Tuesday 28 January 2014

Mysteries of the Universe V

Vertical blinds are a mystery to me. Are they to anyone else? They seem to be declining in popularity, but at one time - was it the 1990s that they reached the peak of their popularity? - they were everywhere.

They made their first appearances in business premises, I think, where they struck me as pretty hideous, but unsurprising in their hideousness, since offices are generally filled with hideous stuff made of chipboard, which is usually disguised by melamine veneers, (as if the veneers are any better than what they're hiding).

It was only when vertical blinds began the shift into people's houses that I started to feel a bit astonished. I had thought that people wouldn't want to live with them and their horrid loops of plastic chain and general all-round drearily utilitarian ugliness. But my idea of what's attractive and bearable to live with is not everybody's, apparently. Soon all over the country people were existing quite happily, at work and at home, side by side with vertical blinds.

Recently though I've noticed that vertical blinds have become a little less prevalent, at least in domestic settings. Perhaps people are belatedly coming to their senses. Which raises the question of what made vertical blinds acceptable in the first place? Was it just a case of collective delusion? Or a fondness for novelty? Perhaps the latter - which also explains why, having been around for a while and thus lost their novelty, they are no longer quite so highly prized.

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