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Umbrellas

11:40 / 26.11.03

I got absolutely drenched at the bus-stop this morning and am actually, for the first time ever (well, for several years at least) considering purchasing an umbrella. This is odd, because I hate people who use umbrellas in cities - especially if they are those whopping golfing brollies. These are the reasons for my feelings:

1) Take up far too much space on the street
2) People using them never look where they're going and are therefore liabilities
3) They are almost invariably carried at exactly the right height to whack me in the face
4) Other people's umbrellas have an amazing ability to drip on other, unoffending pedestrians (i.e. me)

But I am fed up with getting wet and I cannot find a good waterproof hat! What to do? Are there other options? Sou'westers? Hoods? Or anything which I won't leave on the bus/tube at the first opportunity, really... please advise.

Tryphena Absent

11:45 / 26.11.03

I would go to Superdrug and buy a medium lightweight umbrella if I were you. They don't turn inside out as readily and are put together pretty well and they cost about six quid.

The good thing about carrying an umbrella is that you're much less likely to be dripped on.

Jack The Bodiless

11:55 / 26.11.03

Yeah, what she said. All of your bad experiences with umbrella-fascists have occurred, not because they have umbrellas and are abusign the dubious privilege, but because you do not have an umbrella.

If everyone was dressed in whirring-metal-spike-covered battlesuits, would you complain about constantly being scraped and cut as you shopped? No. You would not. Well, you probably would (I know I'd have a good rant about it in the A&E), but my POINT is that you can abrogate the effect entirely by purchasing your own whirring-metal-spike-covered battlesuit.

Or umbrella. Mine's got a duck-n'-crossbones on it. Dude.

11:57 / 26.11.03

Kit-Kat Club - I absolutely agree with you. I have for years deeply resented those people who seem to get more obnoxious in proportion to the increase in rainfall. There seems to be an unspoken "I have an umbrella, it is raining therefore I am the priority" kind of logic, a wierd brolly-mania.

Actually I never realised I had such a problem with this, maybe everyone needs to buy an umbrella. A bit like the motorcyclists who say all drivers should do a motorbike test.

11:59 / 26.11.03

I think you should buy one of those transparent plastic rain hoods that old ladies wear.

12:04 / 26.11.03

Dude.

I am inspired to promulgate the revolution from within the ruling order and will buy a brolly forthwith. I doubt I'll get one as good as Jack's but there must be some decent ones out there.

Plastic hoods also a very attractive option, though I bet they wear them in Hoxton.

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:20 / 26.11.03

By that logic, Jack the Bodiless, I bet you think everyone in America should have a gun. Don't you. Don't you. Eh. Eh.

I can't be doing with umbrellas, they make me look absurd. I have a parka, with a big hood. This has its own disadvantages: I have to turn my head 90 degrees each way before I cross the road. But umbrellas... A last resort.

12:24 / 26.11.03

If you can't beat 'em....
I am a considerate umbrella user, and make sure not to drip on people or spear them in the eye, collapsing my brolly if necessary. Halfway house?

Yesterday I was walking up a hill with a small torrent in the gutter a few feet across, cars spraying it across the pavement etc. so I cunningly held my umbrella sideways. Immediately a lorry sped past and the six foot high bow wave tsunami'd over it into my face.

Never mind brollies, it's the cars that are the problem. If you could walk in the street it wouldn't be such an issue.

12:26 / 26.11.03

I have a parka, with a big hood. This has its own disadvantages: I have to turn my head 90 degrees each way before I cross the road.

The old parka tunnel vision effect - yes, very familiar with that one. Still beats the umbrella though. I still have a scar over my eye from when I was little and my mother almost put my eye out with her umbrella. I've never trusted them since. It's those long spindly metal bits, creepy, like the limbs of some nightmarish spider from a forgotten eastern european animation.

12:30 / 26.11.03

Mine's got a duck-n'-crossbones on it. Dude. JtB
That's because you're one 'o them Quack Pirates, not like a proper licensed pirate.
Seriously though, those umbrellas rock. As you say- Dude. *insert appropriate finger gesture here*

12:43 / 26.11.03

Oh wow - an opportunity to quote one of the worst films ever, The Avengers!

