I'D LIKE TO TEACH THE WORLD TO SING...

Can't recall whether I've ever shown a close-up of this on the blog before or not, so that's all the excuse I need to use it for today's post.  No, it's not a bottle of COCA COLA, it's a radio in the shape of a bottle of COKE.  I bought this back around 1981 or '82 from my local CO-OP department store (now gone), and looking at it now reminds me of something.  It was so convincing-looking as a bottle of Coke that, when me and a pal (who knew it was a radio) and one of his pals (who didn't) were walking through the Co-op sometime after me acquiring mine, we pointed out one on display (sans box) behind the counter to the non-enlightened one.

"That's a radio!" I declared.  He didn't believe me, and even when the other pal confirmed it, he remained unpersuaded.  "Nah, that's part of the assistant's lunch!" he said, scoffing at the both of us.  I actually had to ask the assistant to let us see it so that I could demonstrate that it was, indeed, a radio.  Now, in the photo above, it's obviously a radio, but that's because it's a close-up snap, and the 'speaker' holes have dust in them.  Trust me, when brand-spanking new, from several feet away, it was indistinguishable from the 'real thing'.  (Well, had to get it in there somewhere.)

That reminds me of a tale I think I've told before, but I'll tell it again anyway.  Back in 1985, I was living in a bedsit in Buckland, Portsmouth, at the start of my freelance career in comics.  About ten minutes or so before I was going out one day, a woman upstairs asked if I had a radio she could borrow, to listen to as she ironed her man's shirts and stuff.  I reluctantly lent her my Coke radio (which I'd brought with me from home), but I had to pop upstairs to ask her something just before I left.

My radio was sitting on the top of a Calor gas heater, perched precariously halfway over the front edge where the rays of heat would be sure to deform it before much longer.  I moved it to the middle and told her why, but in a polite way.  I can't recall with 100% certainty, but I think she said she was finished with it anyway so I took it back.  Thankfully, it was undamaged, but another 15 minutes or so and that wouldn't have been the case

What is it with people who are either to stupid to know, or too inconsiderate to care, how to look after other people's property?  Even today, 35 years later, I'm not quite convinced that she didn't place it over the heat deliberately, purely out of a malicious desire to damage an attractive item that she didn't have.  After all, she was an adult - could she really have been so thick as not to realise what the result of her actions would be.  And why balance it halfway over the edge of a heater - or anything?

I'd never lend anything to anyone again, because I know with absolute certainty that no matter how much people assure you that they'll take care of something, their concept of 'care' is at the opposite end of the spectrum from mine.  Anyway, the radio still works today, and is great wee collectable to have.  Anyone else got one?

Posted in: Cartoons