Thursday, September 14, 2006

Spinning top

Well, we all had a spinning top, didn’t we? It made that humming noise when you got it going fast enough. I found that a bit magical when I was three, which I suppose was the intention.
I haven't seen this particular spinning top since I was about five years old - nor have I thought about it much since - yet I can remember as if it were two minutes ago, the feel of the plastic handle, the strange helical shape of the rod beneath it that diappeared into the machine to set it spinning when you pumped the handle up and down, the distinctive rattly noise it made when you did that, the oddly ripple-shaped cross-section of the body, the holes around the rim that were there to make it hum, the humming noise itself and the dusty, rusty metallic smell it gave off. I don't recall the design on the top at all, but I do remember the multicoloured blur what it was spinning. What an odd thing memory is.

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