Watching paint dry
Watching paint dry, closely related to "watching the grass grow", is an English-language idiom that means something is incredibly boring or tedious. It is believed to have originated in the United States. Media. In 1959, Geoffrey Warren of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote that a theatrical presentation of "The Shrike" was "as exciting as watching paint dry". In 1969, sports announcer Red Barber warned that, due to the dominance of pitchers over batters, baseball at that time was "as exciting as watching paint dry." The expression was well known by the late 20th century and has  led to real-life activities. In 2012, the World Watching Paint Dry championships were held by online trade merchants localtraders.com to promote various brands of paint. Entries were received from all over the world. In 2016, director Charlie Lyne released a 10-hour-and-7-minute-long film of paint drying titled "Paint Drying" to antagonise the British Board of Film Classification as a protest against their censorship and steep fees. The board was forced to watch all of it in order to award it a U certificate. Mike Gapes, MP for Ilford South, complained in 2017 that the parliamentary debate  for the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill was sometimes "like watching paint dry". In 2018, the artist Arvid Boecker exhibited his work "Watching Paint Dry" at the Kunstverein Brackenheim, Brackenheim, Germany. The television station HGTV was criticised in 2020 for featuring coverage of people watching paint dry as interludes between segments on renovation shows such as "Home Town" and "Fixer Upper". Science. Observing the process of paint drying has been found to be important in the development of modern environmentally friendly wall covering material, replacing earlier solvent-derived paints and coatings. The drying process is observed in order to better understand  how aqueous material dries on a wall and forms a protective layer. This is particularly important for the marine and shipbuilding industry, to demonstrate the feasibility of new materials on ships. Charles Tomlinson delivered a lecture on the "Drying Properties of Various Kinds of House Paint" to the Royal Society of Arts in 1869, concluding that paint dries due to the absorption of oxygen and thus solidifies as a result. In 2008, a lecture titled "Why Watching Paint Dry Is Interesting" published by the Royal Society of Chemistry presented the chemistry and technology used in various marine paints. In 2016 , scientists at the University of Surrey and the Université Claude Bernard set up a computer simulation of paint drying, showing that it forms into two layers spontaneously as small particles in the paint combine and push away larger ones. This could lead to improved performance of future coatings.