Sean Connery [Dr August DeWinter] - "A man with an umbrella is praying for rain."
Ralph Fiennes [John Steed] - "A man without an umbrella is a fool."

Great line, shit film.
Umbrellas can also be used for tapping on bus windows to attract the departing shiny-arse's attention, hailing cabs, assaulting people who get in your way on the pavement, waving at friends from a long distance away, tripping toddlers and scratching the cars of thoughtless motorists.
Good for general assault purposes if you get a robust model. I have a sturdy wooden tip to mine, but some people prefer the iron spike approach.
How people survive in the urban sprawl without one is beyond me. Also good for waving around like a dandy, especially when combined with a paper.

12:51 / 26.11.03

JtB's right about the problem being hugely minimised by getting your own smart little brolly to protect you from the rain and the eye injuries from pointy spiky bits.

You will still have the problem of people smaller than you whose umbrellas pass at exactly eye level and are not deflected by your own. There are some tiny but vicious people on the streets of Vauxhall.

And the problem, identified by KCC, of the golf umbrella. More like yurts. Would be much easier all round if I could just wear my rubber suit to work in foul weather.

12:58 / 26.11.03

There's no simple answer to this, is there? Waterproof hooded jackets keep more of you dry (unless the rain is falling straight down, which is never), but don't protect your face as well as a brolly - unless the hood is huge, in which case it becomes susceptible to the wind and has a tendency to blow back off your head. Also, you can't share a hooded jacket in the same way you can an umbrella. Well, you probably can, but not comfortably, not in public.

Thinking about it, why has no one invented a narrow, transparent brolly that comes down over your head and shoulders, like a short version of one of those glass tubes that 50s aliens and supervillains used to enjoy putting people in, or - better - half a transparent cucumber? I suppose it would be difficult to collapse.

I suggest you get a brolly and an anorak and a ladies head scarf, just to be certain.

Re: waterproof hooded jackets, and the problems of hood inertia:

What's needed is an entirely transparent hood. I saw one this weekend which had clear plastic panels on each side, which is a start, I suppose. Can you still get clear plastic macs?

13:04 / 26.11.03

Quantum: You lie. I've heard that you fit razor blades to the edge of yours and use it even when it isn't raining. I resent this call for everyone to join in this general weather acessory facism - if eveyone had a brolly no one whould be able to move, and my face would be totally lacerated, being tall enough for most average height people to hit me in the face.

Actually, if everyone had one there's a chance they would all lock together and form one enormous waterproof layer - we could then let go of the handles and scurry along underneath on all fours, like little hamsters, the rain beating down on the canvas conopy above our heads. That would be quite cool.

13:07 / 26.11.03

why has no one invented a narrow, transparent brolly that comes down over your head and shoulders

But they have! I have one right here. A 60s style see-through brolly. I keeps me dry, doesn't turn inside out, and saves me being the short person who stabs you all in the eye. Not that I have a great deal of sympathy, as tall people are constantly bashing me on the head with elbows and backpacks. But still - you'd have to be three feet tall and looking determinedly upwards to get stabbed by this brolly.

13:25 / 26.11.03

I am a huge umbrella fan. Alas, I left my small pocket one (that has permanent residence in the bottom of my rucksack unless it's raining) in Cambridge last weekend, irking me greatly. That said, it has been bent ever since a friend tried to do the cool-nightstick-flick-out thingy with it, and promptly flicked it into a wall. Twat.

Before that, golfing umbrellas. The biggest damn one you can find. Had one, it was marvellous; at school, they were very unanimous (being a sixth form privelige) and because people would want to be your friend and share your space. Very handy for friend-making, then, until I left it in a pub in Cambridge and somebody nicked it.

So now I'm wet. More to the point, my feet are wet, as my right shoe has a hole in it. Not good.

13:28 / 26.11.03

Although I agree with the can't beat 'em join 'em philosophy, what's to stop you going too far and turning into one of those umbrella abusers.

