A Shelf Above My Cooker
The two IKEA wall cabinets either side of my cooker hood have lights underneath. To connect the lights, I needed to run a cable across. So to solve two problems in one go, I decided that a shelf above the cooker between the units would work.
I could have used wood and painted it to match the black-brown colour of the units. but as the house has lots of exposed steel beams, I thought I’d experiment with a steel beam powder coated to patch the IKEA cabinets.
It was made for me by Anglia Fabrication and Design in Newmarket. It cost me about a hundred pounds and I could have had it in any RAL colour.
I think it works. As the pictures show, I don’t think, I’ve got the layout of the tools right yet.
My Hungarian handyman and myself mounted the steel beam on the wall using some impressive Rigifix dry wall fixings.
Rigifix Dry Wall Fixings
Note that we used a brass bolt with the fixing, which is rated at over a hundred kiolgrams.
The only problem was Jerry’s brickwork, which produced a wall as flat as the Pennines.
A Design Crime – Manchester’s Totally Crap MiGuide
When I see things like this, it really gets my anger up.
All I want in a City Centre, is a map that will show me where to go, not some indecipherable device, that I probably can’t work, as I have the sort of fingers that don’t work well with touch screens. I don’t want to be bombarded with advertising.
If I need information, like the nearest gluten-free restaurant, I’ll search Google.
Give me maps on liths like Ipswich, Glasgow, Preston, Bristol, Birmingham, Southampton and Sheffield! Or big ones with seats like Krakow!
Manchester used to have some nice maps, but they seem to have been removed.
Perhaps they’;re kept with the Ed Stone?
These devices are total crap, that should be consigned to the dustbin of the future.
They’re certainly a Design Crime.
Fireworks Above My House
I took these pictures through the sky-light above my stairs.
I think they were set off by the pub on the corner.
Warfarin And Lansoprazole
As I said in this post called Fasciitis In My Foot, I’ve got fasciitis in my right foot.
It wasn’t going away so my doctor prescribed 500mg. of Naproxen, night and morning, together with 30mg of Lansoprazole first thing, as I’m on Warfarin.
Normally, I take 4mg. of Warfarin a day, but when I am on other drugs, I test my INR regularly to make sure the drugs aren’t affecting my levels.
After a few days, my INR had gone up from its normal level of around 2.3-2.7 to around 4. So obviously, the new drug combination was raising my INR.
I solved the problem and brought the level of Warfarin down to 3mg. After a few days, my INR had returned to around 2.5.
That was a few weeks ago, but the fasciitis has refused to go away, so I am now back on the Naproxen/Lansoprazole combination, but with only 250mg. of the Naproxen.
My INR has jumped in the same way, but as before reducing the Warfarin dose to 3mg. has brought it back to normal.
I am drawn to two conclusions.
- The Lansoprazole raises my INR,
- Regular self-testing of your INR usually picks up problems.
This is very much a repeat of my experiences of taking Terbinafine, which I wrote about Interaction Between Warfarin And Terbinafine. Although that drug dropped the INR.
Is This The World’s Most Annoying Christmas Gift?
This was at a lunch today!
It is rather spectacularly annoying!
You can imagine Lord Whats-Is-Name giving it both barrels with a 12-bore.
Behind Jerry’s Cabinets
My kitchen was horrendous as the pictures in My Crap Steel Kitchen Cabinets show.
Today, Laszlo, the builder and myself removed some of them and took a look behind.
To make matters worse, we were unable to get the marble slab worktop down the stairs, so it is now lying on the living room floor.
Neither of us were amused.
Especially Laszlo, who cut himself on the steel doors.
The marble slab will be fre to anyone who wants it! But you fix your own hernias!
A Curious Problem With My Credit Cards
A few months ago, I tried to order some goods from IKEA for my kitchen. They weren’t delivered and my credit card wasn’t debited, so the only harm done was I waited in for a whole day for a non-delivery.
Over the next couple of months, I tried several times to repeat the order, but in no cases was it ever completed. Immediately, When I entered the details of either of my credit cards, the order disappeared.
To solve the problem, I took a bus to IKEA in Tottenham and placed the order personally, paying with my American Express card at the check-out. I also got the direct e-mail address of the Kitchen Department and sent them a couple of e-mails to assure them, that if they didn’t deliver, they’d be deep in the doodah.
The goods were eventually delivered on the day, but the driver’s sat-nav got him lost in the mews at the back of my house.
I put it down to some form of problem with the delivery system, that checks the credit rating of the purchaser. But as Experian have confirmed, my credit rating is good and the only problem, is that I’m not correctly on the Electoral Roll. And that’s not for dint of trying, but for some reason they seem incapable to get it right!
However, today I needed to buy a coach ticket from National Express for the Ipswich-QPR match on Boxing Day.
