Sunday, December 21, 2008
Caveat columba
Heard massive squawking in the back garden yesterday. Went to look out and a dozen or so crows and magpies sitting in the trees around making a great old racket. Couldn't think what it might be - then saw Franklin trundling down the garden path with a wood pigeon in his mouth, looking rather pleased with himself. Went off home with it and not seen again. Some time later, modest squawking from house. We deduce that one of the young ladies of the house has found Franklin's present for her on the door step, on her return.
I found it odd how the other birds made such a fuss about the pigeon getting killed. I would have thought that they would not care what happened to pigeons. But clearly they do. Avian solidarity kicks in in the face of the cuddly predator.
That apart, been a weekend of two glitches. First, when trying to pump up the front tyre of the bicycle for once in a while, it suddenly deflated. Tried again. Deflated again. So we are into taking tyre off mode - at least it was the front tyre rather than the back. Get the tyre off, this being the posh tyre from Continental which is guaranteed against punctures for the first year of its life. Or it would have been had I bothered to fill in the registration form. Felt around the inside of the tyre for sharp pointed objects embedded in the tyre. Nothing. Try to inflate the tube. Can't. Fiddle with the tube valve. Can't. Try another pump. Can. And there does not seem to be anything wrong with the tube either, despite going for the water tub treatment. Somewhat puzzled and think that maybe there was something wrong with the valve. Maybe something wrong with the connector. Go to put the tube back and it seems to be about six inches too long. Maybe being inflated for so long has stretched it a bit. Try the tube that came with the tyre. Struggle with that for a bit and manage to put a neat couple of holes in the tube with a tyre lever. Try another tube and the first pump falls apart. Try the second pump with the first connector. This seems to be OK. Then get this second tube on with hardly any bother at all. Now pumped up nice and hard and seems to be OK. Will I get around to mending the puncture in the Continental tube? At £7 or so a pop it might well be - but can I be bothered?
The lesson here is two-fold. First, do not buy cheap pumps. They might work, but they also fall apart. Second, when above a certain age, do not try and mend a tyre when you are trying to get off to the baker. It will go wrong.
It seems a very long time ago that I actually mended punctures - rather than just changing the tube - under railway bridges, in the rain, on the way home from work. In fairness, I think these high pressure tyres take a good bit more welly to get them over the rim than the things I used to have in those far off days.
The second glitch was with the broadband connection from BT. Gave up the ghost after posting the previous post. One of those posts containing a picture which always seemed to prompt the PC to play with the dial-up connection which predated the broadband connection. Tried plugging and unplugging various things. Turning various things off and on. No good. Try again a couple of times during the day and then get onto the good people in Banglalore. Go through the usual stuff - which seems to have got a bit less painfull than it was the last time, nine months ago or so. More playing with plugs and power points. Line test. The all important DSL light on the router starts to show a bit more life, but not to the point of actually working. The help desker then takes me into Internet options and we, at the click of a button, remove the dial-up connection option. Everything springs into life. Been OK for the last half hour or so. So maybe we are in profit on this one. The irritating dial-up boxes may never appear again.
The lesson here is half-fold. Maybe if I had been bit more careful about checking plugs and leads and what have you before, the thing would have sprung into life before Bangalore. But we will never know.
On a more cultural note, a bit of rubber necking in London a couple of days ago, which took us to the newly renovated St Martin in the Fields. As ever, the church was most impressive, inside and out. Oddly free of the sort of funeral and military monuments which most famous churches are full of. I came across just the one, at the back, behind the back pews. But not too sure about the new east window. A sort of slightly distorted cross worked into the leads of otherwise plain leaded glass, the rest of the windows being plain leaded glass. For me, the wobbly cross did not go with the classical interior. Seem to recall that it is the work of an Iraqi lady glass worker - maybe a relative of the Iraqi lady architect who is all the rage (not here in Epsom) at the moment. There does seem to be a certain similarity of approach, with large curves where you are not expecting them.
Then down to the shiny new basement building, next to the cafe in the crypt proper, with its impressive new parish room. Impressive to look at that is. All dark wood and space. But I wonder how it feels to have a meeting there with windows all around the top for people to peer in through. Perhaps that it the price you have to pay for a bit of natural light. And I thought whoever did the two wells - one for the stairs and lift and one open, got them all wrong. Plus there was a lot of space which, despite the expensive building project, was not going to get a lot of use. Apart from the nice line in Christmas cards and a middle sized facility for the local Chinese Christian community.
