The British, as a people, have agreed to discuss the weather more than is strictly necessary. This is because there is no other way to acknowledge what is happening. I am, this week, writing in linen. Last week it was cashmere. The cashmere is now sulking in a drawer. The linen is not what I would have chosen if I had been given a vote, but I was not. Tomorrow, I am told, it will rain.
It has rained, hailed, and been twenty-eight degrees inside the last seven days. My wardrobe is a museum of recent wrong guesses. My handbag contains an umbrella, sunscreen, and a small linen scarf, none of which is currently relevant.
There is one object in the house that has decided what it is.
It is small, white, matte, water-resistant, and shaped like an egg. It does not consult the weather forecast. It does three things — heat, suction, vibration — in any combination, on demand, regardless of the conditions outside. This is more than the British weather can manage, which generally commits to one thing per hour and then changes its mind.
The heat was the bit that caught my attention. It activates in approximately fifteen seconds. It does what no electric blanket, hot water bottle, or aggressive tea has reliably done, which is to be warm at the precise moment that warmth is required. The fact that I now require less warmth, on account of the heatwave, is something the egg has not been informed of. It does not care. The other two functions — suction, vibration — are, I am told, the parts most people are buying it for. They work. They work simultaneously. I will leave the elaboration there on the basis that this is a review and not a diary entry.
Gerald next door has bought a new sun parasol. It has been deployed and retracted four times since Tuesday. This, again, is the difference.
Verdict. Kur's Egg is £130. It does three things, simultaneously, in a country that cannot reliably manage one. The cashmere jumper is in a drawer being passive-aggressive about its £400. The linen, I am told, was a sensible purchase. The egg, on the present evidence, is the most decisive object I own.
Margaret, who is seventy-four and has opinions on weather, says the country has gone to ruin.
She is wearing a cardigan, in the heat, on principle.
— Charlie