So I entered my details to buy the ticket and tried to pay by credit czrds. Both were rejected.
I phoned both credit card suppliers and there was no problem with either card.
As a last resort, I phoned National Express direct and bought the ticket traditionally from the Call Centre at the cost of a long phone call and a booking fee.
But it wasn’t without trouble.
Both my credit cards were rejected by the system used by the very patient Colin in the Call Centre, as was my debit card.
Their system knew about me from my previous four failed attempts to buy tickets on-line and I wondered if it was rejecting them because of my address, which was on some sort of blacklist.
I’ve often thought this, as my house was tenanted for several years before I bought it and the tenants did runners leaving piles of debts to several companies.
In the end, Colin and I felt this was all rather silly, so I thought about trying an alternative e-mail address, as this was probably the key used to access my address on their computer.
It worked and I got my ticket.
Intriguingly in both cases, I got my goods or tickets, when I broke the link between debit/credit card address and the address for the card.
In IKEA, this was by putting the AMEX card through a till and with National Express, it was by giving them an e-mail address for which they had no physical address details.
I am drawn to the inevitable conclusion, that software checks my address against County Court Judgements. And I think there could be a lot of them, due to the history of the property!
Surely, if I can’t purchase on-line, because of the debts of previous owners or their tenants, who lived here, before I bought the house, then that is illegal!
The only way to lose them, would be the same way to get rid of bindweed from your garden. Move!
Unless of course, someone reading this knows better?
Finding An Errant Parcel!
I ordered something on-line for Christmas and realised this morning that it had not arrived.
So I got on to the company and they replied in an hour or so, that Parcelforce had tried to deliver it on the eighth and that they had left a card and taken it to the Post Office.
I searched my hall and I could find no red Parcelforce card amongst the masses of junk mail, that I get. But then I’ve had a couple of incidents like this, where a parcel has not been delivered and no card has been left, from different couriers. I should say that I’ve also had delivery drivers and couriers get lost and end up in the mews at the back of the house.
I think the problem, is that there are several banned right turns and because of this sat-navs send drivers on a roundabout route. If a driver knows the area, it might encourage them to take a short cut and the mews is one that looks a good one. But unfortunately, the far end is blocked.
So as they can’t find my house, they just card one with a similar number and get off out of it.
I then went over to Camden, as I suspected the parcel was at their main depot.
It wasn’t!
But they said, if I could get the Tracking Number, they would find it.
So when I got the Tracking Number, I found it was in a Post Office about a mile away.
It took me about thirty minutes and two buses to get it.
I think there are various lessons to be learned from this.
- The system of the cards needs to be improved.
- Sat-nav systems must get better.
- Purchasers should have easy access to the Tracking Numbers.
But at least no harm was done!
What’s Got Twenty-Eight Legs and An IQ Of Fourteen?
As there are fourteen of them at the moment, it’s Republican Party presidential candidates, 2016.
This is a joke that might get bigger!
Trump Forgot The Ace Of Clubs
This article on the BBC web site, is entitled Donald Trump loses wind farm legal challenge. This is said.
Donald Trump’s legal challenge to a planned offshore wind farm has been rejected by the UK’s Supreme Court.
The UK Supreme Court is probably the end of an expensive road.
My late friend; Brian, would have said that an old accountancy phrase would apply – Screwed, Glued and Tattooed.
Seeing as it’s Scotland, perhaps it should be the Scottish version – Screwed, Glued and Bagpiped. I’m certain, there are a large number of Scots, who have innovative uses of a set of bagpipes as an instrument of torture.
There is this article on the Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group, entitled EOWDC partners welcome Supreme Court decision. This is said.
Vattenfall and Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group (AREG), partners of Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm Ltd, the company behind the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre (EOWDC), welcomed today’s Supreme Court decision.
Andy Paine, Project Director for AOWFL, said: “This is another significant step forward for the EOWDC. It affirms the scheme’s potential to position Scotland, and particularly the North-east, as a centre of innovative offshore wind power. The project partners remain committed to seeing the EOWDC come to fruition and delivering long-term economic benefits to the region.”
It certainly looks like Trump didn’t have the heaviest club; the Ace, in his bag.
I’ll leave the last word to the Professional Golfers Association, as detailed in this report on the BBC entitled Donald Trump controversy bad for golf – PGA chief Sandy Jones. This is said.
The chief executive of the Professional Golfers’ Association says the ongoing controversy generated by Donald Trump is “not a positive thing for golf.”
Trump, who owns two Scottish courses, has been criticised for comments made during his bid to become the Republican Party’s US presidential candidate.
And Sandy Jones says the negative publicity around Trump is bad for golf.
“Sadly his political campaign in America seems to be getting in the way of all the great things golf offers.”
Tìoraidh!
The Anonymous Widower 