For YesButs Images on 29th June 2007 b.t. bear (esq.) suggested the caption: -
"Oh bugger it. Let's buy one."
The caption and the photograph suggested the following story to me:
His father was both his hero and best friend. He would spend hours watching him perform magic, making toys for him and furniture for the house out: of scraps of wood and at what at first sight looked like rubbish. The garden shed was the most exciting place in the whole world, the workbench and the rows of tools hanging from the walls. Shelves of jars containing screws, nails, nuts, bolts and other unidentifiable things that one day might be useful. He dreamt of the day when he too would have his own garden shed and be accompanied by his own son.
Unfortunately he was unlikely to have a son. That dream faded when his wife walked out on him. She objected to him constructing a garden shed. He tried to explain that living in a multi-storey block of flats he had no garden, and had no alternative but to build the shed in the lounge. He thought her unreasonable, after all it wasn’t a big shed, and there was still room in the lounge for her chair and TV.
In truth he didn’t really miss her; he was contented tinkering in his shed. He was both skilful with his hands and imaginative in his designs. He was so excited with his latest creation, that he applied for a patent. He had even managed to sell one of them, all be it to a bear. He was convinced he was “on to a winner” which would make him a fortune.
He gave up his job to devote his time to develop the product. Already, (since the photograph was taken) he had added to it an implement to remove stones from horse’s hooves. And was considering the potential of other modifications, possibly a bottle opener and cork screw. Ultimately he would like to transfer it onto an integrated circuit, (not that he knew what an integrated circuit was, but everything seemed to contain them, or something called a microchip).
He was so disappointed when he received a letter from the patent office rejecting his patent application; on the grounds that it contravened an existing patent for something apparently called a “Swiss Army Knife”.
