Time for some DIY...

Also, bugger. The weekends single job has morphed into three, this morning.

Job #1. Replace shredded garden gate.

Job #2. Fix apparently blocked water trap to down pipe from gutters to water butt.

Job #3. Replace 22" LCD computer monitor, which just this morning died, dammit 😠

Well, dodging between the hailstones, I partially drained the water butt so it was no longer overflowing, unblocked the down pipe from the gutters, and cleared the trap by the butt. Water is now flowing as it's supposed to, although I got a bit of splash from the 12 inch column of water from the recent rain and hail 🌧️ that was held back by the soggy mess of moss in the drain and trap 😱

So, one down, two to go...

The last two storms to come through here, Eunice and Franklin, really did some damage around the country; this included blowing apart (damn near shredding, even) the garden gate and ripping it in half here at home, meaning that I have to set to and replace the damn thing.

The parts blown off by the storms.

Top hinge damage

With flash this time.

Bottom hinge damage.

This gate managed to survive the Great Storm of 1987, so it wasn't as weak as it appears. Never the less, it was shredded by Eunice and Franklin. Gives you an idea of how bad the storms were. Note that the storm of '87 did its damage mostly as the trees still had foliage on them, as it his in the autumn, not the winter. As a result, Eunice and Franklin did their damage by virtue of wind speed alone, and boy, did they spread the misery about.

The other view. The latch was completely buggered.

I have a rough idea of how I'm going to go about replacing the gate, and it involves laying my hands on ten feather fencing boards (thinner on one edge than the other, hence "feather board"), a few nails or wood screws, a couple of brass hinges, a hammer, and a bottle of "Curses, invective, loud and vile" 😆

As to the monitor, well, is going to be a pain in the backside, and likely involve traipsing down to Curry's, Argos (Sainsbury's), or using some other online supplier, such as Amazon, and will no doubt cost over a ton, dammit 😠 At least I can get by for the moment with the laptop monitor, even if it does result in more eyestrain due to resolution limitations.

Oh well. At least it's a long weekend, with reasonably fair weather forecast 🙂

A Political Rant this time (well, aren't they all?) - A little rant on Utility Companies, unions, and asset stripping...

OK, this may not be good news for large house owners, but for the small bloke like me it's a helping hand...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7227793.stm

It seems the new round of water bills are gonna be based on home size (i.e., how many bedrooms you have, not what zone your home falls into.

About bleedin' time, Thames Water!

Congratulations for finally seeing a little common sense!

Now, if the electricity companies can do something similar, maybe, just maybe, London will start to be a little more affordable for lower paid workers!

Bleedin' eck. (sits down on soap box) I'm doin' a Dennis Leary (remember "No Cure For Cancer"?) What the heck next? A red armband with a hammer and sickle?! No bleedin' chance!

Still, it's a valid point regarding Utility Companies and their bills.

British Gas (or whatever you wanna call them, BG, or Bleedin' Greedy, maybe?) have recently upped their rates. LEB/SEBoard et all, even British Telecom (despite the fancy packaging) are all more expensive one way or another.

What is it about these companies with Captive markets? Even switching to another firm for the same product usually involved a certain level of grief in switching, then after a while, the honeymoon dies off, and they up their bills (same old same old, in other words). What, they think we're fik or sommat? (note spelling!)

I gotta say it, I'm getting the right old heave ho with the lot of them.

Who else thinks that Maggie, with the benefit of hindsight, actually had it wrong when she sold off the PUBLIC Utility Companies?

Now, I'm a Union man. I'm proud of that. I've been in two others before the T&GWU (now a division of Unite), so no surprises there. Not only, by the way, do they stand up for the individual as a collective group, they also offer all manner of benefits to their members, and that's a good thing! However, and going back to Maggie...

WITH the benefit of hindsight, and knowing now how much she despised the Union movement, how she wanted (and succeeded, unfortunately) in breaking the Union Movement to a large degree, how much do you think the selling off of the Public Utilities was to do with Union breaking as opposed to asset striping (as its' now called)?

The point is, though, these companies have shareholders they have to pay off - I mean give dividends to - instead of ploughing all the profits back into either reducing end-user costs, or making the business better, if not both.

Once again, Capitalism entered what should have remained a Public Service.

We've seen it now with the Utilities, the Railways, Buses, and soon, I suspect, the NHS.

What is it with these recent governments? have they no bloody idea how difficult it is to make a living these days?

Or are they content with sitting in their ivory towers (well, Parliament, anyhow), and remaining one step removed from reality as they pass more useless laws (where existing laws would be perfectly good enough if they were upheld properly)?

You got me, cause I haven't got a clue.

Answers on the back of a postage stamp, please.