Wednesday 26 September 2007

Ring Pull Technology

I really can't remember why I took this particular photo - it must have been on some extremely boring afternoon in or around 1980.

The cans of drink have a new-fangled thing (probably not all that new by then actually) called ring-pulls. As can be seen clearly, they pulled totally clear of the can. To avoid dropping litter, the usual method of disposal was to drop the detached ring-pull into the can and then drink from it. Two minutes later your friends could practice the kiss of life (or CPR as the Ladies Over The Water might have it) as you stopped breathing due to "drinking" the ring-pull. Many an amateur tonsillectomy was performed accidentally during the act of removing one of these from the back of someone's throat...

Earlier drinks cans had no ring-pull or self-contained opening mechanism at all and required one of these fearsome weapons which hooked over the rim of the can so the pointy end could be levered down to puncture the tin. This, for any fizzy can of drink, caused a huge geyser of sticky sugary drink to fall all over the person standing opposite who up until that point had been enjoying the sight of you wrestling with it. The other, blunter, end is for taking the crimped caps off bottles of coke and other similar bottles. Sterilised milk used to come with such caps in pint glass bottles. I remember it tasted horrible and I could never understand as a kid why anyone's Mum would torture them so...

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1 comment:

  1. Ok --- this was a funny snippet to read! Of course I am waaaaaay too young to remember those pull tab thingies that went into the can ...
    All these changes and evolution! For some reason, it made me think about our visit there in 1997. Gill was explaining Cheese strings to me. For the life of me, I couldn't understand why the cheese had to pull off in strings. Gill's flabbergasted explanation was, "Because it's FUN!"
    Today I love Cheese strings, nibbling on a piece while reading - and agree that they're fun!

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