Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Splice the mainbrace!
DSL light dead all last night from what I saw of it. Dead this morning. But phoned up by Banglalore around 1000. Phone went dead in the middle of our conversation but the line was up again about half an hour later and has been up since. Let's see how long it lasts this time. Today's verdict: they are not doing too well on reliability at the moment, but they do seem to have a proper call tracking system.
Monday was a tap day. BH had been complaining about the kitchen tap dripping for some months (not sure how many, not in double figures) and we had been making desultory attempts to do something about it. In the past, we had been able to get a next day spares service from the manufacturer over the phone but this does not seem to work any more. One has to go onto the internet and supply a part number for the tap which we can't do. This being a 15 year old mixer tap which we bought from Peter Jones. Two stumpy tap handles angled at 45 degrees with a swan neck outlet rising up on a swivel between them. It being the swivel which drips.
So finally crank myself into action, allocating one valuble morning for the purpose, a morning when BH was out and would not want to use the tap. Remove grub screw and take outlet to Cheam with a view to visiting the hard core plumbing counter behind Mr S. at Kiln Lane on the way back from the baker. The outlet appears to have three washers: a broken white plastic washer, one rather loose O-ring and one damaged O-ring. The man behind the counter more or less laughs and sez: "you want washers for that? That white washer is well done for. Anyway, we don't stock O-rings anymore. Too many dodgy suppliers using funny sizes for it to be worth our while keeping up. You might try Halfords. Or you might try this place in Sutton (helpfully printing off an address slip from his computer). Otherwise you're stuffed. And no, you can't buy a new tap like that either". Off to the nearby Halfords where I buy a gift selection box of O-rings for £6 odd. Only slightly more than buying a couple of sachets. Nothing on the white washer front.
Get home to find out that none of the selection from Halfords actually matches what was on the outlet - although I can't remember whether they are original or not. One small one is near enough so fit that. Try putting the outlet back on and water gushes out of the swivel nicely. At this point it dawns on me that the white washer is split for a reason: the idea is that the point on the end of the grub screw goes through the gap to register on the pipe underneath, thus holding the outlet onto the body of the tap. So a bit grubby but sound. Try again, after a bit of fiddling around to get the gap in the right place. Water now oozing out rather than gushing out.
Then decide that the loose larger O-ring which I have not changed is perhaps the culprit. The smaller one is more about holding the whole thing steady, rather than stopping it leaking. Burrow in the collection of plumbing bits in the garage and emerge with half a dozen O-rings of various large sizes. Try one which is not right but which at least is a bit bigger than the one there. And hey presto, we have a rather stiff swivel but we seemed to have stemmed the leak. Brownie points all around.
So clearly time to take tea with the DT. Tea, on this occasion being Earl Gray with lemon. I seem to be quite unsettled on the tea front at the moment, moving restlessly from Indian tea (shamefully, from a bag) with green top milk, to green tea (gunpowder), to Earl Gray. Maybe I will settle down again at one point.
DT has yet another report of yet another decent citizen challenging yobs being given a criminal record. Whose side are the bisease on? And two intriguing royal snippets. First, royal watchers will be delighted to learn that we now have a pedestrian (no slur. As opposed to equestrian) full-size statue of good old' Queen Mum gracing the Mall. A monument to her glorious contribution to the upbringing of her daughter's children. Second, Fergiville in Surrey has been sold to some dubious central Asian for considerably more than it is worth, having been empty and unsold for some years, and is now still empty and unmaintained. The RSPCA should know that there is green slime growing in the horses' swimming pool. And OffWin should know that the Duke of York has so much cash in his piggy bank that he can afford to have a large asset sitting around doing nothing for years. And what exactly is his relationship to the central Asian in question? Hardly a good example to the rest of us decent folk, trying to rub along on 0% interest.
Monday was a tap day. BH had been complaining about the kitchen tap dripping for some months (not sure how many, not in double figures) and we had been making desultory attempts to do something about it. In the past, we had been able to get a next day spares service from the manufacturer over the phone but this does not seem to work any more. One has to go onto the internet and supply a part number for the tap which we can't do. This being a 15 year old mixer tap which we bought from Peter Jones. Two stumpy tap handles angled at 45 degrees with a swan neck outlet rising up on a swivel between them. It being the swivel which drips.
So finally crank myself into action, allocating one valuble morning for the purpose, a morning when BH was out and would not want to use the tap. Remove grub screw and take outlet to Cheam with a view to visiting the hard core plumbing counter behind Mr S. at Kiln Lane on the way back from the baker. The outlet appears to have three washers: a broken white plastic washer, one rather loose O-ring and one damaged O-ring. The man behind the counter more or less laughs and sez: "you want washers for that? That white washer is well done for. Anyway, we don't stock O-rings anymore. Too many dodgy suppliers using funny sizes for it to be worth our while keeping up. You might try Halfords. Or you might try this place in Sutton (helpfully printing off an address slip from his computer). Otherwise you're stuffed. And no, you can't buy a new tap like that either". Off to the nearby Halfords where I buy a gift selection box of O-rings for £6 odd. Only slightly more than buying a couple of sachets. Nothing on the white washer front.
Get home to find out that none of the selection from Halfords actually matches what was on the outlet - although I can't remember whether they are original or not. One small one is near enough so fit that. Try putting the outlet back on and water gushes out of the swivel nicely. At this point it dawns on me that the white washer is split for a reason: the idea is that the point on the end of the grub screw goes through the gap to register on the pipe underneath, thus holding the outlet onto the body of the tap. So a bit grubby but sound. Try again, after a bit of fiddling around to get the gap in the right place. Water now oozing out rather than gushing out.
Then decide that the loose larger O-ring which I have not changed is perhaps the culprit. The smaller one is more about holding the whole thing steady, rather than stopping it leaking. Burrow in the collection of plumbing bits in the garage and emerge with half a dozen O-rings of various large sizes. Try one which is not right but which at least is a bit bigger than the one there. And hey presto, we have a rather stiff swivel but we seemed to have stemmed the leak. Brownie points all around.
So clearly time to take tea with the DT. Tea, on this occasion being Earl Gray with lemon. I seem to be quite unsettled on the tea front at the moment, moving restlessly from Indian tea (shamefully, from a bag) with green top milk, to green tea (gunpowder), to Earl Gray. Maybe I will settle down again at one point.
DT has yet another report of yet another decent citizen challenging yobs being given a criminal record. Whose side are the bisease on? And two intriguing royal snippets. First, royal watchers will be delighted to learn that we now have a pedestrian (no slur. As opposed to equestrian) full-size statue of good old' Queen Mum gracing the Mall. A monument to her glorious contribution to the upbringing of her daughter's children. Second, Fergiville in Surrey has been sold to some dubious central Asian for considerably more than it is worth, having been empty and unsold for some years, and is now still empty and unmaintained. The RSPCA should know that there is green slime growing in the horses' swimming pool. And OffWin should know that the Duke of York has so much cash in his piggy bank that he can afford to have a large asset sitting around doing nothing for years. And what exactly is his relationship to the central Asian in question? Hardly a good example to the rest of us decent folk, trying to rub along on 0% interest.
# posted by Jim @ 3:30 AM 
