Tuesday 22 March 2016

A charmed life


We now have a new phone. H.I. - in the throes of a bad head-cold - looked at it in a stupor last night, and said, "Didn't they have one in silver?" Our new one is black, and without spending £sterling-stupid on one by Bang and bloody Olufsen, you can have any colour you like, so long as it is black, like the Model T Ford.

Well I could have bought a dirty grey one with huge, childish numbers on it made by B.T. but I didn't. Alright? When digital radios first appeared, H.I. rushed out and bought a retro one by a retro company, just because of its looks. The sound quality is dreadful - as if you are going slowly deaf - so I rushed out and spent another £80 on one which actually works properly.

I do care about the way things look, but I would rather suffer a little ugliness for something which actually works well. Our new phone is a Panasonic and as boring as hell, but - so far - it seems to work.

We still have no hot water, and - as predicted - are going to have to fit a new element. This means getting a plumber in before Good Friday, hopefully without having to pay him/her £300 per hour. Last time I thought I had drained the tank myself, I flooded the downstairs shop - that's two floors downstairs. I still may have to do it myself though, as Thomas the German dentist arrives on Monday.

A few days ago, the remote central locking fob broke loose from my keyring and just lay at the bottom of my pocket independently. I knew I had a spare - with a spare key - so the night before last I took the batteries out of the detached fob and put them into the replacement one.

I walked to my car the next morning, pointed the fob at the car and pressed the button. Nothing happened so I just opened the door with the key. That's when the alarm went off in the car, accompanied by flashing hazard lights and ignition disabling. This has never, ever happened before, despite the car being vandalised at least once.

The only way to turn it all off and drive the car was to take the tiny batteries out of the useless fob and put them in the tiny compartment in the back of the original fob (which I had, thankfully, brought with me) - a procedure which takes about ten minutes and is carried out with lights flashing, horns blaring and neighbours looking out of their windows in anger and hatred.

There are two things which I have always vowed never to do myself in the building trade - plumbing and electrics. My next domestic task involves both simultaneously, and we all know that water and electricity don't mix very well.

Negative energy in this house? No, there is so much positive energy that I may well electrocute myself when fitting the new heating element.

28 comments:

  1. I remember when you did this before and we were all worried that it was the last we would hear from you ..... take care, we don't want to lose you.
    We have a BT landline and it's rubbish. We've only had it a couple of years and it's on it's way out. We have had two Panasonic T.V's and they have been brilliant, so I have high hopes for your phone. XXXX

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    1. All landlines are BT, but maybe you are talking about the handset? I will - as always - try not to kill myself (quickly, at any rate).

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    2. I meant the handset .... awful !! XXXX

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  2. Dont forget it is the Full Moon tomorrow and it is an eclipse. In fact everything will be all right tomorrow.

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    1. That's good news. I look forward to tomorrow.

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    1. Difficult. It's lying right under a medieval city wall.

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  4. Our new-ish phone seemed like a failure from the start, then I realised that it all needed 'setting-up'. Sound levels, ring tones, recording times, you name it, it had to be set. Oh those heady days when the GPO brought your phone, plugged it in, and that was that.

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    1. Indeed. I've only just set it up with time and date. Can't face the rest of it today. It rings, we answer. That'll do for the time being.

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    2. Aaah, those were the days - life was so simple back then ! A phone was a phone, you dialled a number, and someone the other end answered, and when it rang your end, you answered - simple !

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    3. Ah, CB radio - you shouted in one end, then a sex-mad trucker shouted back at you! Bliss.

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  5. I remember BT or was the GPO? You had to wait ages to be on the top of a list to get connected and the receiver was BLACK with a silver dial. Ours was in the hall but Dad was an electician and we had two more phones in the house. We all had strict instructions not to let the GPO in to look at the equipment - that was also rented- until Dad had removed the extra sets.

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  6. Oh, it's just awful to be in Bath without a bath. If your blog goes dead we will know that you stood in a puddle while playing with cables. Stay alive, I am interested in the visit of Thomas the German dentist.

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  7. I thought the two things we had to avoid were religion and politics - seems there are two more - electrics and plumbing (unless you are in either trade of course)

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    1. Tonight in the pub, someone wanted to kill me. I bet that doesn't happen to you these days, eh Weave? I live in the wild west.

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  8. Hey Tom: What is your new ringtone? (I remember a discussion about Brit v American ringtones awhile back)

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    1. ughh, ignore me - I'm sick today and not reading well - I thought you wrote that you got a new cell phone.

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    2. I can choose ringtones on this ordinary phone too, but I haven't sampled them yet - too much else going on.

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  9. A landline? The only person I know who has one is my father, who is 90. I last had one in 2006.

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    1. How do you get your broadband? From a cell phone, or does it just appear through the ether?

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  10. In many English comedy-novels you can be sure there is a plumber...('Dulcie Donum's Bad Housekeeping' springs instantly to my mind).
    Be on guard while working!

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    1. I have been threatened by an English giant tonight, He wants to kill me because he is mad. There are more unnatural dangers out there, as if we didn't have enough. I think he will send me to hospital, and I - in turn - will send him back to prison.

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  11. I am glad to still have a landline. And was very glad to have one after that 9/11 incident in my home town.

    I'm still trying to figure out if I could afford to also have a smart phone. Not sure that access to Instagram is worth it.

    Tom, on a serious note, I do hope that everything in your orbit does start working well soon. When I left work tonight and walked to the subway, that full moon was spectacular.

    Best wishes.

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  12. Your encounter in the pub strikes me as a worrying one...will you be seeing the English giant again? hope not.

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    1. Oh yes, I will be seeing him again unless I change pubs, and I'm not going to do that. The people who work there who witnessed last night's episode were shocked, and said they would get him barred, because he kicks-off on a regular basis. I said that if they barred him, he would wait for me in the dark and there would be no witnesses. If he is going to beat me up, I want it to be in public. It would take about 5 strong men to hold him down - that is not an exaggeration. He has already been in prison for beating up someone who he thought was insulting a previous girlfriend, and he has it in his head that I am lusting after his current one, who I have been friends with for about 5 years - without any suggestion of lechery. I am 65, she is 25 and he is 45.

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    2. P.S. He is genuinely mentally deranged as well as huge. That is a very bad combination.

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