Kettles are terrifying things. There are so many unknowns surrounding them, such as what happens if you turn one on when it has no water in it.

It’s what you always think of trying, but are simply too scared to see through. Our assumption is the kettle would explode, shredding one’s face with lumps of shrapnel and bits of old tea. A ghastly scenario.

Kettles are, more typically, used to boil up to around a litre of water for whatever foul, depraved purpose one sees fit. At Professional Moron, this tends to be for swift consumption of tea-based beverages.

Occasionally, however, one will boil a kettle to scold the living daylights out of the kitchen sink, thusly having a mighty fine unit to wash one’s plates in.

The Kettle

The kettle was invented by Ernest Hemingway in 1951 after he, drunkenly, knocked an iron into a jug of water.

The subsequent reaction boiled the water in super fast time, and in his literary mind he realised The Old Man and the Sea could have been a much simpler, more psychotic tale: the old man boiling the ocean in order to acquire his big old fish. Or, you know, using a big fishing net. Duh!

Hemingway marketed early kettles under the name “Intergalactic Thunder Blaster”, which confused young boys whom presumed they were (and was) obtaining an implement for puerile escapist fun.

By 1955 Hemingway’s company was earning about $100 dollars a week thanks to this poor marketing, which led to British Telecom surging in with a $30 million buyout proposal to secure the evidently colossal market value of the product!

Believing the device to be a radical new type of phone, they subsequently realised their grievous error and sold the blueprints back to Hemingway, whom drunkenly sold them to KFC for a dollar, but the fast food giant soon realised they couldn’t wrap high-saturated fat chicken skin around a kettle. Bummer.

Inevitably, kettle rights ended up within the greedy hands of kettle making experts, whom continue to build the devices to this day.

We like them. Here’s our kettle tip: don’t forget the white stuff (known as “steam)” rising from the kettle spout is bloody boiling. You’ll save your extremities some agony there.

Relaxation Aid

Finally, it’s emerged the kettle is something of a relaxing aid for some folks. Whether it be the whistle of a teapot or a kettle boiling, it does have a nice chilling quality to it.

Perhaps stick the kettle on and enjoy some ultra-relaxing tea as well, huh?