May 4th, 2018: Manhole Porn

[Carruthers]

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour party, is an operculist.
No, that's not a term likely to result in my being served a writ for defamation, he's a drain spotter. Yes, really.

For years, the nation’s devoted admirers of drains and manhole covers lacked a really high-profile representative.
Not any more: Jeremy Corbyn’s bold admission that he likes to photograph drain covers, despite the fact that “people think it’s little odd”, has put drains and the people who love them in the spotlight.
Mr Corbyn’s admiration for drain covers is widely shared, it seems.
There are clubs dedicated to the hobby and several Facebook groups that discuss the finer points of cast-iron street furniture.
Drain-spotting is a broad church. Mr Corbyn might prefer manhole covers, but others favour drain gratings and some have a thing for the iron coverings of coal-holes.

There's more...

Drain-spotting is not a new hobby. An article published in a newspaper in the United States in 1962 declares that Britain “is full of operculists”, a term derived from operculum, meaning fish gill cover.
The article also noted that the poet and art dealer Victor Musgrave actually collected coal-hole covers “like some people collect Picassos”.
“My object,” said Musgrave as he showed off 40 of his choicest specimens at a gallery in Mayfair in 1962, “is to force people to look at coal-hole covers and to admire them.
After all, our streets are full of them, and children use them for hopping and jumping games.
“Yet the average person never even notices them. Not until he steps into a coal-hole that is supposed to be covered and breaks his leg.”

For the complete article: The Guardian

It's often said, principally by outside observers, that the Brits are a hobby obsessed bunch.
If two or more people have an interest in some pastime or other, there's likely to be a magazine, club or internet group catering for it.
Hundreds of shelf feet of magazines devoted to hobbies of every stripe and hue can be found in any branch of W H Smith or McColl's.

I was a deltiologist for some years. Keep that to yourself, won't you?