Category: General

So, the past few months have been fairly disasterous on the car front. It was, therefore with some trepidation that I began to contemplate the possibility that we should obtain a different car. I eventually admitted to myself, after much contemplation that in reality, Kathryn would probably be more comfortable driving something at least faintly modern – and that my funds were not really sufficient (either in terms of time or finances) to get the two DAFs into good enough order that I’d be happy abandoning Kathryn to her fate in them.

It was this train of thought that led to the dispatch of Vixy to her new home, and which has, somewhat scarily led me to be sat on a very slow stopping train exploring the delights of Suffolk before collecting what I am hoping will be a hideously practical and sensible car.

I’ve never bought a car sight unseen before and it’s not a habit I plan to develop. And I’m praying that the uber practical Volvo will carry me uneventfully back to Slough. Only another 52,375 stations to go and I’ll be there.

Of course this would be the day after the weekend everyone I know decided to simultaneously organise everything. We started the weekend heading to my mum’s Friday; her wedding blessing was at 9:00… In Devon. Somewhat painfully we clambered into the Hideous garage loan car; a car sporting a rather strong desire to both sta ll and gas the inhabitants; a better advert for EVs there could not be.

Anyhow after topping up the clearly much abused Micra (who knew mark one Micras handled so badly?) with yet more oil we commenced a long drive which started at the ungodly hour of 5am. The Monastry in Devon is essentially an old converted cottage in the midst of some very pretty countryside – and the abbot is a monk that I met way back doing my community service for DofE. I spent an inordinate amount of time repairing electrical equipment (Hoovers and heaters and such) and painting sheds and cutting grass. It was very nice, if odd, to see him again; but his family friend service allowed some levity and humour into the blessing which was beautiful. My mum then sent Kathryn and I off to enjoy the very pretty countryside – and we sat watching some delightfully uninhibited birds fluttering around a fallen tree, seemingly oblivious to our presence. It was such an incredibly peaceful spot. We headed back and my mum had cooked the dhana which was, frankly, delicious.

After a little sit and a cup of tea, more oil for the Micra and we headed to Bristol to visit friends. The traffic was hideous and we ended up abandoning the motorway for Bristols back streets – sadly losing a lot of visiting time to the Traffic. The pleasant company of friends delayed our departure somewhat and we made our way back somewhat late to a friend-from-work’s wedding.

She seemed very impressed to see us there at all – and we then had a fab evening shaking our booties, and potentially strutting our funky stuff.

It did, however, mean that the night before we went to London to meet up with some of Kathryn’s friends we crawled into bed after midnight. We staggered out of bed at 8:30 the next day, and ever so slowly made our way into the TUBE_CHAOS that was London. At least 2/3rds of the Underground was shut for planned works, and it made every journey much longer. We managed to make it to meet with Kathryn’s friends fairly close to on-time, and headed out around Victoria – first to John Sandoe books – which remains as fabulous as it was previously – and where Kathryn found an excellent (or, it seems excellent so far) book for Kids – called “A Little History of the World“.

We then found ourselves a little sandwich place in which to consume Sandwiches – despite the chill in the air we sat outside like good Europeans*. Then we did our usual London haunting trick – and found a Museum to hide in for a bit. After a goodly period looking at fabulous 16th and 17th century art we headed to the gift shop where I bought… a reprint of… the first modern tube map.

Yes, I am a geek. But Kathryn said “That’d look nice framed” and all my carefully applied restraint disappeared and it was purchased on the spot. We then had a traditional cream tea (I love scones!), meandered up to Covent Garden (which seems to be devoid of the Chiropodist, I presume she’s gone to the Under the Pier show, which we must go to), and then wended, or whatevered, our way to Islington.

This time we went to a Curry place which is, apparently, some kind of London chain, and they claim to do more authentic curries. To be fair they looked less vivid and the tastes are more complex and subtle. And they’re very nice, and we managed a dinner for 8 quid each, in London, which made us very happy (including non-alcoholic drinks).

And then we headed home…

* There was no space inside.

Normally I can work out why a car isn’t running right. I may not be able to fix it, but I can suss out where the problems lie. But not this time.

She has a spark, she has fuel and she has air. She clearly has some compression, and yet she will not run. One cylinder is working just fine and dandy, the other one just refuses to do anything. I’ve tweaked the timing and adjusted the mixture anyhow, but she’s completely sickly, will only really rev in neutral and let’s just say I’m not particularly looking forward to the journey to the garage on Monday.

I’d probably have been better off spending my time getting a new brake-light-switch for Charlie, so she can go to an MOT. But I don’t really have time for an MOT on Monday anyhow.

