For al your door knockers chittle chatter.

For anyone New York bound or based, there are a couple of really great hardware specialists on Lexington Avenue, kind of up in the 60's, on your left side as you walk up/right coming down. Well worth a detour. I have given them as gifts, bought for myself, and even have three or four in a drawer awaiting a door of their own. They have by far the best range of knockers I've ever seen. Some shapely knobs and mezuzahs too.

I did get a loverly brass butterfly one from America once, can't remember who made it, but they were reasonably famous in the knocker world.

I was going to post those Bob James 1 and 2 album covers, but now I'm not sure whether they're knockers or knot.

I think Bob James 2 is.

SiberianPrincess’sMidriff wrote:

I did get a loverly brass butterfly one from America once, can't remember who made it, but they were reasonably famous in the knocker world.

I've seen a couple of dragonfly ones I like.

My mother's front door is a bit shabby. I thought I might paint it and attach a knocker when she's next on holiday. I actually had some paint mixed/made thinking she'd like it, and she had a fit - you'd have thought I'd suggested she simply demolish the whole building - refusing, screaming, throwing things around. I had to leave.

With no trace of irony, she's often full of ideas/insults about my own decor, in between sneaking round and breaking things, stealing them, and even giving stuff she's shoved in her bag to charity shops and people she meets in pubs.

I think her door could do with smartening up.

What is it? A maple leaf shoved into a supervillains helmet?

It's a horseshoe crab. Nightjar's favourite crustacean.

Although - as this woman points out - despite its name, it's not really a crab.

I remember reading that crab-form has many advantages, and so multiple different creatures evolve towards that shape. Perhaps that's causing the taxonomic confusion.

I’m allergic to shellfish style food. I get a very itchy tickle on my neck, adjacent to the throat, if I eat anything containing it. I can’t even pass by the crustacean area in the food halls without feeling itchy.

I think they might be taking revenge because as a child I used to watch them in those restaurants that had them in tanks by the door, where people could choose which one they wanted to drop in the pot, and I never rescued them - sometimes I even knocked to get their attention. Then I’d completely forget (apart from the periodic screaming that would emanate from the kitchen), and run off to the table when my own meal - never one of them btw - arrived.

Anyway, my post there from 2022 - I did. And it’s recently been changed for a third time.

I painted it candy pink, but that winter we decided it didn’t look right in the watery light so then it became hot coral, and is now midway between baby blue and the blue of the slightly hazy morning sky in the Med.