How Not to Paint
Mark didn’t like this, as he didn’t want me to think he was to blame, so I photographed it.
How Not to Paint
Things like this grate with me, so hopefully Mark will be able to put right some of the faults of the original builders. But really it’s not his job.
How Not to Put in Bolts
In the previous post, I indicated that the new house has featured steel beams. The stair-case is also in steel and painted the same dark chocolate colour.
But look at this picture.
Bolts in a Staircase
My father would have said that this was probably put together by a one-eyed Irishman in the dark, as some are round one way and others are the other. We may not blame others like we used to in the 1950s, but whoever put these in had no basic sense of design and order. I’d love to see the architect’s drawings, to see what they intended. Some bolts look to be a brass colour, so there might have been some instructions.
I will change them at some point, but whether I use brass, bronze, stainless steel or chrome, with or without cap nuts is a question that has to be decided.
Whatever I do though, I’ll put them in properly and in order.
The Intelligent Decorator
My father was no mean wielder of a paintbrush, not in an artistic sense, but as a decorator. As he used to drive me to his print works in Wood Green, he’d sometimes tell how when they built the houses in Waterfall Road in Southgate in the 1930s, he had a contract to paint them for just a few pounds a house. He did teach me, but I’ve never been very good at it, although I used to be able to hang wallpaper. My hands probably aren’t good enough now!
My late father-in-law was also a professional painter and decorator in Barnet, working for a firm called Curtis. He would tell tales about how in the richer parts of the area, such as Hadley Wood, how sometimes he’d wallpaper the same house, as many as three times, because the lady of the house or the cat didn’t like the new colour scheme. C used to say he had endless patience, which was why he was in so much demand.
And then there was Terry. He used to do the decorating for us at Debach and when we moved to West Suffolk, we still continued to use him. He was neat and tidy, never smoked and sometimes you never even knew he was in the house. In one case, we’d asked him to paint a bedroom and C phoned him up to ask when he was coming. But he’d already done it!
Sadly Terry died of cancer a couple of years ago. The funeral was one of the best attended, I’ve ever seen, such was the respect he was held in the town of Ipswich.
So when I see good decorators I know what I’m looking at.
My new house was in a terrible state, as the previous owner had rented it to tenants. There were rather hideous constructions in some of the wardrobes, television wires everywhere and all sorts of damage. The builders had also not built some of the details properly either and the house had never been desnagged, as it should have been under its guarantee.
I arrived yesterday about nine and found that the decorator, one Mark from Harlow, had really cracked on and was doing a good job.
My New Living Room Takes Shape
The picture shows the main living area of the house. The walls are being painted ivory and the original specification said that the steel beams were to be black. But the first thing Mark said was that the beams just needed a good clean and the original chocolate colour would be much better. How very Great Western, as it’s almost chocolate and cream!
By the way, notice the blinds in the photo, they may be rather broken, but that was because they’re the wrong size in the first place.
But to return to the colour scheme. I agreed with Mark on the colour of the beams and they will be left, at least for a few years.
Terry, my father and my father-in-law may be long gone, but it seems I’ve found another inteligent decorator.
Crazy Utility Suppliers
My new house has four different suppliers for gas, electricity, telvision/broadband/phones and water, as is fairly typical in the UK.
I’ve now got them sorted, but sometimes you wonder what sort of muppets designed their systems.
- One supplier needs me to sign a contract, but they don’t have any means to send the contract to an address other than that of the property. And as the property has had tenants in it, good knows where the contract went to! I would vote for the rubbish, if my previous experience with tenants is anything to go by.
- One wanted me to sign on on-line for good reasons, but after two hours I gave up, as they kept asking who was my previous supplier, when obviously there wasn’t one. They also said I should phone a particular number, which had a fault. After I’d finished, they asked me to fill in an on-line survey, which I did truthfully. As it didn’t ask for my name, phone number or e-mail address, I doubt I’ll get an apology for the time I wasted.
- The water company were OK, but tried to sell me things I’ve never needed before.
- On a first call, nPower were short and to the point, so after I’d given up on the other energy company, I phoned them back. I did a combined gas and electricity deal, which may not be the cheapest, but it took me just ten minutes on the phone with a salesman who seemed much more competent than the rest combined.. He also informed me that my new house had a prepayment meter and arranged a suitable date for its removal.
It just goes to show that you can win some and lose some.
It would certainly help if some companies had properly designed systems.
Is This Platform the Future for Offshore Oil and Gas?
