Week 144, Planet of the sheds

"Nobody should be denied a shed."

So said Fallacious, the Greek pragmatist, sometime around 400 BC - and in doing so Fallacious managed to predate the US tradition of pragmatism by some 2000 odd years, much to the annoyance of Charles Peirce.  Peirce subsequently steadfastly refused to countenance outbuildings of any kind on his substantial farmland, which severely restricted income and lead to years of poverty.

Why this interest in sheds?

I had the good fortune to see the inside of a decently sized outbuilding the other day, a building which included a cast iron range.  Myself and a couple of others were discussing what a fine construction it was when the topic moved to storage, and how outhouses, sheds and the like, rapidly become filled with items.

One of the party, who shall remain nameless, said he had five sheds.  Five whole sheds.

This makes the 1969 Monty Python sketch "Arthur 'two sheds' Jackson" appear rather tame.

So Gary - let's call him Gary, that isn't his name - Gary 'five sheds' went on to explain that he had all sorts of things in the sheds, wood, more wood, a lot of wood, and other things.  The rest of us agreed that we had a lot of things in our sheds too, wood, a lot of wood, and other things that weren't wood but which were not dissimilar to wood in their property of space consumption.

Having grown up with no male role model to speak of, other than Captain Kirk of the USS Enterprise, I found it reassuring and satisfying to discover that the acquisition of sheds, and the propensity of items to expand to fill those sheds, was not a peculiar one.  I refer to a male role model but I am aware that there are female shedees too, perhaps not as many, or perhaps due to a perceived, and very real, patriarchal disdain of female shedees they are not as forthcoming - fortunately these outmoded views are rapidly being discarded.

I am reminded of a number of songs about sheds.  Pat Benatar memorably sang about them and their storage capability, who could forget the line 'We have sheds, wood's not a battlefield' from the song Wood's not a Battlefield.  Pat was at the vanguard, knocking over the male-dominated, external non-permanent structure world view.  Views such as that of King Crimson in their song The Night Watch with the lyrics 'Shed, shed, the light of wood works shed, The struts before the plain sawn gate, now painted new and primed', where they refer to various pursuits deemed manly.

But I digress.

I've only got the two sheds myself, although I'm not called Arthur.

Perhaps there's someone, somewhere out there with two sheds called Martha?

Who knows.

I maybe confused.

Is it too early for a drink?

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