Bloody Brilliant – episode 1

There are those things in life that you make, buy or do and you realise it’s amazing and indispensable; and should it ever cease to exist (say, break) you will absolutely purchase, make or do it again. Or perhaps it’s a piece of advice that has impacted your life profoundly…  I’m going to write a series on things that have had this impact on me in the hopes that you can benefit from them as well. More importantly (to me) I’d love to hear what some of your favourites are.

1.  My MacGyver lanyard (w/ carabineer)

lanyard-1

Years ago, (I honestly couldn’t tell you… maybe 15?) I somehow acquired a lanyard. This isn’t your pansy modern-day ‘made-of ribbon-and-has-a-safe-break-away-bit’ style lanyard. This bad boy is like rope made from adamantium dipped in awesomesauce. A few years later I coupled this with a carabineer and I suddenly became unstoppable.

I use my lanyard+carabineer as my primary key chain which means I always have it on me. I’ve put my keys on different purpose key rings (one for car keys, one for house keys, etc.) and thanks to the carabineer it’s easy to pull one off if I need to give it to someone (the house sitter, the mechanic, etc.) Also, because of the lanyard I can sling it around my neck if I need to or I can use the carabineer to clip it to my belt loop, purse strap, whatever!  Thanks to this handiness I have used it as:

  • a tie-down for the car trunk/boot lid
  • a leash for Zuzu
  • a bike lock
  • a purse strap
  • a handle on the pushchair for Luther to hold on to
  • a weapon

Should you also decide to add this all-purpose tool to your gear, I recommend tying a small knot in the end of the lanyard so that you can easily loop it again through the lanyard to shorten the strap. (So that it doesn’t dangle down your leg while you’re driving or when it’s hooked to a belt loop.)

lanyard-2

If you don’t make/buy/do anything else on this list this is my #1 suggestion.

 


 

To illustrate how useful it is, after I used my lightbox (and Andrew as my lighting boy) to take the photos for this post, I took some photos for an item I was posting on eBay.  As Andrew couldn’t stick around we mocked up a stand to hold the light.   See what’s keeping it all together?!?

lanyard-in-use


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