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No more missing foot gloves ?

Just when you think you can't be surprised, up comes another peg from a most unexpected direction. The green pegs at the top of this picture were a Christmas present and they are called "Wizzpegs" As you can see, it is cleverly designed to be lockable as well as moulded in one piece and the packet tells me it is for holding socks together to prevent the one sock syndrome we all seem to suffer from. The design is a clever one, but the lock is quite difficult to open and would probably be too fiddly for most people.

One-piece mouldings are a challenge in the peg industry as the process negates any subsequent assembly operation or extra parts, such as springs that rust. You get a one step product with reduced costs. "Of course", I hear you say, "those push-on dolly peg things are moulded in one piece so what is so special about these?" Well, my friends, these pegs have a spring which the dolly pegs lack. Check out some of the other examples in the photo to see how different manufacturers have come up with very clever solutions to the spring problem. Have you seen any others?

Christmas Cheer on the Back Fence

Well the Bougainvillea growing over our back fence is out in force as if to celebrate the coming of Christmas and so I thought I would send you a photo to cheer up this site and give a little bit of light relief from the subject of pegs.

The flowering shrubs and trees are especially good at the moment and we wonder if it is something to do with the drought. Maybe the trees are so lacking in water that they are producing flowers like crazy so that enough seeds are created to ensure the continuation of the species. You should see the Jacaranda's, they are an absolute dream just now with their bunches of beautiful blue (that's B to the third) flowers ... our garden not big enough for Jacaranda though.

15 Minutes of Fame

Was it Andy Warhol who said that everyone, in their life, would get 15 minutes of fame? Well, I'm well on the way now ... te he! A few years ago whilst on holiday in England, I was filmed for their TV program "Collectors Lot". A crew of 5 turned up to the boat in Little Venice and I spent almost the entire day on the bed with Ruth England. She and her crew were a delight and my crew behaved themselves quite well too. DB's brother, DBB2 and DB's daughter DBD3 - wow this is getting complicated DBD3 sounds like a movie to watch when you've got a cold. Apologies to DBD3 who is much more pleasant that a disc with a cold. Anyway, to get back to my story ..... DBB2 and DBD3 steered the boat through to Camden Lock whilst DB's sister in law and nephew (getting really complicated now), DBSL and DBN walked and DB crawled around the cabin trying to prepare refreshments without getting in the way.

We lunched at Camden Lock and after 2nds of DB's delicious Damson Vodka Crumble, all eleven of us reversed the journey, filming all the way, which is not easy when you are under the influence. When the filming was finished we all sat around drinking Damson Vodka... for some reason the TV crew seemed reluctant to leave ...... probably being paid overtime for socialising. This entire day was reduced to four minutes on the telly. ....... but a very good four minutes of course and that means only 11 more minutes of fame to go.

Here in Australia they do things slightly differently. The ABC were here two days ago to film me for the Australian TV program "Collectors". The producer flew over from Tasmania and she with just a sound guy and a cameraman spent the day in the flat. If you go to the ABC collectors site, www.abc.net.au/tv/collectors, you will be able to see other people who are just as obsessed as I am with collecting and if you look at some of the 'collector cams' I promise you will be truly amazed at some of the things that other folk accumulate in wild proportions. But back to the filming .... the crew were excellent and had a great sense of humour which helped me to relax. This time DB didn't have to provide much more than coffee so she disappeared into the bedroom with her Bill Bryson book (BBB) and I had a brilliant day being a superstar. They took my collection seriously - which many wouldn't - and DB said later that the best moment was when I candidly said "I'm not interested in pegs at all". At the end of the day the producer took a heap of pegs from my racks in the hall and spread them out on the table to do an "animation" .... I am really looking forward to seeing that in real life (so to speak). The days filming will be reduced to about 3 minutes, so that leaves only another 8 to go.

Some of this 8 minutes may be taken up with a studio appearance in Hobart .... DB crossing her fingers as she has never been to Tasmania before .... but they have yet to make a decision on that ......... ... maybe if they had tasted DB's Damson Vodka Crumble .............

p.s. I've just looked it up and AW actually said "In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes", so I don't have to have it all in one go!!

Christmas in Pegland

Its coming up to Christmas and so my DB has put up the tree ... complete with hand made peg decorations. Its quite surprising what she can do with a dolly peg and a couple of pipe cleaners.





I make no apologies for the colour of this posting, it is Christmas after all, and no apologies for the decorations as I have already made it clear that I am a peglomaniac. My DB understands this and panders to my every whim. (That last bit was a lie but don't tell her I said so!)

Happy Christmas Everyone

from my Dearly Beloved

and from Myself

Camden Lock and the Gypsy Peg

One year we were on a narrowboat which spent a couple of weeks moored in "Little Venice", London. When visitors came to see us we gave them a trip along the Grand Union canal, through the centre of London Zoo and on to Camden Lock where they have a market at weekends. Here we moored up and jumped off to explore the large number of interesting stalls. In the "Stables Antique Centre", I was casually walking past a furniture stall when I noticed some pegs sitting on an antique dining chair at the front of this stall. I looked at the pegs carefully but they were very ordinary and I was not interested. However, upon looking to the back of the stall I noticed a large brandy glass filled with old Gypsy pegs. I had been searching for years for a Gypsy Peg and so I rushed over to the brandy glass. There were twenty-five pegs with a price tag of £40. I asked the stallholder if I could purchase just one of these pegs and he replied that they came as a lot and he was not prepared to split them. I explained that it was difficult to carry wooden pegs into Australia and I only needed one. He began to get irate and said that they came as "a lot". He went on to say that if I wanted to purchase just one page from a book he wouldn't agree, and this was the same. They came as "a lot". I agreed with him about the book, but couldn't see why he wouldn't just let me have one measly peg ..... but he had dug his heels in and was not going to budge an inch. "Absolutely not!" he reiterated. Dejected, I started to walk away and nervously, from the corner of my mouth, said "I'll give you £3 for just one". Expecting a tirade from him or, at the least, the sensation of a the brandy glass being wrapped around my ear, I was surprised when he rolled his eyes skyward and said "Oh, alright then". I left this stall a very happy man albeit three pounds lighter but I have often regretted not paying the full price and buying the lot!!