Well, being a twonk (yes, I am) I picked up a single pole switch instead of a double pole switch for the lights, which is annoying – so I need to replace that. But the rest of the bike is now wired and lighted and ready to rock and roll. I have a grab-rail instead of a top-box at the moment because the top-box mounting isn’t quite in the right place with the indicators where they are. A nut missing from the saddle, and the wiring loom is strangely close to the side-panel cover, which is a little disconcerting.

But yesterday I attached the gear lever and she, under her own steam, moved.

I had some fun with the chain splitter, but managed to sort that eventually. And she is ready to ride. I just need to get a brake light switch and then I can get an MOT. Kathryn did look displeased at me, as I did my brief low-speed test ride without bike gear on (it’s the only time I’ll ride anywhere without gear is if I’m just checking she moves). Oh, and the first time ever in my life, I think I got the clutch adjusted right! First time and all! Woot!

Recurring theme:

Why are Maplin and Halfords so crap these days? I remember when you could go in and ask for a splined widget to attach to your kanarkle and they’d pause and say “lungified or unlungified? We have both in stock if you’re not sure”.

Maplin staff are generally lacking in clue, but the award today went to Halfords. I admit it was hopeful but I went into their miniscule motorbike section to look for a switch for the ‘zed. The ‘zed has a standard moped brake light switch. Not seeing one (but seeing other more obscure bike bits) I thought I’d ask.

I collared one of the staff who was carefully avoiding looking at any of the customers and queried whether they sold one. He looked clueless for a second and then took me back to the motorcycle ‘section’, looked around ineffectually and said ‘hrm, if it’s not here, then no, they probably don’t sell them’.

Well, ta.

A few minutes later I thought ‘hrm, I might be able to revive mine with a few squirts of contact cleaner’. So I thought I’d ask about contact cleaner.

“Uh…What’s it for”.
“Cleaning electrical contacts on well, cars, bikes, anything”
“Um. Is it a liquid or a paste or….?”
“It’s a spray, normally”
“Um… I don’t think so, I’ll ask”
*wanders off to little gang of ‘staff’*
Conversation ensues and then he wanders back
“Um, we don’t stock it, unless it’s over in these sprays here…”
*points at shelf full of a variety of sprays and looks very ineffectually at them*
*I pick up can cunningly described by marking it ‘Electrical Contact Cleaner’, a Halfords own brand product*
“You do stock it then, it’s here”.
*Wanders off shaking her head*

I don’t expect everyone in the store to know everything, that’s fine. But jeeze, between the 4 of them *one* of them might have had a fricking clue. It’s a parts shop, ostensibly, so they ought to know at least a little bit about parts.

But I guess it’s all about “Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing” these days. As long as it’s covered in stick on plastic and got a big spoiler it can run like a bag of spanners but they don’t care.

More rants coming, incidentally, on the wrongness of the scrappage scheme (and how to fix it) and how Nikki’s (and Electric Dreams – the book she suggested I might enjoy has) bloody broken my view of petrol engines.

Well, ish.

She runs anyhow.

John came down yesterday and with John like skill combined the 3 wiring looms into one, lopping off connectors that are no longer required or don’t fit together, deciphering my modifications to the old loom (to replace the old failed mechanical regulator with an electronic one, and so on. Having got her ready we turned her over and…she wouldn’t start.

Much head scratching ensued, we took the carb float bowl off because we couldn’t smell fuel in the engine (on the plug) and found blocked jets. Cleaned them, put it back together, still couldn’t get her to start or smell fuel, took off the carb and found fuel in the intake manifold so…put it back on. Still couldn’t get her to start so eventually attacked the bing carb on the Kanuni that’s being stripped for spares. Having got that carb off and swapped it* she started first kick (after priming). And sounds sweet as an MZ-shaped nut.

Today I need to rig up a mounting for the front panel (which is held by two overly short and largely ornamental bolts at the moment, and lacks any mounting at the bottom), find a headlamp switch – Maplin appear to stock a sort-of-appropriate toggle switch. I might get two and knock up a kill-switch too. And a piggy back connector so I can have the rev-counter working.

Oooh.

That done it’s just split-and-connect the chain (hence lurking in the house waiting for a delivery person) and bleed the brakes, oh and obtain a brake light switch (apparently these are scooter ones for this cylinder, as opposed to the standard MZ unobtainum switch), reattach the seat and get her an MOT. Before Sunday. Oh and keep an eye on the charging circuit because we’re not certain if it blew the fuse or if the fuse was pre-blown…

Easy.

