The Case Of The Subterranean Bang
A tale of suburban woe and economy.

Having retired to bed at around 10 pm last night, I had been looking forward to finishing my book. “Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo. A cracking story. The only problem is, it’s a very large book, and rather uncomfortable to read in bed. My wife was still on the Skype phone to her friend in France, and had been since 8:30.

Pixie the cat was nowhere to be seen; probably out on one of her frequent evening rambles around the neighbourhood, which is normally punctuated by the sound of caterwauling, hissing and spitting, and the sight of flying fur as she says hello to one of the many district felines.

I had just reached the part where Cosette was getting cross with Jean Valjean, when a dull “thump” shook the house. It was followed by the sound of someone dropping a tea-tray containing one’s entire collection of bone china. Following this noise, utter and complete silence ensued. Finishing the paragraph, I thought I’d better investigate why my wife was throwing tea-trays around whilst on the phone to her friend, so donning my dressing gown and sheepskin slippers, I found my way downstairs, where I found her peering anxiously upstairs. “What did you break?” she asked.

“Ah-ha!” I expostulated.

Well, if it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t her, the cat was out, and we don’t have a dog, what the hell was that noise then? It sounded as though it had come from the cupboard under the stairs. The door creaked as I opened it slowly, fearing that somehow the recently-captured Tilehurst bomber had escaped and was finalising his fiendish experiments in the stair cupboard.

A scene of devastation met our eyes. The serried ranks of home-brew beer bottles stood glistening in the light of the 40 watt bulb which I had installed using a contact switch. This fiendishly clever device turns the light on whenever the door is opened. It is not an energy-saving bulb; and once the directive from the EEC comes into force Heaven alone knows what we’ll do when it burns out.

Although I am becoming quite a fan of LED bulbs, the technology is not yet in place to enable the cost of the bulb to compete with the 100-year-old design of a tungsten filament. And the current fluorescent bulbs are all very well, but they take ages to warm up.

Where was I? Oh yes. Serried ranks. Well, when I say “serried ranks” it was evident that one squad-member had deserted its post. Peering into the gap, it was soon apparent why the beer bottles were glistening. When I bottled the last batch of elderflower wine, we ran out of wine bottles, so I used some clear glass beer bottles for the remainder.

It was evident that fermentation had not –quite– finished, and the resultant pressure had caused this particular ex-beer-bottle to expire. Dramatically. Shards of glass were embedded in the under-stair timbers, and the floor was awash with elderflower liquor.

The conclusion was actually to be expected. At times one felt like shaking Jean Valjean and saying “get a life, man! Don’t be such a prat!”. Yet all in all, bearing in mind that it was written in the late 1800’s, a very good read. I can thoroughly recommend it.

Oh and the understair cupboard? All clean again. My wife donned her French suit of armour on top of the full “Noddy” suit (a British army invention in case of NBC warfare), and, armed with long-handled pincers left over from her gold-pouring days, removed all the bottles to the safety of the kitchen.

One of the most suspect individuals is, as I write, in the fridge door. In a plastic bag. In a teatowel. Oh, and the eggs compartment – which is normally directly above the bottle tray – has been placed at the back of the fridge.

The remaining suspect bottles are back under the stairs, this time standing in an empty cat litter tray, covered with a blanket.

Well I finally got around to doing something about the two broken stud extractors left behind following my open-brake surgery).

I didn’t mention it at the time, but they were Snap-On extractors, which are supposed to have a lifetime guarantee. Anyway, I visited the Snap-On website and contacted their Customer Services via email. I was advised to return the broken pieces to them and they would see if they could be replaced. So I put the two broken stud extractors into an envelope. I also (in hope) enclosed the broken left-hand-thread drill bit (although their website did point out that this was a consumable item) and posted them. This was on Monday this week.

Today (Wednesday) there was a knock on the door, and a UPS chap stood there with a parcel.

Not only did Snap-On replace the two broken extractors, but the drill bit as well. Now there’s customer service for you.

So, people, if you’re going to buy tools, it’s worth looking at Snap-On.

