In this modern age of the informative superhighway it has been suggested that we, as consumers of modern life have become considerably more demanding, more impatient and as a result more unreasonable. While there may be some truth to this, what is never explained in any detail is why this has happened, and this dear friends is where I come in, offering enlightenment through the singular example of a vacuum cleaner.

Okay so I used the vacuum cleaner line a bit early there, but I needed to justify the “sucking” reference in the title quickly or I’d have left you pondering it until around paragraph 9. If you want to skip ahead at this part you have my blessing, but you’ll miss out on a little more scene setting.

For the most part these technological wonders with which we have surrounded ourselves have a singular task to accomplish, albeit in a variety of ways. In fact it seems that the all-pervasive influence of the Transformers franchise has obsessed those in a design function to insist that my armchair transforms into a saucepan at the push of a button.

With no real exaggeration on my part (although when I do exaggerate, it’s because I’m awesome) this house contains phones that think they’re cameras, MP3 players, maps, the internet and games consoles, games consoles that think they’re “media centres” (whatever the hell a media centre is), lamps that think they science fiction badguys, alarm clocks that believe themselves perfectly good radios, blenders that self clean, a television that wants to be the internet, the list goes on.

I have a bag (after much searching) that is not content to just be a bag in its own right, it also contains another smaller bag so that it can be a smaller bag (providing you discard the larger portion) and let’s not forget the Gillette Fusion Proglide, a many-bladed behemoth that feels the need to also have a singular bladed “precision” version. My office chair has 17 different controls, dials, levers and handles for covering everything from the height of the thing to the amount of tension applied to my ample buttocks.

Right? Exposition in place, here we go; when did designers of all things technical decide that it wasn’t sufficient to build something that just did the job, but instead needs to do 27 other things as well? Easy though it may be to point a withering finger at Monsignor i’Phone here, that is no longer trying to be a phone it’s trying to be a laptop with a battery life of the average mayfly.

Here’s the thing : if I invest in any consumer item I largely want it to perform the task I have chosen it to perform. I don’t mean this in a dictatorial fashion – I do not insist that my wristwatch’s function in life is to serve as a bottle opener; nope I want it to tell me the time from its native environment of my wrist thankyouverymuch. I want my TV to show me moving pictures accompanied by sound, my games console to play games, my mobile phone to make phonecalls while I am mobile, my chair to support my previously described ample buttocks and so on. Yet even when devices do only have one function listed on their job description they still seem to fail in the accomplishment thereof with increasing frequency.

And this is why we as consumers “lose it” more frequently than we may previously have done – my wireless router has one job to perform, and when it fails to do so it screws things up in a significant fashion. My initial desire is usually do find an axe and excommunicate the bastard, but I can’t because I need it. I need it to work, and this is why when something with one job to perform fails to perform we flip out – because it should be punished, yet exacting a suitable punishment would actual leave you in a worse position. Irrational rage then, is our only recourse.

So, vacuum cleaners. For those unfamiliar, here’s is what they’re supposed to do in plain language – create some form of vacuum using technology and then suck up piece of detritus that are on the surface to which they’re subsequently applied. This matter should then be stored internally to the cleaner until such a time as it is emptied.

The secret to success here, should it need explaining, is strength of suction; the more suction achieved, the faster the debris will be removed. Poor suction means poor cleaning. Got it?

Right, now here in the UK there is a company called Dyson owned by a man called Dyson, and since the dawn of time they have done one thing – built vacuum cleaners. Now, as Mr Dyson is swift to point out, the secret to vacuum cleaning is suction, so they invented something called “cyclone technology” which in theory means there is no lack of suction – net result, effective vacuum cleaners.

We own a Dyson vacuum cleaner. It’s shit.

In the spirit of full disclosure I suppose I should point out that said Dyson is hardly new, BUT THAT ISN’T THE POINT. Its suction is about the same I could achieve by inhaling rapidly, although it is unlikely to have a coughing fit as a result, its detritus storage compartment was designed by an imbecile, it’s associated paraphernalia falls off if you look at it the wrong way, bits pop off for seemingly no reason, its brushes jam all the time, its cleaning head refuses to lock in place… did I mention that it’s truly terrible at the act of vacuuming? That’s right, I could forgive its other foibles, including the imbecilic debris storage bucket, if it JUST BLOODY CLEANED THE CARPET.

“Sam, you say the storage bucket was designed by a fool of some kind… surely this is one of your famed, yet awesome, overstatements?”

A picture speaks a thousand words, so here are a couple of thousand words on that subject.

Observe a vacuum cleaner not cleaning. This is normal.

Genius.

(Forgive the low quality of these photos, I took them with a phone that thinks it’s a camera.)

When the “genius” Mr Dyson designed this modern marvel which, in his wisdom, he decided to make exclusively from navy blue and turquoise plastic (it is as ugly as it looks), what he thought it needed was a storage bucket for previously accumulated crapola that opened at the bottom. It opens AT THE BOTTOM. Surely there’s some form of locking mechanism. Hahaha. No.

So a couple of things spring to mind here. First, and I feel it’s worth making this point again, it OPENS and the BOTTOM. Second, this means that when removing the storage bucket from the vacuum “cleaner” you neatly deposit all your previously collected waste on the floor. Third, this means that either you go for some form of irony induced madness and re-vacuum said particulate, or you never let your Dyson out of its cupboard without it bringing a dustpan and brush along as a chaperone.

Mr Dyson has a Knighthood.

Probably awarded for gall.

I digress, as ever. You may also have observed that the quantity of debris neatly deposited on the floor in the above demonstration was hardly significant. This is true, but you know why this is?

Because the sodding thing barely picks anything up in the first place.

Sucking Technology, 9.0 out of 10 based on 1 rating

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 16th, 2011 at 5:16 pm and is filed under Against The Wall, Domesticated Badass, Ranty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.