My Fetishes

O.K.,I think I've been keeping this blog long enough to get personal and reveal my fetishes.Well,some of them.I have a mild cutting-wire fetish - a sizeable box in the studio full of various nylon and metal wires - fishing lines of various dimensions [my favourite is a sleek black number supposedly for pike],some Japanese stainless-steel twisted wire,stretched springs that leave curvacious ridges in the clay,and soft,pliable brass jewellers wire which,doubled and spun in a drill,gives a gentle ripple to the bottoms of pots that don't need trimming-cups,jugs,vases etc.,and allows the pots to pop off their bats in a gratifying fashion.The best wire I ever used was the legendary but elusive Laystrate model-airplane control wire,which seems to have fallen victim to radio-controlled flying,lapsing from elusiveness to downright unobtainability.One of our guests at last Chanukah's Tel Hai Pottery Symposium hinted that he had tracked down a source - I must get in touch with him.
Another [and much more expensive] fixation I have is tools:doubtless inherited,together with his classic wooden tool-chest,from my late father.As a child,I can remember what was in each drawer of the chest on its shelf in his workshop next to the garage - files,drill-bits,little clamps he made as a youth,micrometers,set-squares,punches,scribes -many from long-gone Sheffield engineering firms with earnest names-Moore&Wright,Glashart,Eclipse -engraved with his initials -HF.When Helen took me to New York last October to show me her hometown [and help me get over my lingering and shameful anti-Americanism] I was unable to resist the blandishments of a svelte,expensive but perfectly-balanced 18volt cordless Hilti drill,and,reassured by the brisk red-coated Hilti person that there would be no problems using a 220volt transformer in Israel,shlepped it home.Of course,it refused to work here:emails to Hilti USA and Head Office in Lichtenstein [?]produced not even an acknowledgement,so I phoned Hilti U.K.,who revealed,to my surprise,that the firm exists in Israel [because of the Arab boycott they don't publicize it].To my mounting amazement,the office in Petach Tikva gave me the number of the rep. in the North,who stunned me by revealing that he lives 10 mins.away in Elifelet,and would pop over next morning-i.e.this morning,which he did,exchanging my defunct charger for a more advanced model - taken from a new box of drill and charger,noch-and went on his merry way.Conclusions:1)WHAT a small world;2)great service deserves honourable mention.
If you want to know about my other fetishes,you will have to contact me privately.Knock three times and whistle the Marseillaise.