101 Things to do with a Kettle

Milton Keynes sat behind the counter of the Loworth Kettle Emporium, staring glumly at the cordless Kenwood in front of him, willing it to fly. Demand for kettles in the village had declined somewhat lately, allowing Milton plenty of time for such psychic exercises. (He had started by willing a small filter kettle to disappear, but soon realised that this was probably not an ideal pastime for the area's premier purveyor of kettles.) He concentrated. Really hard. The kettle jiggled slightly, then rose slowly off the counter, held aloft only by the power of telekinesis. Or Kettelekenesis, as Milton called it.
The bell dinged as a customer entered the shop. Milton looked up, startled. A cordless kettle hit him sharply on the back of the head.
“Good morning,” said the man, ignoring this.
“Can I help you?” Milton asked, rubbing his head.
“Maybe I can help you,” the man said, smiling. “The name’s Hobbs. Russell Hobbs.”
“Have we met?” Milton asked, shaking the man’s hand; the name seemed vaguely familiar.
“Oh, no. I’m from the Kettle Marketing Board,” Hobbs smiled, gazing ecstatically at the vast array of kettles that surrounded him. “The most important invention since the wheel. Or at least, since medium sliced Hovis.”
Milton stared at the stranger, wondering exactly how many teabags short of a pot he was.
“Since the dawn of time mankind has realised the importance of good, hot water,” Hobbs went on, “for making tea, washing the car, and so on.”
Several, definitely, Milton reflected.
“The kettle was invented, incidentally, in 1583, by Henry Kettle of Lantern Marsh, Virginia.”
“Never heard of him,” Milton said.
“He has been largely unrecognised, since his invention was useless until the discovery of electricity some centuries later. The whistling kettle, on the other hand, was invented in 1854 by Sir Alfred Whistling-Kettle, a distant relative of his. But I digress. My point is this: the importance of hot water has meant that the kettle’s multitude of other uses have been woefully overlooked.”
“What other uses?”
“The most famous, the brainchild of a Mr Dudley Zoo, founder of the animal park bearing his name, is a visual gag featuring a caged kettle and the title ‘Water Otter’. A rival of his, Mr West Midlandsafaripark, was allowed to use the joke for a small fee. By the early 1970s Dudley Zoo had made millions by selling the rights to his joke. Now, of course, like most things that seemed like a bad idea in the 1970s, the joke is most commonly found at the lower quality car boot sales. But it illustrates my point.”
“Which is?”
“There are a hundred and one things you can do with a kettle,” Hobbs enthused.
He picked up a stainless steel kettle from the display with which to demonstrate. And put it on his head.
“Rubbish Dalek impressions?”
“It’s a cycle helmet,” Hobbs explained.
“Would that work?”
“Maybe that was a bad example,” he admitted. “But you could hang it on the end of your bed on Christmas Eve, put your toothbrushes in it, or make one of those surreal Polish animated films about it.”
“Aren’t there any more practical uses for a kettle?”
Hobbs opened his briefcase on the counter. From it he produced a selection of spanners and a ratchet screwdriver, which he dropped into another kettle.
“Tool box,” he said.
Into another he thrust a small bunch of carnations, also produced from the briefcase.
“A vase,” Milton guessed.
“Absolutely!”
“Why not a briefcase?”
“Why not indeed?” Hobbs grinned widely, pulling pens, notepads, and an electronic personal organiser from his briefcase and placing them into a large, squarish kettle. “Now you’re talking my language.”
Hobbs picked up the kettle and appeared to test its weight and balance, or something. “I’ll take this,” he said. “Thanks.”
Stunned, Milton took for the briefkettle.
“Don’t bother wrapping it,” Hobbs said merrily. “I’ll take it as it is.”
Once the stranger had left, Milton Keynes sat back behind the counter, staring intently at a slightly dented cordless Kenwood, contemplating the conversation he had just had. A hundred and one uses for a kettle meant you need a hundred and one kettles. Which meant more business for him – despite his better judgement, Milton liked the theory.
He picked up a notebook, tore out the page on which he had written ‘Ode to a Kettle’, and began to write:
‘One hundred and one things to do with a kettle.’

Short story based on the classic masterpiece, '101 Things to do with a Kettle', (C) 1994 Steve Trower.

Milton Keynes - Britain's Most Boring Man - is currently auditioning for the lead in a comic fantasy novel.