What do a doorknob and your bottom have in common? No, it isn’t a trick question. No, not that they’re both round, and it has nothing to do with having ‘buns of steel’!!
We recently happened across a game which apparently is popular enough to warrant a Wikipedia entry, although I have never heard of it.

Just to make farting even more hilarious, somebody has invented a game called ‘Doorknob’. The rules are:

• If you fart (presumably audibly!), you have to say ‘Safety’, before anybody else can say ‘Doorknob’.
• If you fail to say ‘Safety’ before someone else says ‘doorknob’, you have to run to find a doorknob to touch, while everybody else in the room chases and pummels you. Very civilized!

Apparently, people are much more vigilant about listening out for other people’s farts, and calling doorknob when the ‘farter’ (that is, as opposed to the ‘fartee’s!!) is camping, on public transport, or somewhere else where there are no doorknobs handy. I’m not sure when the game is meant to stop then … it must all be at the mercy of the pummellers. Also known as the fartees :-)

Did you know that there are a total of 13 rules that are associated with this game?! I’m amazed, and a little scared. Here are a selection of the most hilarious – the others include things like multiple farts being associated with multiple ‘safety’ calls, saying ‘safety in a clear and audible tone, and no lethal weapons … only ‘swift and accurate punches to either the forearm or the diaphragm’. They are so nice sometimes. (more…)

These gorgeous and very different pieces of door furniture are the work of Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson … and yes, the nickname does come from his penchant for yiros, fetta and olive oil, indirectly! He was a huge fan of Greek architecture, and this flavours all of his work and creates some really bold, beautiful pieces when mixed with his Scottish heritage. Thomson also designed some beautiful, asymmetrical and daringly designed churches , including a gorgeous one where the lines of the building are the same as the layout of the surrounding streets. Some people are too clever for their own good!

The colour in these pieces of brass hardware comes from inlaid coloured enamel … unusual (and very expensive, as the nicest things always are!). The big bold colours and lines are inimitably Greek, while the fin- and flower-shapes give you a sense of the fields and moors of Scotland … misty, dark and romantic!

The fingerplate is made not as a solid piece, but with the designed areas as the only solid areas, so you can see through to the door beneath … making them challenging, but a lot of fun, to place properly.

I love how you can easily tell that all the pieces belong together, but their decoration isn’t simply copied from one to the other … there are recurring patterns, and they have a definite colour scheme, but they are sort of like a group of siblings. They obviously share the same genes (the same mind ‘gave birth’ to all of them, after all!), but each piece has its own character.

Luckily though, the site does not mention a price tag … you might faint and hurt yourself!

Photo credits: TheGlasgowStory

Bronze: the colour of beach gods and goddesses (later to shrivel to wrinkled walnut shells, of course), and also of third place at the Olympics. And, occasionally and with very good taste, the metal making up your door hardware in a traditionally renovated home! What’s the go with this illustrious metal?

Bronze is not an elemental metal –it is not dug out of the earth, it is made up by humans from copper and tin. Occasionally other elements are added, like aluminium, silicone, or phosphorus, to make bronzes with different properties. The Bronze Age was when it was used most widely as a metal – this is generally accepted to have run from about 3500 BC to 1100 BC or so. Obviously the entire period was not just people thinking of different things to make with bronze … it is a very useful metal, but not quite that absorbing! This period in different areas was also the genesis of customs like the individual burying of the dead as well as cremation burials, social hierarchies growing in complexity, and other huge events, such as the invention of writing!

As a practical metal, bronze is thought to be superior to iron in almost every way. This is strange given the relative rarity of bronze in modern culture – and its third place status compared to gold and silver! It is less brittle than iron, and so much easier to work. It only oxidizes on the surface, and then once this oxidation occurs, it protects the rest of the metal from corroding further. Like that layer of dirt on the 1974 model sedan we used to have! It has a lower melting point than iron, so you don’t need as hot a fire to make it workable, and is also much more corrosion resistant. Think of the trouble that rust causes you … which never occurs with bronze. (more…)

Our knockers are set to be used for the new film version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol … which many of us probably know best from the Disney version with as Ebenezer Scrooge (hmm, I wonder where Disney managed to come up with that Christian name for their duck?!!).

The film is set for release in 2009… with Jim Carrey playing Ebenezer Scrooge, we are not sure whether the movie will be of the serious, poetic sort, or the Christmas Grinch sort.

Either way, it will have some serious, genuine antique furniture in it! Our locks are being modelled for use in the character Scrooge’s office, and some of our chandeliers are also being used as a reference for set builders.

Filming will begin next year … wish our hardware luck on its imaginary plane journey, and make sure to see the film when it comes out.

Photo credits: Scrooge by Steve Crandall (drawing by Carl Barks)

This photo just goes to show that when you look at something closely enough, you can always find something beautiful, individual and noteworthy (perhaps a good lesson for our dealings with humanity in general!). This brass door knob was not taken off a famous person’s house … is not magical … was not involved in any historical events of significance … yet in this light, at this time, is really striking. The scratches give it personality, and looking up this close, you can’t help but wonder about the stories behind each of them – no matter how mundane they might be!

Photo credits: Brass Door Knob by TS.C