Wisp of moisture in the air - umbrella up.
Shiny pavement but no rain - umbrella up 'cos you never know.

I mean, I have no experience of brolly sporting. Couple that with the excitement of using new things and I could be that delusional fool with golf umbrella and smirk in the middle of June.

I know, it's just an umbrella.

14:10 / 26.11.03

I can really appreciate lovely umbrellas, but mine is ultra sensible - it's SUPER tiny, so only covers my immediate spacial needs, and fits easily into my purse or coat pocket.

you need to be really aware of your surroundings when you have the thing open, but I believe it's important to be like that at ALL times. of course others will be rude, but youre only responsible for yourself. and as for those others, why, you're welcome to push them into the mud if you'd like.

also I'm searching for an attractive antique umbrella stand for my front (enclosed) porch.

Tryphena Absent

14:15 / 26.11.03

I can't be doing with umbrellas, they make me look absurd

Whoa, whoa, whoa, there boyo. If umbrellas make you look absurd than why do you try to get your hands on mine every time it's raining, huh, huh???? I know your game, you thief!!

14:58 / 26.11.03

I don't mind umbrellas in the general case, but the sense of priviledge that seems to go along with them drives me nuts... There is nothing quite like somebody with an umbrella walking closest to the buildings and under the awnings and forcing those of us who've forgotten their own whirring-metal-spike-covered battlesuits to walk in the rain - makes me want to commit umbrellacide.

15:21 / 26.11.03

Kit-Cat: They are almost invariably carried at exactly the right height to whack me in the face.

Illmatic: my face would be totally lacerated, being tall enough for most average height people to hit me in the face.

ILL'S ABOUT A FOOT TALLER THEN CAT. I CAN'T EVEN THINK OF ANYTHING TO SAY. HOW THE HELL ARE YOU BOTH GETTING HIT IN THE FACE? DO YOU HAVE FOOT-HIGH FACES OR SOMETHING??

Ex

15:27 / 26.11.03

HOW THE HELL ARE YOU BOTH GETTING HIT IN THE FACE?

Piggybacks?

15:44 / 26.11.03

Or there's always someone of just the right (ie, wrong) height, carrying an umbrella and heading right at your face -which is my preferred theory. Technically, I know that they're useful, but a childhood memory of my mother saying "They're just so bourgeois" in a tone of utter disgust means that upbringing factors kick in and thus I've never owned one. Using other people's, by contrst, is fine...

pointless and uncalled for

17:02 / 26.11.03

I will regularly rant and rave about umbrellas being the scourge of everyone over the height of 5'10 but the truth is that umbrellas aren't really dangerous. Like guns, it's the person carrying the umbrella that is dangerous. Unfortunately it's so much easier to be dangerous with an umbrella than with a gun.

My theory is that because you can't see through most umbrellas then they forget that there are people taller than them. Thus us tall folk walk past the umbrella tribe they must think that we stop at the shoulders or something.

Either that or intelligence is channeled from above and umbrellas act like emp-sheilding for the brain. Be warned KCC, there is a danger that an umbrella will make be stupid and whilst you will still be beautiful, everyone will point and laugh while you're not looking.

If I were allowed I would pass a law stating that all umbrellas be translucent and that any gouging be punishable by a fine, maybe £50 if there is no lasting damage with the fine increasing the closer the wound is to the eye. Direct hits would mean that your life is forfeit.

For those of you insistent on carrying one of these ungodly things there are a few rules I would like you to follow.

1) Upon putting up the umbrella, repeat the following mantra "I am not the tallest person in the world", unless of course you are Radhouane Charbib, in which case thank you for the shelter mate.

2) Having an umbrella up in a bus stop is liable to bring me to violence, it isn't worth the risk.

3) If you a prod, poke, gouge or in any other way allow physical contact by your umbrella with another person shall require a swift and unreserved apology.

4) Should such contact occur and result in damage to your umbrella then you have no recourse to restitution, unless you accept body checks.