Japan and its treasures

Japan is a fascinating place for many many reasons. We took the advice of our friendly hotel receptionist and headed for a shop called "TOKYO HANDS" in Shinjuku to look for pegs.

This is just one side of one of the displays of pegs. You can see by my smile that I am a very happy man. There were so many pegs I had to buy a new rucksac to carry them all.

I thought that once we had 'done' Tokyo Hands, that all other branches of that shop would have the same displays ..... but NO!! Different towns and TOTALLY different pegs. One peg, a giant one for holding futons over bamboo poles to air, even had HANDS !!!!

Travelling for pegs

A few years ago, I and my DB (Dearly Beloved) went to Bali. I wouldn't say we went there JUST to look for pegs, but if I did, I would be telling the truth. Almost as soon as we had checked into our hotel, I dragged DB out to wander around town looking for clothes pegs but there were very few. I managed to buy one good packet and then we walked past the clothes stalls in a market swapping pegs from our new packet for those of the stallholders who were using them to hold clothes on hangers. Everything was pretty cheap and we enjoyed Bali, its temples and it's lovely gentle people. DB did manage to do a bit of sightseeing, but this blog is purely about pegs ..... so onto the next stop on our journey ..... Singapore.

I know this is just about pegs, but I have to tell you this ..... when we picked up a taxi at the airport to go to our hotel the driver was amused when we told him our destination. We nervously asked what the problem was and he said we would see many red lights and short skirts. Oh my goodness, just what has DB done. She books our hotels via the internet and this time she had booked us into a brothel. When we got there we found that all of the guests were booked in for two or three hours. I know that in the past I have stayed at hotels that I called brothels but I have never truly stayed at a real one till now. Still, it was clean the staff were polite and it was cheap. The concierge is also a collector so he understood my compulsion to buy pegs. He collects model airplanes. We were only there for a couple of nights, and the best place in Singapore for pegs is Chinatown where I bought 20 new pegs before setting off for the airport for our onward trip to Mumbai.

We had e-mailed our friendly taxi driver (Ronnie) in Bombay that our flight plans had been changed and we were sorry but we would now be arriving at 2 in the morning. Back came the reply from his wife "Ronnie likes you -- you are never a problem". We tried to get some sleep and then off to the mayhem of Crawford market next day. I explained that we wanted pegs to our Indian guide and I showed him the one's I already had. He said he would take us to the wholesaler -- smart guy eh!. Well we went up a dingy alley -- the smell was unbearable, past another alley with rats running everywhere and up some dark stone steps -- I was convinced we were going to be murdered. There, at the end of a deep dark hallway, was a peg collectors dream -- they were stacked floor to ceiling -- I found 32 new ones.

Introducing you to a world of clothes pegs !!

I can talk forever about clothes pegs, but I am not the first to discuss them in a serious manner!

The following is an article that appeared on May 17, 1884 in the Charles Dickens wonderful magazine "All the Year Round":

Curiosities of Trade

by Charles Dickens.

I have had occasion just lately to look through a large number of the London and Liverpool Bills of Entry, and in trying to find what I wanted, I could not help noticing the many queer articles that are brought into this country.Who would expect to find in the cargo of one of the magnificent New York liners, three thousand boxes of clothes pegs? Yet such an entry is common enough. "Bless my soul!" somebody will say, just as I did when I noticed it, "are we dependent on the States for such things?" Pursuing my investigations further, I found that this was only one out of many of the same kind. It is evident, therefore, that it pays to cut down timber, convert it into the manufactured article, pay carriage to a port, shipping charges, freight, landing charges, carriage to inland towns anywhere in England, commissions to several intermediaries, in order that the British family may buy a dozen clothes-pegs for three-halfpence (less than 2cents), which is what my wife tells me she paid last.Does not this give us an idea of the enormous quantity that must be turned out every year in the States?. I presume even there the washerwoman is not yet emancipated from the tyranny of the clothes-peg, and this being so, just fancy what a lot must be consumed by fifty millions of people. Yet they are able to supply, not only their internal demand, but to send them to England by the million. Likely enough they will send them as well to some other European countries, though the demand there will not be so great as here, if only from the fact that the weekly wash is not such a national institution.And yet the native clothes-peg maker has to live; it must be a serious question with him whether the trade is being driven out of the country by foreign imports, or whether it still defies competition. Perhaps the demand has out-stripped his powers of supply, or perhaps he holds his head up proudly, and asserts boldly that if you want a really first-rate article you must still come to him.If my recollection is to be trusted, the present clothes-peg did not make its appearance here till some 20 or 25 years ago (1860). Everybody who can look back so far will remember that the clothes-peg to which he was accustomed was evidently a piece of a branch peeled, shaped, cut in two, and then bound together with two or three inches of tin, which were fastened by a bit of wire driven in. Such was what I may term the pre- American, or the antique clothes-peg.