Re: Aslak and Michael using it.
If you are creating a museum/mausoleum, Michael, put it down very, very carefully!!!!
Michael, if you enjoy drinking beer from it, pick it up, and do some strenuous aerobic alcohol-lifting exercise.
Sue, you have high-lighted one of the dichotomies of modern life.
If it has value should we use it/ if it has value should we enjoy it?
We have many things that a collector would admire, but we use our Harrachov Metelak glasses, Bengt Severin Holmegaard Princess glass, Gerald Benney, 1st production run "Studio" cutlery, an amazingly modernist Wedgwood earthen-ware dinner service from the 30's.
What is the point of cluttering our lives with dead, sterile pieces, that are only valued for some, often nebulous, and unrealisable market value?
All we have, we only hold temporarily, we cannot take it with us. Our kids often hate it, and would sell it, but for the fact it reminds them of someone.
When you are gone, they will sell it anyway, to buy things more to their taste.
None of us can expect anything else, for to be otherwise, is to think we can impose the tyranny of what we hold dear on our off-spring.
Use it, enjoy it, an accidental breakage is just that, remember you bought it, on holiday, from a charity shop, the dealer did not realise what he had.
Regards,
"Madamoiselle Haversham",
(place burning down round my ears, while the wedding cake is consumed by mice from the inside)
Marcus