Blooming Lovely

If there's one thing in tool marketing that annoys me more than any other, it's an over-priced piece of tat that's aimed at the female market by virtue of being pink. Or having flowers upon it.

Or - at its zenith - it has pink flowers on it.

I do not see flowers; I see red. By all means put flowers on tools and make them pink if you must, but is there really a law that says you can't at least apply this to decent tools? And please, please, do not put them on a useless tool and then have the gall to charge double or triple just because it has flowers on it.

But most of all - and this is really, really important - do not even think about how amusing it would be to give me such a tool. Really. Don't. I will hunt you down and my weapons will be sharp and with absolutely no flowers visible at all. Neither will they be pink.

And breathe.

Okay, so having clearly ranted stated where I stand on this particular matter, imagine my confused reaction when I was browsing the online-available section of The Art of Fine Tools on Google books and stumbled on the Morris Patent plough (plow) plane.

Now that's a tool with flowers that I could look upon with favour. Just love that scissor-style fence adjustment.

But it naturally caused me to wonder why. What was the thinking behind decorating these ploughs (plows) with such a floral decal? It seems so... random. And yet, when I come to think about it, what about the floral castings of early Stanley plough and combination planes? So what's with the flowers? Is it a plough thing? And can I persuade everyone with a floral casting Stanley that really they're tools for girls...? ;)

Prod me with spoons if I don't post again this month, because I have some quite different tool decoration to share which should successfully counteract this florid entry.