A New Year, Sliced Very Thin

In our family, when required, we tend to drop little hints about what we might like as presents. Nothing binding or pressure-inducing. In fact, it’s intended to reduce the pressure of moments such as the recently passed festive season. To save a little running blindly around the shops. There is always room for a little surprise or two but our hints to each other tend to grease the wheel a little and that is no bad thing.

Late last year, the odd little hints I dropped to my sons and to my lovely wife all worked out well. I like the hints to be odd (well I would, wouldn’t I?). It adds a little grist to that already greased wheel.

For my elder son, I hinted at some kind of tool to sharpen my kitchen knives. To my shame, I have no device to sharpen my kitchen knives and, as a result, they are a disgrace to humanity. Bearing little resemblance to cutting and slicing implements, they are more like plates of metal that I press onto meat and vegetables in the hope that it will somehow separate them into smaller pieces. My present, therefore, was a nifty little device with three grooves which you run your knives through and from which they come out keener and altogether more worthy of the title ‘knife.’ But my Eldest went further, generous soul that he is. He bought me a whole new set of knives. Korean and deadly, they were among the sexiest presents I ever received. In receiving them, I demanded the completion of a ritualistic transaction that is pure superstition. Something I have no belief at all in. But still, I wanted it done. The reason for this is fairly simple. If my mother were still alive, she would have absolutely demanded that it be done. Like hats on the bed or new shoes on the table, it is a superstitious observation that has no place in a modern household… except it does.

So what was it, this transaction?

In addition ot the gift, I requested that John also produce a coin and give it to me along with the knives. This coin was then promptly returned to him and so the superstition was allayed. The old and obviously dubious wisdom is that a new knife, given as a gift, could potentially slice through the friendship between the giver and the receiver. A proffered coin, once returned to the giver, made the knives into a purchase rather than a gift and this removed the danger of any cut ties. Pure bullshit, obviously, but kind of cool and old fashioned as well. An acknowledgement of our past and of the good people who inhabited it.

I love my new knives. Their ability to cut things is beyond compare and I particularly love giving each one a little extra run through my new sharpener before each use, rather like Anthony the Butcher does in his shop down the town.

One of Patricia’s little presents probably doesn’t qualify as a hint at all. The only real hint was my undeniable incompetence at using the version I had before I got this new one. The present? A left handed can opener. I am very left-handed and although I am well-conditioned to operate in this right-handed world of ours, some things have always been awkward. That’s not quite right. Nothing ever really felt awkward until I was shown a left handed version of the same thing. Then, the ease at which I could use the new version showed me how literally ‘cack-handed’ I was with the right handed version. Recently, my grappling with a regular tin opener over the sink (to avoid unseemly spatter and spillage) was a clear indication of what I needed for Christmas. I used to have one of these gadgets before, in London times, but I lost it somewhere along the way. It used to provide two particular delights to me. First, and rather obviously, it would make it easy for me to open a tin but secondly, and less obviously, it would bring me pleasure when I handed it to someone in my kitchen and asked them to open a tin for me. Their confusion and ineptitude with the left handed device always made me feel better about myself. As a side note, I also got a pair of left handed scissors. These do not seem significantly better or worse than the regular versions. Perhaps an inevitable level of ambidextrousness had crept into my life in this regard.

My younger son would be the first to suggest that my present hint was a little inexpensive but, no matter, if is very much what I wanted and I have it now and it means more to me than you might immediately imagine. The present was a copy of the December 16^th, 2024, edition of the New Yorker magazine. My younger son lives and works in Brooklyn now, on a graduate visa, and he was home for a few days at Christmas. This is what I wanted and this, among other things, is what he brought. To me, it’s a lovely little treasure. On the cover, a portly red figure, trimmed with white fur, is carrying his heavy red sack up the steps of a subway station. A tall New York building towers over the exit at the top of the steps. The image, by Eric Drooker, is called ‘A Seasonal Delivery’ and it has a lovely retro fifties feel to it. The magazine itself is surprisingly small and lightweight. Oddly, the contents excite me less than the item itself. It is a piece of New York, from the streets of New York, and my younger son went there and brought it back for me. It will grace my desk for a long time, I think.

I hope the New Year is kind to us all, insofar as humanly possible, and I wish you all a really happy one.