenty-two years ago)

on the saturday before christmas of the year two thousand and one, I went to one of my favourite pubs with some of my favourite people. at this pub, on this day of the year, they hand out raffle tickets to everyone in the pub [you pick your own number] and everyone receives a gift, later on, that corresponds to the number they've chosen. in two thousand and one I got a big, colourful cookie jar. I was sitting next to one of my best friends, his name is ally cook. cookie had gotten one of those awful lead crystal animal things. ducks. I thought cookie should have the cookie jar. so I swapped him. I had crystal ducks.

in two thousand and two, we all went again. I chose my number. later on I was given a wrapped gift. it was cubish. I unwrapped and found, TO MY UTTER FUCKING DELIGHT, that I had received some crystal swans from the same range as my ducks.

now I live with cookie and the ducks are on one end of the mantlepiece and the swans are on the other.

fuck you, nick southall.

― RJG (RJG), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 12:56 (twenty-two years ago)

hahaha. As Nicholas Parsons would say, the audience enjoyed it, bonus point etc, but Nick is still RIGHT.

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 13:01 (twenty-two years ago)

RJG, am I correct in deducing that you gave away a functional cookie jar?!" My word.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 13:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Does Ally use it, do we know?

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 13:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Buying a badly-crafted small china dog because it looks like your dead dog is wrong.

Worst Precious Moments figurine yet. "Scruffy's Gone to Heaven."

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 13:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I like ornamets, I like to surrond myself with clutter. What I like best is twee robots that have absolutely no function.

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 16:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Somewhere near the back of my record collection I have a recording of an angry comedian (Mark Miwurdz, maybe, but perhaps someone else) inveighing heavily against ornaments. You'd probably like the routine, Nick.

― Tim (Tim), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 16:11 (twenty-two years ago)

i like pretty things.

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 16:15 (twenty-two years ago)

I have the same record that Tim does.

― rosemary (rosemary), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 16:22 (twenty-two years ago)

the cookie jar sits on the very top shelf in the kitchen. it looks wonderful. it contains nothing.

― RJG (RJG), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 17:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Nick hates all that is fun.

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 17:45 (twenty-two years ago)

I congratulate you on the certainty and firmness of your opinion. It
is rare to find someone so attuned to their own sensitivites as you
seem to be, and rarer yet to find idealism keyed to such a high pitch.
Although the great majority of the population is deaf to such
high idealism, I can assure you that every fruit bat in your
neighborhood can detect it.

― Aimless, Wednesday, 13 August 2003 18:20 (twenty-two years ago)

We need to buy Ally some cookies for his jar.

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 18:26 (twenty-two years ago)

two weeks pass...

Revive. Just for the hell of it.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Monday, 1 September 2003 15:01 (twenty-two years ago)

send cookies.

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 1 September 2003 15:07 (twenty-two years ago)

I have loads of cookies at work right now! (Well, biscuits. I am not American and they do not contain chocolate chips.) But we need them here I'm afraid.

― Archel (Archel), Monday, 1 September 2003 15:12 (twenty-two years ago)

: /

anyone?

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 1 September 2003 15:14 (twenty-two years ago)

three years pass...

So from this day forth I pledge to never, ever, ever buy an ornament, either for myself or for anyone else as a gift unless it has some kind of positive utility which I am certain will be facilitated; ie; it's no good buying someone a cool-looking bottle-opener if they never open bottles with it, because then it's utility is neglected

I hope that Ronaldinho bottle opener isn't being displayed as a "piece of football memorabilia" :)

― onimo, Friday, 1 June 2007 15:27 (eighteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.