The Anonymous Widower

The Story Of An O-Ring

I have a very unusual skin, as is partly shown by these pictures.

Note.

  1. There is a scar on the back of my left hand, where I cut it on the glass bathroom door in my bedroom.
  2. But with skillful gluing at the Royal London hospital and TLC and stern words from the practice nurse at my GP’s it healed perfectly.
  3. If I give blood samples or have an injection, I don’t need a plaster.
  4. My left foot is a deeper shade of red to the right. No-one has given me a reason for this.
  5. My previous now-retired GP, always took his own blood samples, when he needed them and had smiles all over his face. Perhaps, he was proving to himself, that it was happening?
  6. I wrote about my skin before in My Strange Skin, in 2020.
  7. One therapist said unusually for someone, who had a left-sided stroke, that my left leg is the stronger.

As my ancestry is part-Jewish and part-Huguenot could it just be that only the strongest genes survived from their poor living conditions my ancestors endured in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries?

My Cardiologist And His Wife, Have Suggested I Use An Emollient In My Bath

I am now adding Oilatum Emollient to my bath water, which I get delivered by Ocado.

It is not cheap, but my feet are now more made for walking.

I put three cap-fulls in a bath and lie in it for about 10-20 minutes.

An O-Ring Failure On Bad Friday

A rubber O-ring sitting in a groove on the plug, should keep the water in the bath, but as this picture shows the O-ring had seen better days.

The picture of the new O-ring shows how it should look on the plug.

On Bad Friday, the O-ring finally gave up and any water put in the bath, went straight down the drain.

A Fruitless Bad Friday

Internet searches proved fruitless in my search for a shop that was open on Bad Friday.

So I vowed to try again today.

Searching For cp Hart At Waterloo

cp Hart, from whom I bought the original bath, appeared to be open at Waterloo, so after breakfast on Moorgate, I made my way to look for the branch of cp Hart at Waterloo.

Note.

  1. Why does South London and its trains have to be covered in graffiti?
  2. Most of  it, is not even good graffiti.
  3. In my view, the Bakerloo Line should not get new trains, until the graffiti has stopped.
  4. I wandered round Waterloo for about ninety minutes before I found cp Hart, with the help of two police constables.
  5. And when I finally found cp Hart, they didn’t do spares.
  6. I tripped over the uneven pavement in the last picture. But as I usually do, I retained my balance and didn’t fall. Is that all the B12 I take for coeliac disease?

My mother always used to say, that you shouldn’t go to South London without a posse.

Eventually, I had a coffee in Costa and took the 76 bus home.

Success At Last!

To get home on a 76 bus, I have to change in De Beauvoir Town and whilst I waited for the 141 bus to take me home, I checked out the local builders merchants.

The owner was his usual self and fitted my plug with a free new O-ring.

I was now able to have a bath.

And watch the snooker.

I can certainly recommend a television in your bathroom.

Note the vertical handrail, that allows me to step easily in and out of the bath.

April 19, 2025 Posted by | Design, Health, Sport | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

What’s Wrong With Snooker?

The news from Pakistan just seems to get worse.

The latest was this bombing of a snooker hall in Quetta.

I doubt that any religion or sect could be against such an innocent game of snooker and it looks like Sunni Muslims were attacking Shias.

I just can’t understand anybody wanting to kill anybody, except in exceptional circumstances!

January 11, 2013 Posted by | News, World | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Palace of Industry

The building in the picture is what remains of the Palace of Industry of the 1924 British Empire Exhibition. Everybody passes it to get to and from Wembley from Wembley Park station.

The Palace of Industry

My father had a rather unusual snooker cue, that was exhibited in this exhibition. They were all in one piece in those days and the butt end was spliced with some very unusual woods. What happened to it, I do not know!

The old Wembley Stadium with its twin towers was built for the 1924 Empire Exhibition. The Wembley Arena was built a few years later.

August 2, 2012 Posted by | Sport, World | | Leave a comment

Farewell to Ted Lowe

Sadly Ted Lowe has died.

Here was a commentator, who through his knowledge of the sport and the power of his words, gave a lot of pleasure to many.

Sadly, there are few if any of his ilk left.

May 1, 2011 Posted by | News, Sport | , | Leave a comment

Farewell Alex Higgins!

I always like to think, that I programmed in my pomp like Alex Higgins played snooker in his! That may be arrogant, but I can remember when he won one of his World Championships, I followed the final to the bitter end, whilst I was sorting out the scheduler in Artemis.  It was always the scheduler, that caused me such grief! I can remember punching the air, as the last ball went in!

Now Alex has been taken.  Probably by the Devil, who needs more tips on how to live a life of excess.

Snooker will never be the same again!

What worries me, is that he was younger than me! I hope he jumped the queue!

July 24, 2010 Posted by | News, Sport | , , | Leave a comment