In the late fifties and throughout the sixties there persisted rumours of a remote island where abandoned domestic appliances flourished and thrived. It was a paradise where trouser presses might happily bask in the tropical sunlight, unmolested by man; where food processors could be free to forage amongst the leaf litter for bugs and grubs, unnoticed by the prying eyes of civilisation; and where toasters gambolled playfully amongst the tall grasses, without the worry of having someone periodically stuff them with slightly stale bread and expect them to char it unevenly on one side.
By 1969 the secret histories of this fabled place were the stuff of hippy legend, and inspiration to many - not least a talented young graduate called Benny Callan. After spending the best part of his student years tonked out on cheap cider and cleaning products, Benny determined that his academic career required a big finish, rather than a slow, spluttering fizzle into real life. To this end he resolved to delay his entry into a promising career at his uncle's bank, and instead squander the next year travelling around the world, spending his parents' money in search of the mythical Cooker Island.
And that was how he came to be on the container ship, the SS Summerfield, when it inconveniently sprang a leak in the middle of the Indian Ocean and decided that it didn't want to float anymore. Benny, on the other hand, did want to float - he wanted this very much - and clung desperately to a convenient piece of flotsam until he finally washed up on a beach.
Right from the outset, as he lay face down, exhausted, in the baking sand, Benny knew that this was no ordinary place. Maybe it was the sight of the herd of electric kettles that snuffled about in the sand beyond the dunes. Maybe it was the flock of reel-to-reel tape recorders nesting in the nearby trees. Or maybe it was the big bull vacuum cleaner lazily dangling its hose in a distant water hole. Either way, Benny realised he'd finally stumbled across Cooker Island. His delight abruptly dissolved when a coffee percolator ambled up to him, piddled a hot stream of espresso into his face, bit him on the nose and ran off.
This was to be the first of many hostile encounters, all of which provided a painful lesson that paradise often isn't all it's cracked up to be. Over the next two days Benny received numerous bites from electric razors, was head butted by a dishwasher, badly burned by an electric grill that had lain hidden in a clump of bubble wrap bushes, and was dive-bombed by a swarm of heated rollers.
By the time he was finally rescued by a passing fishing boat, Benny was a gibbering wreck, and his story was considered by all who heard it to be nothing more than the ranting nonsense of a dribbling fool. Even to this day, Benny Callan is apt to start foaming at the mouth at the merest mention of a spin dryer, and the sight of a steam iron can send him spiralling into a frenzy of convulsions. He nevertheless enjoys a successful career as an investment banker.
Cooker Island
