Sharp as a razor

At last I have found a knife sharpener that really does the business. A drawer full of expensive but blunt knives is a frustrating thing. Bloody useless actually. I'd tried lots of different types, the chef's steel, the run your knife in and out of a stone wheel thingy and the little plastic overlapping prongy thingy. Not only did they never give me a satisfactory finish, but some of the techniques were literally a second away from stitches. Thing is - walk into any cook's store and you soon realise that these things ain't cheap and if they are, chances are, they won't work. So the other week I sat down and did a wee bit of plundering about on the internet and found myself looking at sharpeners on Ebay. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that some of the products were comparing themselves to Accusharp. So... ten quid including postage later I waited for it to arrive, which it did in a couple of days. Like most good things, it's incredibly simple. A plastic handle holds two metal bits at an angle to each other and there is a nylon-ish knuckle guard. It really couldn't have been easier - just hold the knife with the blade pointing upwards and run the sharpener down it's length at right angles to the blade. You can satisfyingly feel it stripping metal from the knife blade as it shapes it to the ideal sharp angle and little bits of metal come off with each stroke. It stated on the instructions that a blunt knife only needed ten or twelve strokes, and I have to admit, that was about right. Oh joy of joys - my favourite knife was now a surgical instrument - and everything I could find got sharpened, pocket knives and all. Having lived with it now for a couple of weeks I can honestly say I'm delighted - three strokes and the blade is like a scalpel. Boned out a duck last week and it was a clean as a whistle. We're talking 1mm slices of tomato sharp. Apparently the wee metal thingies are double sided so when the little darling starts to struggle, you can unscrew them and swop them over and it's like new.
I've really got to say it's the best tenner I've spent for a good while. They claim in their blurb 'Accusharp - the last knife sharpener you'll ever need'. I've got to agree.
Go on - you know you want to...