Not bloody happy.

Well, today was a write-off from about 2pm onwards.

That was the time I got back from the Council Dump (garden waste disposal), and began working on replacing a faulty part on my Series 3 Land Rover.

What got me pissed off? I had originally thought that it was the one of the shambolic moronic pea-brained halfwit cost-cutting round-spectacled office-bound HB-pencil-wielding financial times-reading ACCOUNTANT cretins (I don't hold the profession in much esteem, despite my late Dad being one) who cost-specified the parts and materials that went into a 1983 Land Rover.

But, it now transpires, it may well not have been the afore-mentioned penny-pinchers.

So, what set my temper to a dial setting of 4½?

I had the part. I had the tools. I had the time available and then some. I was in the mood for some easy, if time-consuming, electro-mechanical messing about. The sun was out, and it was shaping up to be a really nice day.

So much for that bloody idea.

I was about to replace the blower motor switch on the dash board of my Landie. I got the damn thing out (no mean feat), and was about to test the new one, when the combination Wiper/Washer Switch (Land Rover part number 579006) literally fell apart as I nudged an errant wire out of the way.

IT.

FELL.

APART.

Seriously: It just took a brush past of a finger, and it fell to bits. The bits were now all over the ruddy floor of the cab of the wagon. And a simple job that should have taken no more than two hours, took my wagon off the bloody road until I can get yet another new part in, and fit it.

A part to replace something that was, it seems, made out of BAKELITE?!?!?!?!?!?!?! What the blue bleedin' hell?!

I swear to whatever deity you believe in, I was THAT sodding livid.

I wanted to know what kind of LUNATIC specified a fragile, frangible, degradable material like bloody BAKELITE for a vehicle designed to go boldly and roughly over the landscape, and which was built in the ruddy 1980s?! I was so angry I wanted to find them all, round 'em all up, and do unspeakably evil things that would have made the middle ages Spanish Inquisition run home to Mummy, screaming in terror. THAT'S how angry I was.

And just to add insult to injury, I had to go and order a replacement part AFTER the next-day delivery slots had gone, so my wagon was, and is currently, off-road until I can get a new part, and fit it.

Did I say how thoroughly bloody livid I was?

I was NOT bloody happy

A few hours later...

As I edit this Blant, I'm down to a slow burn, rather than a full-blown homicidal fury.

Having talked to a couple of people I know, it seems that the shattered switch may well have been an after-market part; in other words, after the Landie left military service, a later owner of the wagon fitted another manufacturers part: one not supplied to Land Rover by Lucas, the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) of choice for Land Rover at the time, but with something that is these days called a 'pattern part'. Pattern parts are components that are no longer made by the manufacturer of the original equipment, so can fairly safely be made by other companies without to much worry over legal issues.

By the time I acquired the wagon, this pattern part had obviously passed it's use-by date (to coin a phrase) as it shattered with barely a light touch applied in passing, so a replacement would have been required at some point in the near future anyhow so, best it shattered now, than while I was driving down the motorway in thick pelting rain, I suppose. I'm still angry that it shattered of course, but the alternative could have been much, much more problematic.

And I STILL have to order a replacement switch, dammit.