funny dogs...wet and cold...early morning...

ugh. Was in work at 7am this morning for a product launch. Went smoothly, which is a good thing, as early starts don't usually equate to a productive day.

 

Went to see The Hound Of The Baskervilles in Leeds at the weekend. It was bloody hilarious. The actors seemed to be enjoying themselves so much, and even had to stop themselves from laughing at each other at some points. It's had average reviews, and the gent who I was sat next to said that, during the opening week, it had been a little stayed. He also said that now that they'd got into it, they were ad-libbing a lot, and it was a lot funnier than before. I particularly liked that, at the start of the second half, they did the whole of the first half again, but in about three minutes. It was made more funny, as all three members of the cast had to do all the costume changes two, and half the time they were running on half dressed as the character. A few times, a member of the cast would come on stage out of character, and the others would continue acting, which added to the hilarity. The comedy was very silly, in a Monty python, plain-ridiculous type of way.

If you want to go and see it, it's at the west Yorkshire playhouse, at the moment, and then it's on tour (details here). I heartily recommend it.

 

Sunday I went out for a walk with Amy and her friend Lauren. We went along the other side of the Colne Valley, and got very wet. In fact, it was so nasty that we decided to take the shortcut down into Marsden, to the tea shop, and then walked along the canal home. It might be better to do that walk when you can see more than half a mile...

 

Also had vegetarian haggis for tea, which was quite nice. It was a bit peppery, but not too much, and really flavoursome. The only annoying thing was cooking it. We had roast veg with it, which meant we had to have the oven on too hot for it, so we poached in on the hob, for 45 minutes. Unfortunately, none of the rings on our hob goes low enough to keep a pan of water just below boiling, so we kept on having to move it about. There's some left over which I'm going to fry as patties.

Foundation Schools

This is a little late, but it struck me this morning...

In one of its possible translations, the name Al-Qaeda means roughly base, or foundation.

At the moment, Tony Blair is backing Foundation Schools.

Foundation = Al-Qaeda.

Therefore, if my reasoning is not wrong, Foundation Schools are Al-Qaeda Schools, and therefore, Tony Blair is backing Al-Qaeda Schools - a bit like the Yanks did before the World Trade Centre was destroyed.

As you were.

Woohoo! Working tap!

Woohoo! Working tap!, originally uploaded by b3ardman.

Woohoo! Working tap!

Taps...fans...work

Well, back at work after a New Year's break, and it's been hard work so far. Everyone else is up to speed, rested after Christmas, so I'm feeling a bit like they're all just zooming around me...I'll soon catch up. Just you wait and see.

Looks like I might be able to get a replacement bit for the extractor fan in the bathroom. Got an email from the manufacturer which seems to say they'll send it out for free, which is nice.

The kitchen tap is turning into a saga. In fact, it's a three journeys to B&Q (as much as I hate them, they're the only place I can get to after work) saga, with more trips in sight. This just to fix a dripping tap.

I've tried replacing the washer, but the whole valve on one of the taps is fucked. I thought I had fixed it b padding it with a load of 'o'-rings, but no. It just stops turning off after a while, which is when I have to get turn the water off and take it all apart again.

So, I got a new valve for it (I thought I'd get a ceremic disc valve rather than a compression valve, as they apparently have a longer life and are less troublesome), but the spindle is too small for the existing taps head. You could be turning that baby forever without anything happening.

At the moment, the tap head is padded with some chopped up bits of elastic band, which at least lets us use the tap, but isn't really a long term solution. So, I'll have to get some more new valves, this time with the right size spindle. Which means another trip to B&Q. Oh joy.

Back at work...glad to be alive...wondering what other electrical surprises the house has for me.

Yesterday I learned the importance of turning off the electricity before playing with wires.

The extractor fan in our bathroom has not been working for a long time, I thought I'd take it apart to see if it could be fixed easily.

It's attached to the lighting circuit, but has its own fuse, so I thought removing the fuse would mean I could safely crack the fan open and work with impunity.

BANG!

The lights went out, and once again I'm glad that the trip switches are working as they should.

Turns out, the fuse bit for the fan had the neutral connected through the earth terminal, and the earth connected through the neutral terminal. So, removing the fuse meant I completed the circuit.

At least it explained why the thing had stopped working - the big resistor in it was complete black - presumably because the fuse hadn't blown.

So, in future, any work involving the electrics in the house, or even going near any wires, will be pre-empted by me turning off the electric at the mains.