I found it odd how the other birds made such a fuss about the pigeon getting killed. I would have thought that they would not care what happened to pigeons. But clearly they do. Avian solidarity kicks in in the face of the cuddly predator.
That apart, been a weekend of two glitches. First, when trying to pump up the front tyre of the bicycle for once in a while, it suddenly deflated. Tried again. Deflated again. So we are into taking tyre off mode - at least it was the front tyre rather than the back. Get the tyre off, this being the posh tyre from Continental which is guaranteed against punctures for the first year of its life. Or it would have been had I bothered to fill in the registration form. Felt around the inside of the tyre for sharp pointed objects embedded in the tyre. Nothing. Try to inflate the tube. Can't. Fiddle with the tube valve. Can't. Try another pump. Can. And there does not seem to be anything wrong with the tube either, despite going for the water tub treatment. Somewhat puzzled and think that maybe there was something wrong with the valve. Maybe something wrong with the connector. Go to put the tube back and it seems to be about six inches too long. Maybe being inflated for so long has stretched it a bit. Try the tube that came with the tyre. Struggle with that for a bit and manage to put a neat couple of holes in the tube with a tyre lever. Try another tube and the first pump falls apart. Try the second pump with the first connector. This seems to be OK. Then get this second tube on with hardly any bother at all. Now pumped up nice and hard and seems to be OK. Will I get around to mending the puncture in the Continental tube? At £7 or so a pop it might well be - but can I be bothered?
The lesson here is two-fold. First, do not buy cheap pumps. They might work, but they also fall apart. Second, when above a certain age, do not try and mend a tyre when you are trying to get off to the baker. It will go wrong.
It seems a very long time ago that I actually mended punctures - rather than just changing the tube - under railway bridges, in the rain, on the way home from work. In fairness, I think these high pressure tyres take a good bit more welly to get them over the rim than the things I used to have in those far off days.
The second glitch was with the broadband connection from BT. Gave up the ghost after posting the previous post. One of those posts containing a picture which always seemed to prompt the PC to play with the dial-up connection which predated the broadband connection. Tried plugging and unplugging various things. Turning various things off and on. No good. Try again a couple of times during the day and then get onto the good people in Banglalore. Go through the usual stuff - which seems to have got a bit less painfull than it was the last time, nine months ago or so. More playing with plugs and power points. Line test. The all important DSL light on the router starts to show a bit more life, but not to the point of actually working. The help desker then takes me into Internet options and we, at the click of a button, remove the dial-up connection option. Everything springs into life. Been OK for the last half hour or so. So maybe we are in profit on this one. The irritating dial-up boxes may never appear again.
The lesson here is half-fold. Maybe if I had been bit more careful about checking plugs and leads and what have you before, the thing would have sprung into life before Bangalore. But we will never know.
On a more cultural note, a bit of rubber necking in London a couple of days ago, which took us to the newly renovated St Martin in the Fields. As ever, the church was most impressive, inside and out. Oddly free of the sort of funeral and military monuments which most famous churches are full of. I came across just the one, at the back, behind the back pews. But not too sure about the new east window. A sort of slightly distorted cross worked into the leads of otherwise plain leaded glass, the rest of the windows being plain leaded glass. For me, the wobbly cross did not go with the classical interior. Seem to recall that it is the work of an Iraqi lady glass worker - maybe a relative of the Iraqi lady architect who is all the rage (not here in Epsom) at the moment. There does seem to be a certain similarity of approach, with large curves where you are not expecting them.
Then down to the shiny new basement building, next to the cafe in the crypt proper, with its impressive new parish room. Impressive to look at that is. All dark wood and space. But I wonder how it feels to have a meeting there with windows all around the top for people to peer in through. Perhaps that it the price you have to pay for a bit of natural light. And I thought whoever did the two wells - one for the stairs and lift and one open, got them all wrong. Plus there was a lot of space which, despite the expensive building project, was not going to get a lot of use. Apart from the nice line in Christmas cards and a middle sized facility for the local Chinese Christian community.
# posted by Jim @ 8:21 AM 