5) Partial collapsing of the umbrella is a viable option. Bizarre brolly gymnastics is not. In addition, standing and glaring at a very crowded area in attepmts to gain enough room to pass the width of you umbrella will leave you with sore eyes and possibly rectal prolapse.

6) If I appear to go into a fit of unprovoked rage, wrench your brolly from your grasp and cast it into the path of the 73 bus, there is probably a good reason for this and it is wisest to take this with good grace.

Grand Panjandrum of the Pointless

18:15 / 26.11.03

I happen to be an umbrella fascist who believes that the standard black brolly is an excellent invention that should be carried by absolutely everyone at all times. Nevertheless I cast asparagus on golf umbrellas (not so much because of their size and their anti social wielders, but rather bcs of their invariably tasteless colours), and also those awful crap plastic things designed to break and not fit in handbags.

18:20 / 26.11.03

*sigh*

You're all being very silly.

All you need in order to be a sensitive umbrella carrier is the ability to raise and lower your arm, according to the height of the approaching person.

I'm short, so on approaching someone else I need to raise my umbrella arm quite high in order not to spike them. Tall people don't need to raise their arm quite so high. It's easy. And, you know, you could even practice in your garden before you go out, if you're that worried.

Obstacle approaching? Raise. Danger past? Lower. Repeat as necessary throughout journey.

03:42 / 27.11.03

Those that know me know of my partiality to my stout black walking brolly with metal handle and taped handle for grip, i unfortantly wasnt able to take the thing with on my recent trip to australia and have been pining for it since, how heartening it is to see a thread dedacanted to the finer points of brolly weilding.

when walking i prefer the one handed mid section clutch but can be persueded, when feeling fruity, to pull the handle dangle swing.

08:23 / 27.11.03

Handle dangle swing... sigh... is there anything more lovely than the English language? However, I take exception at the suggestion that waving one's umbrella round in public is in any way fruity. I always prefer to think of it as a Larry Olivier moment, which is why I have an elegantly thin dog. They accessorise beautifully with a swung umbrella and a jaunty tip of the hat.
Kit Kat's mention of an umbrella stand reminded me of my project to make an elephant's leg out of papier mache, to keep my brolly and walking sticks in. Unless someone out there has a real one to spare... [ducks].
And Vincennes, I can't believe you haven't reacted against your mother's belief system. Become an accountant immediately, get a bowler hat and a collection - yes, not just one, but a collection - of lovely black umbrellas. All exactly the same. That'll show her.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

19:35 / 27.11.03

Umbrellas don't kill people, people kill people, using guns that they keep dry with umbrellas. The umbrella is a tricky proposition in Britainshire, what with the tendency for high winds often necessitating a large umbrella for one's own comfort and enjoyment. I have a large umbrella which I take with me if it's raining when I leave or looks like being a rainy&windy day and a small fold-up one in my bag if the day looks nice but I don't want to get caught out.

...I live alone.

06:59 / 28.11.03

Become an accountant immediately

Oh, I would, but I'm spending so much time keeping my 4 x 4 spotlessly clean that I don't think I'd have time to do accounting exams...

07:48 / 28.11.03

Breaking news - in a catalogue that fell out of the papers I bought as part of a journalism tutorial [possibly the Sun] there was, among the cosy fur-lined single shoes and microwavable hot water bottles, a windproof umbrella! For sale and everything!
It has an internal diaphragm-thing which stops it being pulled outwards [or possibly leads to tearing, I dunno] but it's an exciting development, possibly the most significant since the automatic pop-up foldaways in the seventies.
How exciting is that? No excuses now, kids!

Our Lady, btw, don't feel the need to explain away your umbrellistic tendencies. Just think how you'd feel if you didn't carry that small foldaway and it started raining? Knowing full well you had a perfectly servicable foldaway at home. Hmmm?
I dream of a day when there's no need for shame, when we can all go out into the streets and celebrate our umbrellas together. Umbrellas of all colours, styles and sizes, coming together in a carnival of pushing, drips down the back of the neck, eye-gouging and being unable to see where we're going.
Excuse me, I think I've got something in my eye. *sniff*