Cutlery

thinking about the spork at the end of my last post led to a mental review of the state of eating utensils today and the lack of progress over the last hundred or so years. for a society that prides itself on creativity, innovation and new ideas we don't seem to have advanced much in this field. my (brief) research summarises the key inventions thus

• stone age - knives
• shong dynasty - chopsticks
• 1st century CE - spoons
• 7th century CE - forks
• c1900 - spork

is that it? thousands of years, billions of people, a LOT of meals and we've got basically three choices for shovelling food into our mouths? well, here's a couple more

for soup with lumps, or noodles how about a fork with a hollow stem - spear the lumps then suck up the liquid. I call it the "strawk"

for food which is basically dry with a coating of sauce or dressing e.g. pasta, salad or fry-up a one-handed device will let you eat with one hand and gesticulate with the other (or turn pages if you read at the table - how rude) such a tool could be modelled on tongs (but smaller to fit throguh the mouth and should have scissor-type cutting blades to reduce large items into bite-size pieces. i haven't got a catchy name for these things yet.

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5 fruit & veg today? - tomato & a banana
Exercise today? - 4 + 4 + 4 chin ups
Hours of sleep I'm going to get tonight? - optimistically 7