Sunday, March 14, 2010

Of Dysons and decepticons

I really don't rate Dyson vacuums much. I have owned a second-hand one, which was not very good: I put it down to being second-hand. However, I have recently been using a winklepicker's one. It weighs a blooming ton and I find it tricksy.

It's an upright one with the ball, and you are supposed to depress the foot pedal at the back to release it from upright storage position to push-along use position. But depressing it in a casual manner just won't do it. Applying a steady pressure just won't do it. Jabbing it fiercely and repeatedly (while checking around shiftily that no-one's watching) just won't do it. Running through several cycles of casual, steady and jab will get it unlocked eventually, while aggravation hangs heavy about my ears.

But that's not the end, half the time when I click it back into upright after use, it fails to lock and so collapses yellowly on the floor, with a crash to let all around know I'm bashing up an expensive hoover.

It reminds me of nothing so much as Bumblebee.



My experience with Transformers, it has to be said, is not a good one. Son wanted them for Christmas and in his haul of gifts, he acquired one. We managed to transform it once from car to robot, but now it is in a limbo land of having its robot head stuck out of its car arse. What it and the Dyson share is a feeling of if-you-push-this-bit-any-further-it-might-break.

I really think the filmmakers and Dyson missed a trick in product placement. The sneaky little decepticon* should have been a Dyson.


* I think it was in Transformers 1, but not really sure. Could have been the second film, I wasn't watching properly. It disguised itself as smaller items and got on AirForce One if you saw the movie? ... On further thought, the explanation for taking onboard a Dyson would have been rather convoluted, so perhaps the scriptwriters were right.

2 comments:

ellie said...

My son loves the transformers movies, but try as I might I can never discern a plot.

Mephitis said...

:D True enough.