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.
Green Man With a Van
This company just had to happen.
I wish them luck, as not only is it a good ecological idea, but a good marketing ploy.
The Embroidery is on the Wall
I said earlier, that I was going to put the three pieces of embroidery by C’s Auntie Rita on the wall. Well here they are.
The Embroidery on the Stairs
In the next few weeks, I’m going to get to the bottom of the story of the medal. Having been to the British Museum yesterday, it would appear to be made of bronze. But I can’t find anything similar on the Internet.
The Clock Gets its Seventh Wall
I said in an earlier post, that I was missing the clock.
Well, I’m not anymore, as it is now on its seventh wall.
The Brass Clock
As you can see it is a typical Kelvin and Hughes ship’s clock, that C bought for me in probably 1969 as a birthday present. She bought it in a junk shop in Liverpool and was assured that it had come from the SS Great Eastern, when it was broken up. A very unlikely story, although the ship was broken up in Liverpool and it probably had thousands of clocks. But Kelvin and Hughes did not merge until the 1940s!
It has proved very reliable over the years and except for a major repair in about 1995, it hasn’t needed any attention.
Our home has never been complete without this clock on the wall.
I Need a Bookcase
This picture shows one side of my living space.
My Living Room
I need a bookcase to go alongside the stairs, hopefully in a similar wood to the dresser. Any ideas?
Little (And Big) Boxes Everywhere
Today the recycling collection takes place and I’ve just thrown out 32 boxes that were used by the movers for packing.
Boxes for Recycling
I bet I was charged for every box, so shouldn’t they pick them up for a reward. Obviously, this wouldn’t be practical in all cases, but surely with moves to a large town or city, it would save money and create less carbon dioxide all round.
Little Things that Annoy Us All
I don’t exactly have a phobia about coat hangers, but all mine are the same simple wooden design, that holds shirts, suits and trousers without difficulty.
C used to take all her clothes on holiday still on their hangers and got annoyed if they had those clip in hangers that you couldn’t steal in hotels. They seem to be dying out in hotels, as possibly other customers feel like C did.
So it was with despair that I found that the wardrobes in this house have those awful abominations.
Those Abominable Hangers
So there was nothing left for it, but to take the rail down and reinstall it as a simple one. The hangers will go to a charity shop.
Where Are My Vests?
It’s cold and I need one of my long-sleeved T-shirts. But where are they? Probably with my shirts, which I’ve not found either in one of the boxes that are piled up without meaningful labels. So I know one moving firm, I won’t be using again.
Sorting the Smoke Detector
There was of course no manual for it, but I did find one on the Internet by juidicious use of Google. it told me to switch the power off to the detectors, but I needed a step ladder to get to the consumer unit. And guess what thestep ladder had been left behind, as had several other things. So in frustration, I tried to take the tiop off, but the previous owner had just sealed the whole unit with paint and it came out of the ceiling, still squealing like a demented piglet. So I decided that the only way to put it out of its misery was to cut it from the mains. I should say that I am a qualified electrical engineer and no how to work safely on live wires. But the movers had managed to mix them up, so that my several boxes of tools were all in different cardboard boxes. Eventually, I found my insulated wire cutters and was able to snip the wires so that they can be reconnected easily. But at least I now have silence, although the smoke detector is still squealing in the wheelie bin.
But I’ll get a good night’s sleep!
This is probably what happened to the detector in the kitchen!
The Broken Smoke Dectector
At least though I’ve found someone to fix all the problems.
Sleeping on the Floor
No problems last night except that the central heating is designed for Eskimos and a broken smoke detector keeps beeping.
But interestingly, I’m breathing much better in the clear London air.
The Anonymous Widower 