I was chatting to Pauline on the phone this morning before she went gallivanting for a few days. All of a sudden her words were drowned by the jug boiling. I mentioned ‘jug’ yesterday. In the UK it is called a kettle. I have no idea what it is called in the US or anywhere else where this is being read (I certainly don’t know the Swedish but that doesn’t matter so much because Dawn Treader has a better understanding of the English as she is spoken than I have.) Many citizens of New Zealand have a Zip jug. You know the standard conical jug that stands on a separate base. It’s a noise devil. When I’m at my computer in the study I often have the New or some other programme on the TV. The TV is at the other side of the living room. As you look through the door from where I’m sitting and turn immediately right the jug sits on the kitchen worktop/counter/work surface. If I put the Zip jug on then I couldn’t hear the TV. So this year at vast expense (in one of Briscows many ‘everything reduced’ sales – you only buy something full price in Briscows if you need it desperately) I bought a Sunbeam ‘Peace and Quiet’ quiet boil jug. Well that’s how it sounded when I bought it. Now it seems just as noisy as any other jug. I’m sure it is much noisier than my cheap while plastic jug in Eagleton which I never notice. The problem is that you can’t walk into a store and ask whether is jug is quiet or not and they certainly wouldn’t demonstrate it.
So, if you are bothered by a noisy jug, please join the KKK – the Kwiet Kettle Klub to campaign for kwieter kettles. Apologies to Kiwis (and anyone else who doesn’t call a kettle a kettle) but the Quiet Jug Club just doesn’t have the same cachet. Oh and by the way I hereby acknowledge that I have freely pinched the term from Pauline.