Peg Design

Morning had broken the cloud bank into shreds which scatter conveniently. The Contestants, moulded into plastic shapes with a hot air gun, cantered lightly in the practise meadow, beyond the armourer’s pavilions and the stable hands picnic area.

The Moral Compass was holed up with the unabashed loser of the Piggyback Jousting, one design engineer without a name, a bit like in those westerns. She had ridden into town on a horse, wearing a poncho and smoking a black cheroot. Without the poncho or the cheroot, or the horse, she had arrived by bus the day before. She didn’t pass the undertakers where he was putting out the extra coffins.

So, began the MC, I’m listening, why exactly should I provide my advisory services to humanity.

Well, I would like you to consider the case of the Clothes Peg as an example of humanities worth and worthiness.

Let it be told, said the MC.

Once upon a time all the clothes were wet, continued the engineer, The bedclothes, rugs, coats, shirts, trousers and undergarment were all dripping wet, having been washed in the river, stream or purpose-built washing pond.

One could, of course, hang them to dry over convenient bushes or low branches, hoping that the wind would not catch them onto the floor. But the best, a rope or cord strung in a low traffic area, but then the wind issue becomes acute. Some mechanism to secure the clothes onto the line becomes paramount.

 So, and thus, the early peg or dolly peg, a split twig, hazel or willow usually, bound at one end provided the first security for the busy house person. This state lasted for many until the design and indeed the invention of the spring-loaded cloths peg in 1853. David M Smith fashioned the modern peg, a masterpiece of efficiency in both manufacture and use.

Some say that the newer plastic versions represent an evolution of this design, but in reality, the modern plastic peg owes 90 percent of its design to the 1853 patent.

All very interesting, said the MC taking a breathe, But how does this bear on our situation.

Well, said the engineer, I maintain that the quality that is inherent in the elegance of this simple design proves that there is something, however small, however buried beneath the idiocies and anguish, however obscured by the unnecessary wars and cruel and punitive famines, that is worth saving in the human makeup.

 I know, she continued, I understand that this is a flimsy argument. I don’t doubt that It could be shot through in flaming ridicule. Were someone to range the pros and cons of human behaviour in columns of listed order, then the idiocies would far out list the positives, but, and here is where I beg your indulgence, if a way can be found to bring out the design engineer in all of us humans, then we should at least give it a roll of the dice, a shot in the dark, a place in the sun, a run round the paddock, a shake of the donkeys tail, a whistle in the dark. Bring it forwards from the back burner, run it up the flag pole and see if it flaps, take it for a walk in the park and see if it kicks the leaves, put it on the stage and see if it sings, give it a spoon and see if it cooks, take it to the shops and confiscate its plastic. Spend time with its family during Christmas lunch and then go to sleep in front or behind the tv? Train it to do a half marathon on a treadmill whilst playing Beethovens 25th on its earphones. Do a drawing of it in a bucolic landscape with ducks in a pond and a hay wagon fording a simple stream. Taking inspiration for the Hay Wain by Police Constable; which, even in its day, showed a non-existent ideal of rural life. The cart driver is hungry and tired and the ducks are unlikely to make it past the coming harvest celebrations when the lord of the dance will demand its destruction and subsequent roasting.

Ok, said the MC, I feel we may be straying from the point here.

No way, said the engineer, The future is bright and will be designed wonderfully for the benefit of the masses or Hoi Poloi.

I’ve heard enough, said the MC, And anyway the Hoi Poloi have left for the stars and are no longer relevant? Your argument is ridiculous and cannot hold liquid without it draining through your fingers. I am off to the asteroid belt, as I believe the only way of reducing inter national tensions is to provide abundant resources which will in turn provide growth and improve live standards, belay that order and make for a more relaxed environment. I am leaving the necessary increase in productivity to AI and robotics, goodbye.

With that The Moral Compass took her leave and was last seen on CCTV at a bus station in the County of Dorset.