Friday, November 19, 2010
EDF
Yesterday's bash at the DT was followed by a long and eventually helpful letter from EDF, 4 pages or 8 sides of it and called a yearly electricity payment review. First take was that the whole thing was complete gobbledegook. Lots of numbers involving discounts, nectar points, VAT refunds, Discount Plan 2 Standard DD, direct debit discounts and direct debit points. What on earth would a pensioner or a bog-standard of limited arithmetical and reading skills make of it? Second take, which involved reading the second paragraph on the first page, was that my payment was being changed to £34.00 a month. It did not say what it was being changed from, but with this clue I was able to work it out. It seems that our electricity consumption is falling.
First observation, I remain fairly careless at reading things of this sort, despite many years of practise. Maybe I am going into decline, even more apt to miss the obvious than I used to be. Used to be prone to blunders in chess too. Second observation, it is just the same as the mobile phone and insurance people. They obscure the basic facts of the case with a welter of unwanted information. Same trick as used to be used in the civil service to keep the lower order unions in line. The lower order union representatives possibly could not read but they would be flattered to be the recipients of so much information. So flattered that they would forget to make a fuss about anything. At least that was the theory of the higher orders. And, it should be said, in those days the lower orders may not have been among the higher paid but it was a fairly cushy number. I even had an allotment which came with my job to which I could repair at lunch time when the weather was good.
Followed up with a review of the status of the experimental Tequila bottle on the study window sill. See, for example, the post of April 28. Despite regular feeding with small amounts of organic matter - both animal and vegetable and some of which at least must have included viable life - and despite there being islands of matter above the water line so that there is matter which is not completely waterlogged - the fine grey mould continues to dominate. A fairly comprehensive carpet. In fact, no other form of live is visible at all. Not even a touch of green mould growing up the inside of the bottle in the sun. What have I done to suppress green life in favour of grey? Is it time to suspend this experiment and start again? I think I shall give it until the spring and then we can have a further review.
Baffled at this point, started to ponder on how one might best count orange lentils. First thought was that weighing might be good. Given an average weight per each, one could have a reasonable stab at counting the number of lentils in a handful or a lidful. Not that accurate but good enough. The catch being that in order to get an average weight one needed a good balance or some good counting. Not having a good balance, this reduced this option to circularity.
Second thought was that volume might be good. Measure a small sample of lentils. I happen to have a pair of what I think are called vernier callipers, good for measuring the outside dimensions of small objects to a hundreth of an inch or so, provided I can still make out the verniers. Nothing at all like the offering at http://gage.faro-europe.com/home/ but I think I have got the right name. Compute the volume of one lentil using Log. tables and so on and so forth. Maybe do five to be on the safe side. Then pour the lentils to be counted into a measuring jar. Fill the jar up to a mark with water using a pipette (something I don't happen to own just at the moment) and deduce the volume of the lentils by subtraction. Deduce the number of lentils by division.
Third thought was that length might be good. Measure the length of a small number of lentils laid end to end. This not so circular as the first thought as I would find it easier to get an accurate small length than an accurate small weight. Then, fix an eight foot batten - say 2 by 1 - along the lower half of an 8 by 4 sheet of plywood. Prop plywood against the wall, maybe 45 degrees. Slowly tip the lentils to be counted down the sheet of plywood, jiggling the sheet as they go. With luck, the lentils will wind up neatly lined up along the batten. Just have to tidy them up a bit, measure the length of the line and Bob's your uncle (as they say).
Trying this last should keep me busy this morning. Anything rather than bedding out bedding plants.
# posted by Jim @ 12:45 AM 
