Beware the humble paperclip

Press, 2 December 1978, Page 14

Beware the humble paperclip

By

RICK RAMSAY,

Information Officer. Twizel

Somebody should have done something about it ages ago. I know the election has ended and there were plenty of other issues for the public to take up with aspiring candidates, but did anyone ask what the new Government intended to do about paperclips? Many people must think, like I did, that the little piece of shiny wire curled up on itself is a harmless, inanimate object. It’s not. And I want to bring the attention of the nation to the dangers of the paperclip. You and I know that the Watergate break-in was effected with a paperclip in the office door. Has anyone disproved the theory that a paperclip was responsible for persons unknown being able to get their hands on the copies of the “hairy arm” script? My first contact with this little office item came with my joining a Government department. This may well highlight the fact that paperclips are already well established in the places of power. (However, I have heard that they are available in the private sector, and

that unions, too, make a Jot of use of them, particularly in following the paperclip design when in negotiations. In my time as a journalist, pins were used to keep copypaper in the right order so that subeditors could remove them and change the sentences around. I have it on good authority that this use of pins was the reason behind the “nit-pickers” name-tag being attached

to some of the profession. But the character of the pin was quite unassuming. Like overseas funds, it disappeared at a frightening rate, and Wooiies had to import more packets to replace those lost. Only on the odd occasion would a pin turn up, and then only in some unexpected place like the seat of a chair. Paper clips are a different breed. Not unlike coathangers, they reproduce at an alarming rate. Coat hangers reproduce in dark cupboards and tend to die naturally when taken

somewhere in a suitcase. The similarity ends here. Paper clips reproduce in broad daylight. I have never actually caught them doing it, but I have ample evidence that it does take place. They also have a knack of spreading into other territory. Take my small, two-compartment, desk-top container. There was a space for pins and a space for clips. Being a former journalist, I had a natural

affection for the pins, and used them most of the time when sending messages into the system. Somewhere along the line (got as far as tracking it to the typists’ room by sneaking along behind the records clerk with a large magnet) the pin gets waylaid and replaced with a paper clip. To my knowledge, noone has ordered an investigation into the untimely death of the pin, but for a small consideration I might make the evidence available to the Prime Minister. I would

need to write a book first, of course. Anyway, with the passing of time I noticed that the paperclips were sneaking into the pins side of things. The wiley adventurers would burrow to the bottom in an attempt to reproduce out of sight. But that did not fool me. After numerous pin pricks suffered when the clips put up a fight and would not come out, I managed to get them back

in their proper container. Sad to say, within a short time the little beggars were at it again: eventually they got the better of me and the whole container belonged to the paperclips. I did find a drawing pin which nad obviously been resisting the takeover, but it was in poor shape. The tip was blunt and the whole thing was rusty, so I confined it to the rubbish bin. Any reasonable thinking person would assume that this one takeover would be the end of it, but that

was not the case. I found one next in a filing cabinet. What it was doing there. I do not know’. I thought nothing of it, but the next time 1 looked there were two. I took them both out and, to teach them a lesson, untwisted them and tied them together in a knot — as nervous people are wont to do. They ended up in the rubbish bin, too, but imagine the shock when I went to empty it and found two perfectly formed paperclips in the bottom of the bin. Worse there was no sign of the mangled pair.

There is a moral somewhere in this tale, but I haven’t found it yet, there is definitely something strange going on. Science fiction is not one of my strong subjects; or it wasn’t. But yesterday, the paperclips ganged up on me. I wanted only one to hold some papers together which were going to the furnace. I went to pick one up, but before I knew what was happening it had joined hands with its neighbour, and soon the whole lot were tied in a knot resembling coarse steel wool. Unravelling it

was beyond my capabilities. so I found an aged pin and used it instead. When office equipment rebels against its. rightful lord and master, something has to be done. Destroy all paper clips while you have the chance. 1 think my time in writing this expose is almost up. I went as far as shifting ray typewriter into the lavatory, and I am now standing on the seat with the typewriter on the cover of the water tank. You would think this would deter any self-re-specting paperclip, but I have just found one lurking under the spacer bar . . . anditsjamming tbedarnthing. . . Oh, no, thereisalong chainofthem comingupfom undertheroller