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https://www.positive.news/society/born-to-be-mild-celebrating-banality-with-the-dull-mens-club/>
"It’s 2018 and Dave Clark is wandering through Norfolk’s Thrigby Hall Wildlife
Gardens. There are leopards, otters and whooping gibbons, but it’s a litter bin
that catches Clark’s eye. Not just any old litter bin. This one is dressed up
like a Fab ice lolly. Shocking pink. Chocolate brown. Multi-coloured sprinkles.
“I literally said out loud: ‘That is a decent bin!’” Clark recalls. “I got my
camera and took a picture, and from that day onwards I photographed pretty much
any bin that stood out. It’s amazing how many bins are out there – once you get
started it can become a bit of an addiction.”
Clark, AKA ‘Dustbin Dave’, has since amassed a library of thousands of bin
pics. Thanks to his unusual obsession – or what Clark calls his ‘binterest’ –
he’s reaped newspaper headlines, talked rubbish on daytime telly and fronted
anti-littering campaigns.
Yet for all the media fanfare, nothing quite matches the honour that came his
way a couple of years ago via one of the internet’s more peculiar corners: The
Dull Men’s Club (DMC). Dave isn’t just a self-confessed anorak. As the DMC’s
Anorak of the Year 2022, he’s an officially recognised one.
“I was blown away,” Clark says. “Really surprised, really pleased and really
honoured that my hobby was recognised. I do love it, and it does make people
smile: I think that’s the main thing.”
‘Celebrating the ordinary’ has been the DMC’s motto since the club was founded
almost 40 years ago. These days most of the action – if you can call it that –
takes place on the club’s Facebook group, which now counts more than 1.7
million ‘dullsters’ worldwide.
‘Celebrating the ordinary’ has been the DMC’s motto since the club was founded
almost 40 years ago
More than just a haven for eccentric hobbyists like Clark, it’s the place to
ponder on the odd and the overlooked, those blink-and-you-miss-it curiosities
that pop into the brain and vanish before they’ve had a chance to take flight.
In the DMC, it’s hip to be square. Beige is the new black.
A scroll through some of the thousands of posts added daily by its members
gives a flavour of what’s on offer. There are musings on the moisture
absorbency of one slab of concrete compared to its neighbouring slabs, photos
detailing the insides of a garden sprinkler gearbox, a collection of
lost-and-found hairbands, a cloud in the shape of a lion.
Pictures often include a comedy banana ‘for scale’. Car dashboards and
serendipitous odometer readings get a lot of love, as do whimsical appreciation
societies: groups championing telegraph poles, roundabouts, corduroy fabric and
pork pies.
“A dullster is someone who enjoys mowing their lawn or washing their car or
painting a fence,” says DMC co-founder and assistant vice-president Leland
Carson. “They’re not skydiving or golfing, or paying a fortune to join a
country club and wearing all kinds of silly pants and shirts. They’re finding
joy in little things, in those small moments.”"
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