The BBC today covered an article on how an “air bag jacket” could save lives. A doctor at St Thomas’ Hospital in London wants these jackets to be made compulsory. The Department of Transport said it “had no plans for a new law but welcomed anything to improve safety.”
Link to story

Whilst I agree in principle that an air bag jacket seems to be a good idea, my immediate question is, how is it triggered? Obviously by some sort of cable that attaches you to the bike, which breaks when you fall off. Fine, but what happens if you just drop your bike (as opposed to falling off at motorway speeds)? I have twice embarrassingly fallen off whilst doing no more than 2mph, and a deploying air bag jacket in these situations would just be nonsensical.

WebBikeWorld have done a fairly interesting writeup on the jacket, but in my opinion more flexibility is needed; many riders have existing jackets which would need to be replaced. It would be better if these air bags could be worn under (or perhaps even over) existing clothing.

Then I read about the Airetronics air bag vest, again on WebBikeWorld. A much better idea; as I could wear something like this over my existing leather jacket, but under my high-viz coat. However, the author points out that the triggering mechanism requires only a small amount of force to inflate the vest. So if you forget to unplug it before getting off the bike: Pssssssssss.

Oh dear.

As WebBikeWorld says, “Perhaps the next step will be some type of range sensor that can trigger the inflation — armed when the bike starts but intelligent enough to realize that if the bike is traveling at less than, say, 5 mph, the device will not inflate when the rider leaves the area.”

So in theory, air bags for motorcyclists is a good idea. The practicality isn’t quite there yet.

Yesterday afternoon my (retired) neighbours went to a funeral. When they came home they found someone had broken in the rear door and ransacked the place, ripping a safe from the bedroom wall, breaking it open, and removing all their savings.

They reported it; the old bill came around yesterday evening and took some details but that’s as far as it’s going to go.

Obviously the thieves had not yet received their Christmas card.

Christmas card?

See the following from The Reading Post of 17/12/2008:

Glad to see our tax money is being wisely spent.

Well as I am at home during the day nowadays, I occasionally cook dinner. A couple of weeks ago I made a spaghetti bolognese, but my wife decided it was lacking a little something, and I had not cooked it long enough. “Next time I’ll leave some instructions,” she said.

So yesterday morning she decided I was cooking spaghetti bolognese for dinner. She left a recipe book open with a post-it note containing some additional instructions, before going to work. Strict instructions were also left that the bolognese sauce had to be simmered for TWO hours instead of my usual one-hour cooking.

So at around 5 pm I had a look at the recipe book. Fairly straightforward list of ingredients, including carrots and celery (neither of which I used last time). On the post-it note she had written “chop into small pieces”. Other ingredients required were a cup of stock, and a cup of wine. Glancing around the kitchen, I noticed a wine bottle on the counter which had not been there the day before. Obviously that must be the wine I am to use in the recipe.

So I cut the onions, carrots and celery, brown the mince, add the vegetables and stock, add some worcester sauce (recipe didn’t say so but I like it), tomato paste, paprika (again not in the recipe), and some salt and pepper. Now at this stage I normally add a tin of tomatoes as well, but double-checking the recipe for this revealed that there was no mention of it. Fair enough, no tomatoes. I take the cork out of the wine bottle and pour what is left of the contents into the saucepan. The recipe calls for the bolognese to be simmered uncovered for 1 1/2 hours. I turn the heat down and leave it.

Soon after 6 pm my wife gets home and goes into the kitchen. She comes out again and I know I’m in trouble.

“Why didn’t you grate the carrots?” she asked.
“Well, your note said to chop them into small pieces.”
“I meant for you to grate them.”

Ah.

“And another thing, there isn’t much liquid left in the saucepan. Did you put any wine in it?”

“Yes,” I reply. “That bottle you left on the counter.”

An icy silence followed.

“I didn’t leave any wine on the counter.”
“Yes you did, that bottle there.”(pointing)
“That was my mother’s home-made peach aperitif!”

Oops.

Oh well, the bolognese sauce was certainly tasty.

Well, it was 1990. Nelson Mandela was released from prison. East and West Germany were reunited. And I got a cat. I was living in Eshowe then and went to the local SPCA where I was shown a whole cageful of kittens. All mewing and climbing the wire mesh and generally being active. All except one. She was a tabby, sitting quietly in the centre of the cage with her tail curled around her front paws, just observing her brothers and sisters. Not a difficult choice really. She had such a pretty face!

I’d only had Jenny a couple of weeks when she developed an eye infection. The vet gave me some powder (Powder!!!) to put in her eye. The infection cleared up but I remember thinking “why can’t they provide this in ointment form?” Imagine putting powder in your eye!

