BritFilter

June 18, 2005 5:57 PM

I was reading the Guardian while I was in the north of England these past few weeks and there were a lot of references in the letters to 35mm film canisters.

What were they alluding to? I had the impression it was some kind of a joke, but I came in too late to be in on it.

posted by brujita to society & culture (4 comments total)

It is a running joke on the letters page - you'll notice a bunch of letters related to the 35mm canisters over the last several months.

Here's the explanation:

Ever since Maggie Wisdom observed that unwanted 35mm film canisters could hold 17 £2 coins, the Guardian has published 69 letters suggesting uses for them. In tribute to (and in hope of finally killing off) this paper's longest-running thread of correspondence, we reprint a selection of the best.

"Maggie Wisdom" was a letter writer who started the trend. You can probably search their website to find her original letter.
posted by jamesonandwater at 6:20 PM on June 18, 2005

One of these, which holds one of these when you send it to get processed.

As a child, I found them invaluable for storing particularly pleasing mixtures of different coloured glitter and sparkly stars, for use in making pictures of galaxies and the like.
posted by flashboy at 8:18 AM on June 19, 2005

Thanks for the link jamesonandwater! I especially liked the one about the brother's ashes.

And flashboy, I know what film canisters are, but I wanted to know the reason why they were being kidded.
posted by brujita at 9:52 AM on June 19, 2005

These are the standard container for a
personal amount of non-tobacco smoking material. With the advent of digital photography, there aren't so many in circulation. I prefer the old-fashioned aluminum variant, which was replaced by the plastic in the early 1960s. Some of those are available on eBay right now: a lot of two dozen and nice selection of the colored Kodaks.
posted by Rash at 11:21 AM on June 19, 2005