Oh, and I just stepped out from the shower and discovered that she was pissing petrol over the floor, so sort out the leak and try and get a correctly sized fuel hose. I may even splash out on a new filter that’s got less grot in it. The chain splitter has (handily) arrived, so I’m going to see if Halfords can manage a battery and a brakelight switch now.

* I wanted to put the bing carb on because it’s much better than the BVF carb. The BVF carb is prone to the slide wearing out and apparently gives less smooth running – although I never noticed that so much. The upside to the BVF carb is it does give better economy. The Bing (or the Mikuni if you can lay your hands on them) is less efficient but a better all-rounder. Sadly, with the death of MZ and the disappearance of the MZRC Mailing list a lot of this information appears to have disappeared. Unfortunately, I think I decided a while back to delete my MZRC Mailing list stuff because so much of it wasn’t any use, keeping only the note about how to connect the rev counter…

Apparently Cardiff Uni didn’t get a reference in time to consider me for this year’s Critical Care MSc. I find this really rather upsetting. While getting in would have meant I wandered around the house making whimpering noises of fear, and not getting in would have lead to months of cursing, not getting in because they didn’t get all the documents in time is deeply distressing.

It is, frankly, a stupid reason not to be on a course I was looking forward to.

Bah.

That isn’t quite the response I got from S J Tools in Slough when I asked whether my gearbox which they’ve had for 8 months was ready. A two week job they said… in December last year. It may, they said, take a week or two to get started because they were busy.

A month ago it ‘would be ready in a week’. Yesterday I rang and they switched from standard default ‘waiting for parts’ excuses to the impressively surreal:

‘Time is a human construct, it has no place in the workshop’.

I’m not paraphrasing. It’s not exactly what he said because I can’t remember the exact words. But that was the essential point. That is their entire argument. Not waiting for parts, not being busy.

I actually got dressed and drove around there because I couldn’t believe how utterly insane they were being, but he stuck to his guns. At one point we had the blissful exchange:

Delusional ‘engineer’: ‘You shouldn’t be in here, it’s against health and safety for you to be in a workshop’
Me: ‘You shouldn’t call it a workshop, since you don’t do any work, that’s against trades descriptions’.

As you can imagine we’re getting on well. I then proceeded to actually shouting at the bloke who was ineffectually poking at the remenants of my gearbox. And who every time I used the word ‘new’ in relation to the gearbox would stop me and say ‘it’s not new’ – something which didn’t add to the goodness of my mood.

Suffice to say, Friday will be interesting when I return for either the completed gearbox or the money back.

Well, we’re back after our second week of galavanting. We spent last week at the Fringe Festival. I’m going to now go and sketch out the holiday posts, so expect them shortly. There are photos on flickr, but I’ve not captioned them at all yet…

So, Kate gave me her 2G iphone. Kate is lovely, did I mention that? Battered though its case is, it works perfectly and I’ve been delighting in it’s shininess; even more so now that with the addition of RedSn0w it’s jail broken. The only difficulty was the nice walk-through I found for jailbreaking said phone, such that I can use it with my Vodaphone Payg SIM was a little misleading. It had a link to the wrong firmware, which iTunes, thankfully, said “no, I won’t brick your phone with that”; however a link on the site said “don’t upgrade to iTunes 8.2, it breaks the jailbreaking procedure” – so I whipped out my trusty google and hunted down 8.0.1, or somesuch.

After a bit of a dink it was installed, and informed me that my iPhone had OS3.0 on it and it wasn’t going to talk to an old copy of iTunes, it needed to be upgraded to 8.2

Sensing a difficulty here, I reupgraded to 8.2 and went hunting. I discovered that actually their link was only to the 3G phones, not for the 2G phones, and that’s why it wasn’t working. So then I got the right firmware, and lo, the phone is now available for use. I’m tempted to obtain twitter accounts and twitter away. Only concern is…what might I say when I’m at work…

I also, suddenly had a realisation – I’ve not heard back from the Tax office about my ‘nurses discount’, for want of a better word. Nurse’s pay is, frankly, crap. I listened to some bloke whining about his take-home of 30k (‘a very limited income’) and thought how nice it’d be to earn 30k. Gosh, I could afford to get many things done on that which currently aren’t even a possibility.

Anyhow, suddenly I thought, hang on a minute… I’m meant to be getting some tax back, and realised that I last heard anything about the progress of the claim in April. Slow they are, but this is ridiculous. So I rang them today, there’s a mistake. Apparently they’re having a new computer system installed which means that they’re even less helpful than usual.

