Details Of My Bathroom
I’ve now got some of the bathroom as want it.
Note.
1. The hooks and the towel ring are stuck on with a special epoxy. The tiles are so hard to drill one hole costs at least a tenner in drill bits and the good temper of the driller. So far the glue is performing, as I hope it will.
2. The grab rail is positioned in line with the right side of the bath, so that it steadies me, as I get in and out.
3. I probably need a shorter grab rail on the other side of the bath low down for my left hand, as I sit and stand up.
4. My bathroom is off the front hall, so it doubles as a wet clothing and umbrella room.
5. The stool is one of Suffolk Six and one was in our last bathroom in Suffolk. I’d sit on it, whilst talking to C, as she luxuriated in the bath.
6. The towel ring stuck by the side of the bath is big enough to hold a towel, that a lady with long hair might use after washing it. To get the towel size right, I asked an assistant in John Lewis for her opinion. She tested the size, whilst serving me at the till.
7. I use a ceramic tray for my soap and shampoo, as until I find the right one, I’m not going to drill the tiles and so avoid Jerry’s problem.
7. I never use a mirror in the bathroom and forget to put one in. My stupid builder didn’t spot the omission either! So now I’m looking for a compatible stick-on mirror, so that the tiles don’t have to be drilled.
The fittings are the Bond range from Miller of Sweden. They look good and are very easy to put up straight. They supplied the special epoxy.
This bathroom has been a long time coming, as work started in Oct 2012 and I even had my first bath in the new bath in December 2012.
BT Sport Channel Numbers On A Steam Broadband Box
Despite almost being in the centre of London and only about a hundred metres from the exchange, I can’t get fibre optic here. I think, it’s because unlike everybody else in the road, I have a direct line to the exchange, so that unless they dig up the road to the exchange, I can wait for ever for fibre optic broadband. I might just as well be on St. Kilda as far as BT are concerned.
So I have to watch football, as I am now, through my steam broadband connection. To be fair the picture is generally acceptable.
But the problem is that I can never find the channels, as BT’s security system gives them obscure numbers, so that their steam broadband system doesn’t get overloaded.
The channel numbers are as follows.
507 – BT Sport 1,
508 -BT Sport 2.
509 – ESPN
How logical is that?
The Zebra With The Weather
For those colour-deniers, who still watch television in black and white, Wendy Hurrell gave the weather on BBC London this morning in a special dress.
Do you think that the dress breaks up her silhouette, in much the same way that dazzle camouflage was used to hide the shape of warships?
Decadence?
I took this picture with my waterproof camera this morning of the newly installed Aquavision television in my bathroom.
Decadence?
What the picture doesn’t show is the two naked blonde handmaidens giving me glasses of champagne and gluten-free bacon sandwiches!
I Have Issues With My Electrical Goods
Or should I say my washing machine and television?
Yesterday, I decided to wash a few towels. But in walking to the Bosch machine in my garage, one escaped my grip and after switching the machine on, on return I noticed the errant towel on the floor. So I went back to the machine with the idea of pausing it, so I could add the towel to the load. But this machine has no simple pause, so I could add to the load, unlike the old top-loading Hotpoint machines, we used for about thirty years. So now I will have to run another wash, just to get just one towel clean.
How eco-friendly is that?
And then there’s my really annoying Samsung television!
When I switch the Sony in my bedroom back on, it remembers where it was last time and connects to the last channel. As generally, I only watch or listen to two channels; BBC 1 and Radio 5 Live, it’s then a simple matter of keying in 1 or 705.
But not so my Samsung. On startup it insists of giving me a choice of umpteen useless channels I never watch and I have to press another button to get the last channel I watched.
That is just one button too many!
During the day, this is particularly annoying, as I generally have Radio 5 on in the background and when I come in, I usually want to get the latest news or sport.
It is also extremely verbose, when I use the on-board BBC iPlayer, as I have to scroll through endless features, I never use.
If I had designed this interface, all of those other features like players for ITV and Channel4, would be buried under a More button, until the television had discovered my pattern of usage. As the BBC iPlayer is the only thing in this area that I use, why isn’t the television adjusting its choices to my behaviour.
The television also has the annoying habit of switching itself off, when it deems I’ve watched too much television. As it’s probably been on silent and Radio 5 for a lot of that time, does it matter?
I suspect the idiot, who designed it, is as stupid as the television itself.
I’ve just heard that there is a new kettle coming out, that requires you to key-in a four-character code before you can boil the water. Apparently, there’s a new EU safety rule coming in.
There’s also the clock, that requires that it be adjusted to the correct time, at least once a day.
Why can’t we have simple design?
Is Nigel Farage Like Joan Rivers?
Having seen and read a lot about Nigel Farage, I sometimes think that what he says is not unlike things said by Joan Rivers.
But there’s a big difference! Joan Rivers based a lot of what she said on things that most of us think, but she was not expecting to be taken seriously, except as a comedian. Nigel Farage on the other hand, although he bases his statements in a similar way to Joan Rivers, very much expects to be taken seriously.
I didn’t watch Farage’s performance on Question Time and his confrontation with Russell Brand, but the reports I’ve read, reinforce my conviction, that Farage’s policies are not for me.
I hope that in a few years time, we’ll all be able to look back on Nigel Farage and his politics as a hiccup in history.
If he makes us think the unthinkable in sorting out our serious problems, like obesity, poverty, pollution, smoking, health, illegal drugs climate change, child protection etc., the hiccup will have been a good thing.
A lot of the old ideas have failed, so we’ve got to consign them to history and move forward.
Have I Put In Enough Sockets?
We live in an age, where every device we have has a different charger and everything else needs to be connected to the mains.
My phone, broadband and Sky television lines all come in at one end of my living room, whereas the ideal place for the television is at the other end on a bracket that allows the television to either face the room or be visible from the kitchen.
So I decided to put upwards of a dozen plugs at each end of the room and run three HDMI cables along the wall, so that I could feed the signals to the television. I also ran aerial and Ethernet cables along the wall. Note the two plastic trunkings.
Until now, I’ve just used long HDMI cables, which because they have to go into the back of the Sky and BT boxes, they go round the bend a few times and make everything difficult.
The new layout, has also allowed me to move my laptop, so that when I use it, I face directly at the television, which is much more comfortable.
You Are Absolutely Bonkers
This was the wonderful accolade that was given to Peter Duncan and his partner on Tumble.
He is putting us all to shame, doing what he does on the show, only a few years younger than I am!
Match One: Ipswich 2 – Fulham 1
It was a result, I hadn’t expected as I walked to Portman Road from Ipswich Station.
Ipswich Town is one of the better placed grounds with respect to transport and also access to the town centre. There are also maps, but as you can see the stadium from the train station, you don’t need to consult them.
The only problem I had, was that the club had run out of programmes.
The club must have been pleased with the result and also with the size of the crowd considering, the match was on Sky. It’ll be interesting to see, if the performance has any effect on the gates at home matches after the next, which is Norwich, so it will be a full crowd.
Things You learn In The Middle of The Night
I woke early, so got up and made a cup of tea and did a bit of writing, whilst listening to the excellent Doton Adebayo on Radio 5.
At one point he was talking to a Canadian journalist, who said that due to cutbacks, the Commonwealth Games are not being shown on Canadian television. All they are getting is the odd highlights.
The Anonymous Widower 