Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Screws
Some months ago a new to us outfit opened up the road by the name of Screwfix, a building materials version of Argos. Now, due to the proliferation of bird feeders in the garden, I had run out of butcher hooks, which I find a convenient way to hang such things up with. They don't blow off but they can be taken down for refill without bother. So the problem was, where to buy butcher hooks? Could ask the butcher in Cheam but didn't. Occasionally espied the van of a butchers' sundries seller but couldn't catch it. Then the brain swung around to Screwfix and I made a detour to said establishment on the way back from the baker. Found a desk equipped with Argos like catalogues. Flipped through it a couple of times and no, there were no butcher hooks, but there were things called S-hooks. 5mm or 6mm. Not being very sure what this meant, went for two packets of 6mm. A few minutes later the entirely wrong thing was handed out of the hatch. A few minutes after that the right thing appeared. Just the ticket. The 6mm turned out to be the guage of the steel out of which the things had been made. A narrower mouth than butcher hooks, thus reducing the risk of the suspended object leaping off the hook and no sharp points to be ground down or impaled on. Raw butcher hooks being quite sharp. So first experience of Screwfix was OK.
The downside is that it is a bit like mail order. You are firing blind and don't always like what you get. Presumably what is in it for them is that they can carry a lot more stock in a much smaller space than would be possible in a shop format with the goods out on display.
Next door was a new to us self storage place and I was moved, being in the vicinity and parked up, to enquire about prices. I find that I can hire a space, maybe the area of a bathroom and 10 feet high, for around £100 a month. I didn't go into details but presumably one has access during working hours and one does not get much in the way of facilities. Maybe a toilet somewhere but that would be about the lot. So camping in the space would not be much fun. But what I had learnt was, what I might have worked out if I had thought about it, that hiring space in this way is not orders of magnitude cheaper than hiring a bedsit. A significant cost. But on reflection not so differant from hiring a garage in the good old days (the seventies) at £1 a week, compared with maybe £10 for a bedsit at the time. I shall carry on packing the roof and packing the garage for a while yet.
Moving onto higher planes, take a peek at last week's TLS, where I learn that the OUP sees fit to publish volume 3 of a history of cant and slang dictionaries. 75 quid or 140 dollars. Which confirms my belief that life in academe is getting hard; that you have to struggle to find a field which has not been ploughed out. A history of a particular sort of dictionary indeed! Then I am reminded that, in so far as I am concerned, modern philosophy is complete tosh. What on earth are they on? How do they manage to sell the stuff? And lastly I come across a novel, kindly reviewed, by one A. Foulds, 'The Quickening Maze'. A sort of novel which is becoming common but of which I do not approve. A fictional account of real people. That is to say a confusion of fact and fiction. My belief is that the two things ought to be kept separate. Fact should be fact and historical fiction should be colour. And I like to know which is which, so that I can put the proper spin on things when recycling them at TB.
The downside is that it is a bit like mail order. You are firing blind and don't always like what you get. Presumably what is in it for them is that they can carry a lot more stock in a much smaller space than would be possible in a shop format with the goods out on display.
Next door was a new to us self storage place and I was moved, being in the vicinity and parked up, to enquire about prices. I find that I can hire a space, maybe the area of a bathroom and 10 feet high, for around £100 a month. I didn't go into details but presumably one has access during working hours and one does not get much in the way of facilities. Maybe a toilet somewhere but that would be about the lot. So camping in the space would not be much fun. But what I had learnt was, what I might have worked out if I had thought about it, that hiring space in this way is not orders of magnitude cheaper than hiring a bedsit. A significant cost. But on reflection not so differant from hiring a garage in the good old days (the seventies) at £1 a week, compared with maybe £10 for a bedsit at the time. I shall carry on packing the roof and packing the garage for a while yet.
Moving onto higher planes, take a peek at last week's TLS, where I learn that the OUP sees fit to publish volume 3 of a history of cant and slang dictionaries. 75 quid or 140 dollars. Which confirms my belief that life in academe is getting hard; that you have to struggle to find a field which has not been ploughed out. A history of a particular sort of dictionary indeed! Then I am reminded that, in so far as I am concerned, modern philosophy is complete tosh. What on earth are they on? How do they manage to sell the stuff? And lastly I come across a novel, kindly reviewed, by one A. Foulds, 'The Quickening Maze'. A sort of novel which is becoming common but of which I do not approve. A fictional account of real people. That is to say a confusion of fact and fiction. My belief is that the two things ought to be kept separate. Fact should be fact and historical fiction should be colour. And I like to know which is which, so that I can put the proper spin on things when recycling them at TB.
# posted by Jim @ 12:41 AM 
