Light my Fire – the story of a striking match

Some things we take for granted. Like lighting a candle, fire or any other flammable object that needs some flamin’. Ever so often we stumble across a documentary showing us how in the ‘olden days’ humans used flints, glass in sun or any other way worthy of an episode of ‘Man v Wild’. From the comfort of our sofa, lit up by an array of lights, we huff in that special way only comfortable Westerners can, who never huddled around a wet piece of branch trying to cook dinner and keep the wild ones away, and realise ‘’I would freeze to death, develop a taste for raw meat and be eaten by a pack of wolves in no time’. Survival of the fittest.

And then the match came along, and it became survival of the smartest. I’m so pleased the match was invented. What a genius Gustaf Erik Pasch was, may his memory burn forever. Not only a match, but a safety match! The iMatch of matches. It has Sweden written all over it. Flaming, but safe. Herr Pasch certainly had panache.

Often the best things in life seem easy. At least they come across that way. A shoehorn, a doorstop, a rocking chair and a cheese knife are just some of the things that come into my mind.Though the safety match is simple in function, it is the whole science behind it that makes it work. And work. And work. 160 years later, the concept has remained the same. The making of safety matches became one of Sweden’s most successful industries in the 19th Century and into the 20th Century, and probably the most recognised export of Sweden at this time. Not bad for a bit of wood, chemistry and a strike. So next time you’re cuddling up next to your loved on, replace the humming of Door’s ‘Light my fire’ by asking if your darling wouldn’t mind swipe the match against your striking surface.

The Point of the Return

Post-Christmas-sales, post-end-of-year-sales, post beginning of-of-year-sales one can suffer from sales fatigue or plain ol’ confusion of purchases. While returning items, especially at sales times, can be a hard and arduous task. You have to produce 100 points of evidence that you actually purchased the item, this including a thumbprint and your great-grandmother’s maiden name. It also has to be within the time frame of minus 24 hrs and you still have to come up with some strangely suitable excuse why you changed your mind. I break out in a sweat of guilt every time I return something, feeling slightly incompetent that I couldn’t make the right decision to start with, ‘how hard can it be, how can you fail in your judgment of a white T-shirt?’ Maybe it’s just genetic Protestant guilt rearing its ugly head or maybe it’s the queasy feeling of hassling the sales staff, but when returning stuff I always feel as if I’ve borrowed my friend’s favorite item and damaged it, beyond repair.

But for all these slightly anxious ridden returns I have endured through my history of shopping, there is also the antidote that operates under the name of IKEA. Unparalleled in its eagerness for a return, it is the Mecca of Returns, the ultimate meaning of the word Return. I would even go as far as betting my cat’s head that when the English language was in its infancy, men were pondering long and hard if the word for taking things back that you had purchased and for some reason didn’t want any longer, should go under the name IKEA or Return.

Sometimes I have an itch to just buy something at IKEA so I can return it. I know, sick, but true. But I feel I’m making someone happy. And it’s not me (well it is but I’m happy to make someone else happy). Returning your Hejka rocking chair because it clashed with the Kramfors sofa and the Liatorp table is a pure joy. When you show up with your item to return you almost have a feeling that you are giving someone a gift, a very special gift. No questions asked, just hand over the receipt and the box. And if you don’t have the receipt? Don’t stress, there is a special little line with tickets just for you. Now, that’s considerate. No guilt, no explanation, no sweaty palms. I just lift my gaze up to that happy little heart pillow that tells me: ‘It’s OK to change your mind’. It fills me with warm fuzzy feelings, I feel like hugging someone, a pillow, an IKEA staff member or perhaps the person next to me that is queuing up for the bits-missing-give-me-a-new-one-sorry-we’re-temporarily-out-of-stock-desk.

The Swede who threw a better spanner in the works

There are so many people to thank for so many reasons, all those people who made life easier for the rest of the world population. All those people who took things one step further for the greater good of all, those people who thought “ this can’t be it? There must be more to this tool than this?!”

Well, no more sleepless nights for all you home-handy individuals who have found yourself on many occasions looking down on your personal adjustable wrench and thought “who came up with this clever tool and is it a Swede?”

Let me quench your thirst for answers. Firstly, is it a Swede? But of course it is a Swede. The inventor of the adjustable wrench, unknowingly, is the forefather of the expression ‘less is more’. While Johan Petter Johansson (1853-1943) was working as a fitter, he found himself standing in a sea of wrenches to match a whole range of screws and nuts. The confusion and frustration was evident for JPJ and being the clever sausage he was he combined the whole lot into one single tool, the adjustable nut wrench, or the universal wrench. This little piece of invention was constructed and patented in 1892. Since then, the regular toolbox contents have been more or less halved and many trades’ people’s backs have been saved, chiropractic clinics gone out of business, all due to our nifty JPJ. So inspirational has the adjustable wrench been that some people even write songs about it. Credit given where credit is due.