tea kettles

I have this old stovetop tea kettle which allegedly won some kind of industrial design award, but I don't understand why, because it has serious design issues. There's no lid (you fill it through the spout) so it can't be cleaned. The handle is a graceful curve that forces an awkward hand position when pouring boiling water (people unfamiliar with it have scalded themselves on several occasions). It's entirely made of metal, so the handle is almost always too hot to hold when the water boils, and the little hook to open the spout gets hot enough to burn your finger. And, last but not least, it has the world's loudest and most annoying whistle. The only upside is, it's built like a brick oven, which is good, since it gets used about once an hour every day.

I'm wondering if people have recommendations for a replacement. An electric kettle is not an option, as there is no convenient outlet. Ideally I'd like something that was easy to clean, had a whistle that wasn't loud enough to wake up my housemates (who invariably sleep later than me), and had no metallic handles or hooks or levers. Oh, and it should boil water fast and hold up under heavy usage.

further to previous

I got me a new bike, er, two weeks ago now. It's a "hybrid" model, a Marin Larkspur. This is a local company and they design these bikes specifically for San Francisco's streets. It weighs half what the old bike did and it may well be twice as fast.

I did manage to debug my own code eventually; however, it turned out slower than the thing it was supposed to be faster than. Drat.

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