“The way we were taught history at school is about great heroes and great villains – but what gets left out is the idiots,” says Mikey Robins. History is a passion for the comedian, broadcaster and writer, who has published two previous books on the topic. And in his latest book, Idiots, Follies and Misadventures, Robins is interrogating our past from a slightly different angle.
“It’s a look back at some of the moments in human history where stupidity has had a hand in changing things,” he says. That includes, for instance, the story of Abraham Lincoln’s bodyguard the night the former US president was assassinated – the president’s minder left his post at Ford’s Theatre to get a drink next door because he found the play boring.
Fittingly, given his fascination with history, Robins treasures artefacts from eras past, and counts a century-old jar opener as his most useful object. Here he sings the praises of that curious device and shares the stories behind two other important belongings.
What I’d save from my house in a fire
A pair of cufflinks my wife, Laura, had made for me many years ago. We had our honeymoon in Tokyo … then probably a year later we were at an antiques fare and Laura bought a sack of old Japanese coins from the Edo period. She had them secretly made into cufflinks, which I thought was incredibly thoughtful and a lovely reminder of our honeymoon. So if I had to pick up something in a fire that would take me back to a place and also feel symbolic of my marriage, that would be it.
My most useful object
It’s hard to describe but it’s a cast-iron jar opener. It was Laura’s father’s mother’s – that’s as far back as she can trace it.
We’d been living together for years when I saw it and said, “What the hell is this thing?” It’s just two bits of cast iron: you put them on the top of a jar, it’s got a whole bunch of little teeth and it takes the lid off. I’ve never seen a modern version of it and I’m yet to see anything advertised on cable TV that’s as good as this thing.
It’s got to be 100 years old and looks like it could have been unearthed in an archaeological dig but it still works. In fact, I’ve never come across a jar it can’t conquer.
The item I most regret losing
It was stolen, not lost. But it was my father’s watch. I’m pretty certain my aunts and uncles bought it for his 40th birthday. It was a gold-plated Seiko with a metal band. My father passed away when I was very young and, when I was 21, my mother gave the watch to me. But it was the 80s and I’d have much rather been wearing a Swatch or a Casio, so I carried it around instead of wearing it.
Then in about 86 or 87, I was living in a terrace house in Glebe with some mates. One day I heard a noise from downstairs, so my housemate and I went to investigate and there was a guy halfway out the toilet window, climbing out. So we ran back in and – I can’t believe I’m saying this – armed ourselves. I grabbed a squash racket. We chased this guy into the car park that was behind the terrace house but he legged it out of there. Thank God he got away. A fat cabaret performer with a squash racket – it’s not a terrifying proposal for a cat burglar.
Idiots, Follies and Misadventures by Mikey Robins is out now through Simon & Schuster (RRP $34.99)
