You know these spiral shaped mobiles that are meant to blow in the wind? Like a Chinese lantern, but made of thin polished metal – they're called wind spinners, cos they spin in the wind, ken? They require a wee breeze to make them move – mobiles, you know? And for those who like the sight of light reflected from a spinning metal spiral, one of them hooked to a bracket in the garden will double as a deterrent for most birds – except magpies, pigeons and jackdaws which are the ones most people want to deter.
Well I was in a garden centre today, having a coffee with Graeme, and they had a stand with over a dozen of said mobiles (no not the phones, the spiral things). The stand was about 12 feet from the open air, in a sheltered spot, but the spirals were turning. Explanation. A fan – I kid you not, a fan, was hooked to the top of the stand, pointing down, to make the mobiles turn. Green question – why not move the blessed stand 12 feet and switch off the fan. The breeze – there's always a breeze – would turn the mobiles, and the fan wouldn't contribute to the problems the planet already faces. Mentioned it to an assistant, who shrugged his shoulders with disarming nonchalance, concluded I was more a nuisance than a threat, and sauntered off to see if he could help some more amenable customer.
A fan! An artificial breeze – in Scotland?! To move a mobile??! There are other big fans all over this country whose justification for being a blot in the landscape is that they produce power – to run fans in Garden centres for the most useless purpose I've yet discovered for a fan.
Rant over! But I ask you – a fan……to blow ornaments…..outside…..in Scotland….Hmmmmmmmmm!
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