Submitted by Malc on Sun, 2006-08-06 12:50.
This page is reserved to honour the select few items of our equipment that we feel have performed above and beyond the call of duty.
See also the Hall of Shame.
Sporks, by Light My Fire (posthumous award)
These strangely named things are actually combinations of a knife, a spoon and a fork all in one piece of cheerfully coloured plastic. Great, only one thing to wash up/pack/lose, instead of three. For a while we contemplated throwing away all our cutlery when we eventually return home and replacing it with sporks- much quicker to lay the table, and none of that "does the knife go on the right or the left" awkwardness that has been the bane of my life thus far.
However we have discovered something about sporks: using them to eat melons causes them to divide into two half-sporks. This has now happened to both our sporks. Was this a phase of the spork lifecycle, we wondered? Would each half spontaneously regenerate the missing portion, producing four sporklets? Alas, no.
Spun aluminium coated water bottles, by McKinley
As alluded to in the Hall of Shame, these replacements for our plastic water bottles have been wonderful. Respect is due.
Rachel´s Dairy Yoghurt pots (posthumous award)
An unsuspected contender for the award were these lightweight white plastic containers, originally containing a singularly delicious locally produced yoghurt, that proved to have a multitude of uses as resealable food containers and drinking cups. We liked it so much we asked Ali´s mother to bring us another one, which she did and to our shame we lost soon thereafter. We eventually had to throw away the original, which was becoming a bit brown round the edges after two months and around 1500 miles of daily use.
Petzl Tikka Plus head torch (with reservations)
This extremely lightweight and practical head torch has been very good on the whole. Why the reservations? Well the blurb on the back of the packet said that one set of batteries lasts for 120 hours. Nowhere near. After fifteen or twenty hours, the light is significantly dimmer, and the control electronics under the button on the top get hot in use - surely this should not happen? Maybe ours is faulty in some way...
Sporks, by Light My Fire
My Mum bought Chris and me some sporks shortly after we got married. They're great, especially for parties. No longer do you have to balance a plate while trying to operate with a knife and fork. One implement does it all and there is even the capacity to scoop up the juice afterwards!
However, ours were metal. The fact that yours split suggests they weren't. However, that means hope is at hand! All you have to do is track down metal sporks!
Spork-related websites
There are a surprising, (and perhaps slightly worrying) number of these. The first site google turns up is the Sporks are Godlike one, with lots of onward links for the spork-obsessed.
Does yours have the spoon and fork components at the same end? Ours have (used to have) them at opposite ends, which seems like a great idea except you then have to hold the slightly greasy forky knifey part to eat your yoghurt dessert with the spoon part.
Now excuse me, I need to go back to recatalogue my sock drawer.
hurrah
yes a metal spork would be ideal. Does anybody know where you get them these days, in portugal?