As Deepwater Horizon and Piper Alpha have shown, trying to get offshore oil and gas wells working properly can be a hazardous business.
I was converted to the idea and the economics of reuseable platforms many years ago, when I did the calculations for Balaena Structures in Cambridge.
A few days ago I was watching BBC Breakfast, when they had an item about F3-FA, which is a reuseable gas platform. It may have cost £200million, but it is intended to drain up to four or five smaller gas fields during ts working life.
The article says this about the costs of the design.
“Most platforms are permanently installed on the seabed, they are used for a number of years, after which they are decommissioned and brought back onshore,” he says.
“This platform is self-installing, which means it comes out on a barge, you put the legs down to the sea bed, you exploit the oil and gas out of the field and when the field is finished you do it in reverse and take it to the next field.
Just seven or eight people are needed to run the 9,000-tonnes facility“And you do that three or four times, thus reducing the cost.”
Note that statement about the platform needing a small crew. It must surely have safety and accommodation implications as well as cost.
Incidentally, it is very different to the Balaena I worked on. One day, I’ll put the details of that on this blog.
The New Waitrose Credit Card Machines
They obviously weren’t designed by someone with a gammy hand. The old one where you just pushed the card into the slot worked well for me, but I can’t slide my card through the reader with the left.
I bet the system wasn’t designed by someone with a brain.
Incidentally, the script on many card machines says “Do not remove the card” and then changes it to “Remove the card”. If your eyesight isn’t good, like mine is at times, you can get a bit mixed-up and take the card out too early, as you see the word “Remove”.
The Car of the Future?
Gordon Murray is one of the most innovative car designers of the past few decades, famous for racing and sports cars. So what do you get if he turns his mind to designing a car for everyone?
You get this!
It just goes to show what happens, when you throw convention out of the window, and think about what people really what. Whether they can be convinced they need it, is another matter! But give people good design and they usually like it!
But as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door!”
My Father Would Turn in His Grave, if He Had One!
I had a good day yesterday, in that I made a video of the Tour of Britain at Clare and successfuly posted it on this blog. But my arm is starting to work a bit better and I’m in less pain. Perhaps, my brain is winning in its battle with my nerves and is understanding them better! If it can’t understand them, the brain says pain!
My computer told me today, that I must get ready for my Warfarin test on Monday. I do it a couple of days early, so that I can find the form that I must take.
The Dreaded Hospital Form/Letter
These letters are a disgrace and the man, who designed them should be dismissed from all his jobs immediately. I would suggest capital punishment, but even for design crimes as heinous as this, I will not ease my stance on the evil death penalty.
So why do I hate these letters so much?
For a start, they are so difficult to open, even for someone like me with only a good right hand! And one that can efficiently wield a pair of scissors. Suppose you were more decrepit than me, with perhaps severe arthritis or a missing hand. You wouldn’t stand a chance of opening the letter without damaging it, so much that it became unreadable.
Then when you have opened it, it refuses to lay flat, so it is not an easy thing to store and retrieve. I usually pin it to a notice board, but as it doesn’t do flat very well, it sometimes manages to force itself to the floor.
Perhaps, the main reason, I hate these letters so much, is that they are in many ways unnecessary. If you need to change your dose, the hospital phones you! If you forget the form, when you have a blood test, then the nurse knows the questions to ask!
But as I said in a previous post, why can’t you be informed by SMS message or e-mail?
So why would my father be spinning? He was a printer, who made a lot of money by designing paper systems that worked. He would have known how to do this form/letter better.
If I had my way, if a letter needs to be sent, then I would send a postcard. I know to some this wouldn’t be confidential, but it certainly doesn’t matter to me, that the world knows my Warfarin dose is 5 mg. a day!
A Nifty Information System
When I left, I forgot to take my printout of the return journeys from Great Yarmouth to Newmarket.
The conductor said that was no problem and promptly printed me an itinerary on his ticket machine.
Itinerary Printed on a Train
Some people would say that was seriously cool! I Just think it’s good software design, that gives customers what they need!
Are Some Cars More Disabled-Friendly Than Others?
I’m not driving obviously, but the Jaguar did need its little check on oil, water and windscreen washer fluid.
I did it with ease and all the locks, levers and caps came to hand and were easily released with one hand. So has one car manufacturer thought about design for everybody, who might use their vehicles? Some of the new electronic systems I’ve seen in new cars, seem to have been designed by computer gamers, who have no idea how those over fifty think and behave! In any designs I have created, I have hopefully always taken the profile of the user into account. It’s rule one in design.
The Anonymous Widower 