Poor old doorknobs often get quite a bad rap. We are culpable for contributing to it ourselves … blog posts report on the footpull used to avoid germy bathroom doors (where 34% of men, and 12% of women don’t wash their hands!), and also on the bactericidal properties of brass. But we only just recently came across a wealth of information on other ways and means people have of avoiding horrible, horrible public door knobs … which are nothing like your gorgeous home ones!

There are the old standbys – low tech but high wastage methods like using a paper towel to touch the actual doorknob. Unfortunately though, if there is no rubbish bin installed right outside the door, you either have to carry around a supposedly germy paper towel (ewww … they’re crawling around onto me!), or chuck it on the ground. Definitely not good for the planet, or the look of halls outside public bathrooms. Or you can try to throw it in the bin next to the door as you are leaving – but you have to be quick and tricky, because there is no going back in! Logically flawed, that solution is.

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In the US town of Naples, in Florida, drugs have been turned (indirectly!) into doorknobs, by socially responsible police policies.

They have not managed to compress any fine white powders into anything sturdy enough to open a door with … although psychedelic mushrooms are already sort of doorknob shaped, aren’t they?! What has actually happened is that a fund of money confiscated from arrested drug dealers has been used to further safety in the area. As a coastal town, it is to be expected (however sadly and unfortunately), that the drowning rate is higher here than in landlocked areas. While pools have laws about locking and fencing, there is no such law for the ocean. Thank God!

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Editors in Irish Independent have featured us in their ‘Top Shop’ section. Thanks for that guys!

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)

Well, we have said it before, that you only know that something has real value when somebody else in the world thinks it is worth stealing! It has been reported that gangs across Britain have been stealing brass and other items – tens of millions of pounds worth – in order to feed a growing demand for metals in India and China, as their construction industries boom.

We are not talking about a few isolated incidents here, of things that are unusual to steal, but not inconceivable (like, for instance, a traditional and well-made door knob!). Apparently these thefts are on an absolutely huge scale – there have been so many people missing door knobs, door knockers, letter plates, and other items from the fronts of heir houses, that police now have a special task force to deal with it and all officers have been alerted to the problem.

Thieves have also been stealing much more exotic things in their thirst for metals … lead is in huge demand, and in Britain where olden-style lead rooves are fairly common, over one summer 19 schools in the Midlands had their rooves stolen!. A formerly happy bus shelter, which used to provide protection from the rain for hundreds of kids and grown ups, was also brutally stolen, burnt alive and sadistically reformed into building materials!

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