She became a very vocal cat. Maybe there was some Siamese in her ancestry. But she would talk. Non-stop at times. Not that she always wanted something, she just liked talking. One of her favourite positions was to lie around my neck and lick my hair. She was always a happy cat, and whenever being stroked she used to drool.

She must have been about two months old when I got her, born in early January 1990. It would have been nice if she was a record-breaking cat when it comes to age. But eighteen and a half isn’t bad. That’s around 85 in human years. She’s a grand old lady. She went through 6 months quarantine when I brought her to the UK in 1994.

Here’s a photo of her:

But she’s lost her appetite, her paws aren’t working properly any more, she can’t walk very far, and she’s been having little “accidents”. She spends most of her time curled up on a cushion in the downstairs bathroom, near her litter tray. She can’t even use that properly any more.

So tomorrow it’s the last ride to the vet…

It’s not an easy thing.

It is time.

No, not a new flavour of ice-cream.

So there I was, a couple of days ago, removing the rust from a rear hub of my Land Rover rebuild with a wire brush on an angle grinder. Not a problem; I was wearing a dust mask, goggles, and hearing protection. I switched the grinder off, removed the various protective equipment, and bent down to look at the results. I blew the rust dust away from the hub, and that’s when it happened.

I didn’t notice it at first. Later that day my right eye started feeling a bit irritated as though a speck of dust was under the eyelid.

I tried eyedrops; no result. Stood with my head under the shower; no result. A close inspection in the mirror revealed that a small flake of rust had embedded itself in my cornea.

So the following morning off to the Ophthalmology department of the local hospital where I was seen pretty much straight away. After a couple of anaesthetic drops into the right eye, the surgeon approached the eyeball with – a needle.

Well, fortunately he had very steady hands. Under a second later the flake was removed.

I’m pleased to report there is no damage apart from a small rust-coloured spot on the cornea. Maybe it will fade over time. Still, lesson learned.

Today turned out to be really nice, weather wise. So it was the first time I’ve used the ST1100 since I stopped commuting. For the past couple of days I’ve been doing some electrical work on it. Details are on the main pages (see menu on the left) but to summarise, I moved the radio remote control to the handlebars, and rewired the Garmin GPS cabling.

So you understand I just HAD to take the bike out for a ride (purely for testing purposes of course!)

Well, I’m now working from home. I’m not going to go into too many details but for this week, so far so good. This also means that I have some more time to get on with other things, like helping the Mrs with the house redecorating. We only have two areas left to do, the rear hallway and downstairs bathroom. It works out quite well, she removes the old wallpaper and washes the wall, I come along with the Polyfilla and fill all the holes and cracks, sand it down when dry, then she washes the wall again and paints it.

I don’t understand how British home-owners decorate. Every house I’ve lived in has wallpaper on top of wallpaper on top of wallpaper on top of wallpaper. Doesn’t anyone in this country remove the old paper first? No wonder rooms are getting smaller!

Speaking of wallpaper, there’s a legend that there’s a house in London which was redecorated soon after 1840 with some new wallpaper. 1840 saw the issue of the Penny Black stamps, and the legend goes that a fairly wealthy homeowner liked the look of these so much that he decorated an entire room by using sheets of these as wallpaper. Now as mentioned above, NOBODY removes the old wallpaper first, so the likelihood is that this (now very expensive) wallpaper lies buried under several other layers. Now wouldn’t that be a find!

Of the rat race that is currently work.

I’ve finally become fed up with Office Politics, people being put in responsible positions who should not be in charge of anything…

The last straw was my promotion to Manager in October. Fair enough, after all I’d been doing the job for ages and here (I thought) was recognition. So I asked for more money. Again, I thought, fair enough.

Oh no. No, no, no. I had a meeting with the IT manager on Friday, after pestering him for ages. I’m afraid not, he said. I should point out that the company for which I am currently working has recently brought in KPMG to “restructure” the business. Restructure = get rid of people. I personally think the business is being groomed for a takeover.

The problem from my point of view is that the IT Director is now a chap from KPMG. What? Staff wanting more money? No, we have to cut costs, not pay people what they’re worth.

So I’ll be handing in my notice on Monday. I’m going to try doing my own thing for a while.

Hey ho, it’s time for a change; I’ve been working there 7 years now. Not too bad for a 1-month contract.