Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the humble teapot. Not any old teapot of course but this classic of Twentieth Century design, the above illustrated tea-for-one, hinged-lid metal teapot. This revolutionary reworking of an English tradition was meant to wipe away china teapots forever but, thanks to the tea god and sensible people everywhere, it didn’t succeed.

I don’t know for sure but I think this well known monstrosity was created in the 1960s when the old order of things was being pushed aside with ruthless excitement.

Many bright ideas from that time have lost their appeal,  tower blocks, nylon shirts and audio cassettes to name but three. On the other hand we now love and honour the mini – both the automobile and the skirt – The Kinks and even Roger Moore, well let’s not push this,  but even though we mostly hate it, have been injured and annoyed by it, we still have to endure these dreadful metal teapots.

I suspect the person who invented it is now fabulously wealthy and the recipient of numerous design awards but if so then the World is an unfairer place than I had ever imagined. Maybe it is not too late though for revenge.

The metal teapot probably came into fashion alongside the teabag which could be chucked into it so easily along with boiling water which then heats the handle and the lid to scalding degrees so that you can barely hold it. The hinged lid though is the main design disaster – it just was not made to sit flush and it was always useless at preventing the tea from pouring out of the top of the pot all over the table, your hand, if not more delicate body parts, and almost always into the saucer where you would then be stranded with a dripping teacup and a stained crotch.

You may have guessed by now that I came across one of these vile objects recently and you would be correct.I was in a small restaurant that really should know better.  Luckily, I was alert to the metal teapots short-comings but my companion was less fortunate as this photograph reveals.

Can we ban these terrible metal teapots please? Not the big, canteen-type metal pots, they serve a great cup of tea but these nasty little leaky ones. We have lived with them for much too long and they don’t work

I wonder how many other pieces of bad design have survived because we don’t complain about them and I am not referring to the latest Lewes news either: the police have been taking down photographs of a penis decorated by a yellow ribbon which have been posted anonymously (well the poster left a clue if he is ever asked to join an identity parade) around town….What ever is happening to our shared aesthetics! What do you think?

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