I’m now waiting for a call back which they can’t guarantee will be today. Or tomorrow. Or indeed in this lifetime.

Still. I’ll keep poking them with sticks until they give me my money back :-/

So a holiday post will appear in the near future, I’m sure you’re very pleased to hear. At least those of you who aren’t completely bored witless by my holiday posts will be pleased to hear.

Today, however, an urgent mission of clothing was required. Of my 3 pairs of jeans, 2 had been relegated to ‘work clothing’ because of failure to fit (too big) and appearance of holes. Leaving me with one pair, my so called ‘neat jeans’; and it was these I took on holiday. Neat is somewhat of an overstatement. They were, once. They are Monsoon jeans which I got from some charity shop or other back when I was living in Brizzy, meaning that they’ve given at least 4 years of service. The trailing edge of them had started to disintegrate as a result of my shorter five-fingers and the lazyness of not turning them up; and whilst exploritorising in .foreign two holes spontaneously appeared in the legs. And further examination revealed a hole preparing to appear in a somewhat more delicate area… So it was time, I felt to obtain some new jeans.

I actually thought this before the holiday but the sparse selection in the local charity shop lead us to a failure on that account. So on returning I avowed to continue my hunt; my problem being that buying clothing from a store is (a) expensive and (b) a minefield of ethical disasters* so I prefer to buy from charity stores.

Also, people no longer wear clothes ’til they wear out, they wear them until they’re not-new-anymore, and then give them away, or so it seems. Culture of disposability ‘n all that**.

Anyway, so my quest lead me to the unnavigable town of maidenhead. Occupying at least 4, and possibly 5 or 6 dimensions as it does it took me several attempts to land the hire-vehicle even vaguely near a dimensional crossing leading to the charity shop arena. Having got there I found that it was not quite opening time and spent a little while photographing a street of very nice abandoned houses [photos to follow, as usual]; and then headed back.

Last time I went they were packed (to the gunnels, I believe) with clothing. This time the collection was a little less populated, but some quick tryings-on and swift-no-I-don’t-like-the-colour/shape/cuts managed to get me 2 pairs of Jeans. One I think is a nice fit, one’s stretch fit and I’m not so keen, but makes a handy spare pair…

I also bought a little pyrex dish, because I’d heard that real old pyrex is better than modern pyrex (so if I spot a useful size of dish, I’m inclined to obtain it). However having just read the wikipedia page I’ve found out that EU Pyrex is still borosilicate glass, and so is just hunky doory. Must not buy modern US Pyrex though.

Anyhow.

And I might, just might, have picked up a copy of Long Way Down. I really want Long Way Round, but I thought this might be interesting, and a perfect looking hardback for 4 quid isn’t too bad.

And… I had a charity shop incident. I bought a GameBoyColor. I’ve wanted a game-boy and tetris for a while. While they had no games, I’ve put a bid in (£1.37) on a copy of Tetris for it…

And then I had a very, very, very odd incident.

Many moons ago Nikki gave me a ‘Google’ shirt – having attended the Mac World Expo I think. Now, I was wearing it today – ‘cos it’s a very comfy shirt. I was walking back to the car (somewhat swiftly and sporting an Oxfam bag), when a youngish bloke ahead of me suddenly knelt down in the street and started repeating “We are not worthy, we are not worthy!” (Wayne’s world stylee, with the bending down arms outstretched). I looked behind me assuming (somewhat hopefully) that he had some friend that he’d seen. I studied his face (when he wasn’t looking at the ground) in the hopes that I might recognise him, or that he might be an ex-patient or something. He continued his protestations and I decided to go for ‘walking swiftly onward past the mad person’. Then he added “You have our data! We are not worthy!” to his chant, which meant I finally *got* the reference to the teeshirt…

…smiled at him, and fled.

Anyhow, it’s a work day today, so I must get lunch and get going…

Oooh, I nearly forgot.

[NEWS] Hey Sarah! Kathryn just read a Terry Pratchett book, of her own volition, and moved on to a second one… She was reading bits of it out to me (as one is want to do when reading Pratchett). Apparently the second book (Pyramids (I’ve not read it)) hasn’t held her attention….[/NEWS]

* Where was it made, was it made ethically, is it eco-friendly…were any badgers coerced into making buttons for it…. that kind of thing.
** On one campsite at which we stayed someone had clearly bought a barbeque for the trip, used it and thrown it away. Not a disposable one, no; a big hunk-o-metal one. If things had been less wet I’d’ve probably saved it for us to use (I noticed it the day we were leaving the site and it was full of water and charcoal).