Original or a Pretender?
It was a long time ago that Olympus ran an adverts for the Olympus OM1 camera – 1972 or thereabouts! David Bailey and Lord Litchfield had been employed to sell the new miniature (by comparison to the competition) cameras.
But my recollection was that some years later Bailey commented that although other cameras were good there was something about an original. In his case it was the OM1 that had set the standard.
The excellent Dyson Airblade - turning fingers into skeletal blue grids
We take it for granted now that everything will improve. But is this always the case? even today the OM1 is considered a classic.
I was in the Boca Bar today at the rather excellent Paintworks in Bristol (home of Deal or No Deal!). In the toilets I was excited (well maybe not ‘excited’) to see a blade hand dryer. I didn’t take a photograph as that tends to have eyebrows raised (a la VIVA adverts!)
But alas, it wasn’t a Dyson – it was badged ‘airjet’ by Cannon Hygiene. And guess what? It was not as good as the original Dyson design.
A search of their web site reveals both dryers side by side. I am not an expert on such things – but I have to say that the Dyson is absolutely brilliant – the ‘home made’ COPY is just that – a copy. And a pretty poor one at that. I suppose it dried my hands – but so does your tee shirt?
There is something about originals – they just enter our psyche and stay there – they set the pace. The standard to work to. And everyone else just copies – and in this case rather poorly.
I never owned an OM1 but if I ever buy a hand dryer – it will be a Dyson!
I hate copies – Like the Costa Music Sammes singers I blogged about a few weeks ago! Its not big and it’s not clever. So don’t do it…
