Knife

30 December 2015

During 2000 I visited the USA on an escorted coach tour. Part-way through we stopped at a tax-free shopping outlet; not a mall but one of those unpreposessing, drab buildings, the exteriors of which belie their contents.

I looked around for a while and, almost in desperation, bought a grey SwissCard - this newer variant on the Victorinox site is almost identical, save for the case material.

It has just enough tools to be useful whilst being thin enough to fit in my wallet:

• nail file,
• screwdriver,
• toothpick,
• tweezers,
• pen,
• pin,
• blade,
• scissors,
• measuring scale along the side.

Though the knife is around 15 years old and though I’ve looked after it, it’s never been sharpened since new. Which makes all the more remarkable the fact that today I stripped the wires in an extension reel cable, to repair it after our otherwise-delightful Ruby dog chewed right through the insulation.*

If only everything lasted as long.

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*She’s fine, it wasn’t live!