When is a spoon not just a spoon?

We’ve written about this before but it is worth revisiting.

Many young British girls (usually 15 or 16) are being sent to South Asia to arranged marriages, against their will. It is sometimes under pretense of going on holiday with family and they have no way of escaping their escorts and getting help. Sometimes the airport is their last chance in Britain to get help.

So Karma Nirvana charity came up with the genius idea of a spoon in their underwear. ‘If they don’t know exactly when it may happen or if it’s going to happen, we advise them to put a spoon in their underwear,’ said Natasha Rattu, Karma Nirvana’s operations manager.

When the spoon sets off an alarm, ‘they will be taken to a safe space where they have that one last opportunity to disclose they’re being forced to marry,’ Rattu told AFP.

But here’s an important update from an informed user on Reddit:

VERY IMPORTANT; I HAVE WORKED AIRPORT SECURITY AT THE METAL DETECTOR FOR FOUR YEARS AND THIS IS MY ADVICE IF THIS HAPPENS TO YOU.

The spoon in your trousers trick is possible but it has to be a LARGE spoon. A dessert spoon can be missed by a metal detector as they are not perfect.

Walk SLOWLY through the metal detector, this will also alert the officer at the detector that something might be wrong. Try to communicate with the officer; mouthing, whisper, act dumb or like it’s your first time so they come close to you to assist you, eyecontact HARD. You can only walk one at a time if you can walk by yourself.

For the metal detector to notice, put something large or very solid metal in your pants for a situation like this. Household objects for this can include: one or several LARGE spoons (can’t stress LARGE enough), wrenches, one or several mobile phones, medals (several), batteries (several) or other electronic devices like remote controls etc.

Overkill is the keyword but this is for when your at the airport and should be viewed as a desperate last resort. Show your surroundings that this is happening, friends, teachers, leave notes, forums on the internet, signal from windows and so on.

I hope this will help someone. It only takes one person to notice and react. If you know someone this might be happening to, SPEAK UP. Better to have reacted to nothing than not reacting when it’s actually happening.

You can help out at http://www.karmanirvana.org.uk/

Smörkniv – The Wooden Butter Knife

We are going to cheat a little with this write up and show you a Google Translated (from Swedish to English) Wikipedia article about the Smörkniv:

A butter knife is a cutlery that is used to spread dairy products ( butter , table margarine ) or other soft toppings on, for example, the sandwich . Butter knives lack sharp edges , and are traditionally made of wood , but can also be made of plastic or metal, for example .

Wood butter knives are often manufactured within the home and school craft and today’s design became common in the 1950s. In the past, the butter knives were made in one, but later on there are other types of wood.

In the 19th century, butter was exclusive and was therefore rarely used on the sandwich. In terms of appearance, however, it is easy to confuse 19th-century “ass scratches” (precursors to toilet paper ) with butter knives.

Yup, you read it correctly. It seems that sometime the butter knives were confused with “ass scratches”. We don’t think this happens any longer. Cutlery confusion like this be crazy. Don’t get us started on the “poop knife”.

We plan on make a few of our own Smörkniv this summer while camping. But if you want to buy your own check these out from Amazon. BTW – It’s good advice to soak them in mineral oil before using. That way you won’t have any issues with oils going rancid in the wood.

Butter Knife Handmade Juniper Wood from Amazon

President Trump eats Pizza with Cutlery

We’ve seen it happen before a few years ago here at The Cutlery Review with Mayor of New York Mr.de Blasio.

And we are seeing it happen again with the President of the United States eating his pizza with a knife and fork. I’m surprised he isn’t trying a spoon and blaming the spoon for being ineffective. Maybe former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin could cut it into bit-sized pieces for him.

Sorry to be a little harsh, but if you can’t eat pizza correctly or understand the time and place to use flatware?

Spork or Foon?

Ok, we have all heard of Sporks, the classic camping and picnic cutlery. But now we are told in the name of equality we must have a Foon as well. I think it’s a joke?

But we did find a Foon for sale from an Australian company called Splayd. It’s the Splayd Mini Spork (Foon). It’s a knife, fork and spoon in one! This is a box of six Foons that are 5.7″ long, formed from 18/8 stainless steel and hand-finished. But wait there’s more! It comes in a luxury velvet presentation box making them the perfect gift or showcase utensil set.

That is pretty flexible flatware indeed.

Splayd Mini Spork (Foon) Set of 6 from Amazon