09 February 2017
Clothes Pegs
A nasal approach.
By Chin Chin
People are remembered for different things: Churchill for oratory and leadership; George Washington for honesty; Turner for colour; and I, I am afraid, may be remembered for clothes pegs. That isn’t because I have invented a new type of clothes peg and will shortly be becoming fat, or possibly a peer, on the patent royalties. It isn’t even because I have found a new application which can be incorporated in the humble peg:
“Pray as you work! Let your clothes pegs hum religious tunes as you put out the washing. Featuring “Dry me O Thou Great Redeemer” taken from the Modern Revised Hymnal Series 6.”
No, to be remembered for something like that would be fine. My concern is that I will be remembered for clothes pegs because that is what I will have in my pocket when I meet an untimely end.
The trouble is that one of my household chores is to take the washing in, and when I do so I put the clothes pegs into my pocket. Naturally I decant them into the clothes peg basket when I get into the house, but pegs are much cleverer than you would think. Like the shy trout hiding from the angler in an upland stream, they bury their noses at the bottom of the pocket and stay shtum. The result is that when I reach for change to pay for something in a shop, out pops a clothes peg. I try to open the front door and find that I am trying to fit a clothes peg into the lock. It is clothes pegs again when I try to start the car and on one occasion I nearly tried to send a text on one.
This could play out badly. Suppose that I was walking through the London streets enjoying the sunshine when I was suddenly and mercilessly gunned down – an angry reader, perhaps, who didn’t care for frivolity, or possibly a member of the intelligentsia who had become deranged by the prospect of Brexit. There I am, dead as the dodo, and a small crowd gathers on the pavement. The prettier of the girls would I hope restrict themselves to appropriate sentiments like “how tragic, how handsome, how young,” choked out between copious sobs. The men, however, would be more practical. “And who is he?” would say a burly voice from the back. “Better search his pockets” would say someone else, and they would do so in the hopes of finding evidence of who I was, where I lived and whether there were any green recycling bins outside my house which would no longer be missed. What would they actually find, though? Clothes pegs!
Imagine the newspaper appeal. “Anyone having information about the victim is asked to come forward. The only possessions found on the corpse were four clothes pegs – two blue, one white and one red.” They would find out in the end, of course, and then it would all be in the papers again: “Clothes Peg Man identified” or, in the tabloids, “Police identify man who pegged out.” And when a year later the name Chin Chin was mentioned, would people think of me as the writer of this column? Would they pay awed tribute to my collection of 1970s tea towels? No, all that would be eclipsed. “Wasn’t he the clothes peg man?” someone would ask and that is all that would be passed on to posterity.
But in truth, I wonder if the utility of clothes pegs is a little underrated. If you watch people listening to music they often close their eyes on the grounds that eliminating responses from one sense sharpens the perceptions of another. Indeed, people who really live on a higher plane (those from Hampstead and Highgate for example) have a special way of pressing their fingertips together so that their hands resemble a church spire. That also eliminates any possible interference from the sense of touch and so sharpens things up further. Logically, then, if you were to put a clothes peg on the end of your nose, thus eliminating your sense of smell, music should become clearer still.
It is not the role of this column to give definitions of Yiddish words, but if any reader has ever wondered what “chutzpah” is, I think that attending a premiere at Covenant Garden with a clothes peg clamped to the end of your nose would be a fine example of it. No, of course it won’t do sartorially. If clothes pegs are to be used in this way they will have to become designer accessories. Also the name must be improved. “Mrs Clooney wore a fetching jewelled nasal clasp from Cartier” one might read in the fashion press. Or “you can trace Mrs May’s rise to power by the way in which her Kitten Clasp has been replaced with something more magisterial.” They could become a mark of political protest as well. “This wooden nasal clasp is fully recyclable and a facial rebuke to the capitalist consumer-orientated culture which bedevils our times.”
What a field day the design houses could have. What a wonderful Christmas present for the man or woman who had everything. What an opportunity for those who like the making rules. “Nasal clasps banned at Ascot!” would run the headlines, “committee rejects argument that they enable one to see better.” “All drivers over 70 must wear nasal clasps.” Then we could all have a row about whether it was fair or not. Nose pegs could have a social significance as well. Much better than matching tattoos, when you come to think of it, because when you change husband or wife the nose peg can be painlessly passed on to the successor. “Daddy, I have got a new nasal clasp” would be so much more acceptable than “Daddy, I have got a new tattoo”.
Think of the money which will pour into the fashion houses and the factories as the idea catches on. Gold nose pegs, silver nose pegs, nose pegs with initials, nose pegs made from endangered species. Imagine the jobs which will be created. The Government will not have to worry about creating a boom. 65 million people at, say, three nose pegs each, should prove a massive boost to the economy. Forget all the stuff that people like Frank O’Nomics tell you about diversifying. Sell everything! Get all your money together! Get your stockbroker to invest it in the new nosepeg economy!
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