The Rebuilt and the New
I took this picture on Bishopsgate in the City of London today.
St. Ethelburga’s and the Gherkin
In the foreground is St. Ethelburga’s Church, which was rebuilt after the IRA bombing of 1993. The Gherkin is shown behind the church. That building was built on the site of the Baltic Exchange, which was also substantially damaged by the IRA in 1992.
Lots of Naff Lighting
Jerry used cheap and nasty light fittings in this house and I’ve looking for something more stylist.
Yesterday, I walked round several shops in Central London and didn’t see anything that was in the least bit inspiring.
I’ve found this one on the Internet and it looks promising, but I’d like to touch and feel one before I buy.
Ftustrating IKEA
I need some rails and drawers for two built in wardrobes. At present they have some useless fittings that were built by Jerry, the builder.
IKEA do some nice standard fittings, but they don’t come in a width to fit my wardrobes! They are just five centimetres too wide! They make them to fit a range of heights, but why not widths?
It is all so frustrating as getting ones made to fit will cost a fortune and probably won’t be as nice as those from IKEA.
Junk Through the Letter Box
Every time I get letters out of my box, there are at least four copies of leaflets there, which have been left by restaurants that don’t do gluten-free, mini-cabs that I won’t use etc.
When are these people going to learn something about marketing and target their junk? At least it’s recyclable!
This Guy Has a Big Job On
David Spiegelhalter is the Professor of Public Understanding of Risk at the University of Cambridge. He has written a very good article on the subject of risk with respect to insurance in today’s Times.
So he has a big job on to knock sense into politicians, lawyers, insurance companies and the general public.
But it will make little difference, as we are the most statistically-untrained generation for perhaps a thousand years.
By the way his superb name is literally translated as mirror owner.
Homebase at Harringay
As a child, I think I went to an ice show at the Harringay Arena, which in the 1950s was one of the biggest indoor arenas in the country.
I actually remember the area reasonably well, as my father’s Uncle Charlie lived just off Green Lanes. I can remember him giving me a glass of cider with a sugar lump in it, at the age of about six or seven. I can certainly remember seeing the Arena from the bus on Green Lanes and perhaps even when I started to drive in the 1960s, although the Arena had closed long before.
Now it is a retail park and yesterday I went to Homebase there. It was a rather depressing experience, as the store was a very inferior one compared to those I’ve used in Suffolk. Effectively, I just walked around for a bit and then got the bus home.
Death, Taxes and Spam
Benjamin Franklin said that there are only two certainties in life; death and taxes.
Today he would have added spam.
If I look at my unwanted e-mails and remove everything that is obviously crooked, comes from a foreign source or is related to companies I once signed up to, I end up with a surprisingly short list; Rodial and Heaton Wealth Investments. As I said before, Rodial is a company I have no need for and I find it mildly amusing that they are targetting me. The other company is trying to sell me useless property investments and my financial advisor has told me to steer well clear of them. As most of the properties they seem to be promoting are from places, I wouldn’t visit, if you paid me, I doubt I’d be pulled in by their charms.
What worries me, is that these companies wouldn’t do it, if it wasn’t profitable for them. So perhaps there really is one born every minute.
Google is as Useless as Oxford Street
My kitchen isn’t the best from a layout point of view.
A Useless Bin and Vegetable Rack
Note the bin, which deserves to be shot and the rather dainty vegetable rack, placed in the only space I have for them in my kitchen.
To show that I’m not being vindictive, I will start by detailing all of the faults.
- The bin doesn’t take standard plsstic bags from the major supermarkets.
- The lid doesn’t stay up, so when I fish a tea-bag out from a cup, I have to balance the bag all the way across the kitchen to dispose of it. Look at the tea stains on the floor in the picture.
- Every time I take one of the plastic inserts out of the bin, I catch my fingers. Ladies would break their nails regularly. I just trap fingers, which is not good if you’re on Warfarin.
- The vegetable rack has all the stability of a blancmange.
- The rack is too wide for the kitchen and effectively blocks the drawers. That’s my fault and I shouldn’t have bought it. But it was the only one I could find!
I’m working on the bin, but surely what is needed is a simple wall-mounted rack for the vegetables.
So yesterday, I started up one end of Oxford Street and walked to the other looking for a better rubbish bin and vegetable rack. It was just more of the same bad designs.
This morning I’ve typed “wall-mounted vegetable rack” into Google and the search finds lot of entries, but none are wall-mounted vegetable racks. Ty it, if you want a laugh! One entry from Trovit Homes, says that I can buy a wall-mounted vegetable rack from £229950. To put it mildly, the Internet is being ruined by charlatan companies, who get you high positions in the search results.
In fact, I did get one good idea. The shopping baskets in the food hall of John Lewis would make an ideal vegetable basket for my kitchen. I didn’t even bother to ask if I could buy them, as I suspect they have no mechanism to sell me one. I tried to buy one of IKEA’s in-house bins once and they said no.
Anne Robinson and Essex Girls
By accident yesterday, I watched a few seconds of the Weakest Link. Anne Robinson was introducing one of the contestants, who was a vicar from Billericay. So was he a Billericay Vickie? She asked him, if Essex Girls prayed round their handbags.
There is a very inappropriate joke linking Robert Maxwell and Essex Girls. As Anne has sometimes been known to defend the odious Bouncing Czech, she ought to mind what she says about females from Essex.
Where Have All the Brass Washers Gone?
I’m in need of some more oversized brass washers to complete the staircase.
Oversized Brass Washers
My supplier has told me, they can’t get any more. I can’t find any on the Internet in the UK either.
The Anonymous Widower 